The war was now over. Lord North had fallen; his successor, Lord Rockingham, was dead; and Lord Shelburne, who had grasped the helm in spite of Fox, had to meet the demands of the victorious Colonists and their French allies, with the certainty that whatever he arranged would be distasteful to his countrymen, and bitterly opposed by the partisans both of his rival and of North. With the first weeks of 1783 came news of peace. Horace writes about it, in almost the same words, to Mann and Lady Ossory, his two chief correspondents at this time: “Peace is arrived. I cannot express how glad I am. I care not a straw what the terms are, which I believe I know more imperfectly than anybody in London. I am not apt to love details--my wish was to have peace, and the next to see America secure of its liberty. Whether it will make good use of it, is another point. It has an opportunity that never occurred in the world before, of being able to select the best parts of every known constitution; but I suppose it will not, as too prejudiced against royalty to adopt it, even as a corrective of aristocracy and democracy.” He anticipates that highway robberies will grow more daring on the disbanding of troops, and that there will be an inundation of French visitors. In less than six months he was able to boast that both his prophecies had been fulfilled. In June, he describes how, on a dark and rainy night, Strawberry Hill was invaded by the French Ambassador at the head of a large party: “Of all houses upon earth, mine, from the painted glass and over-hanging trees, wants the sun the most; besides the Star Chamber and passage being obscured on purpose to raise the Gallery. They ran their foreheads against Henry VII., and took the grated door of the Tribune for the dungeon of the castle. I mustered all the candlesticks in the house, but before they could be lighted up, the young ladies, who, by the way, are extremely natural, agreeable, and civil, were seized with a panic of highwaymen, and wanted to go. I laughed, and said, I believed there was no danger, for that I had not been robbed these two years. However, I was not quite in the right; they were stopped in Knightsbridge by two footpads, but Lady Pembroke having lent them a servant besides their own, they escaped.” Shortly afterwards he writes to Mann: