Letter: In Brief

Sir: Terence Blacker writes (Comment, 6 October) that the idea of Britain's absorption into the US goes back to Orwell. Farther, in fact. At the end of Shaw's play The Apple Cart the American ambassador rushes in to announce that the US has just rescinded the Declaration of Independence; in theory, resubmitting to Britain, but in practice, as the King himself at once points out, taking it over.

Canon RICHARD INCLEDON

Send, Surrey