The widespread devastation wreaked on Japan was staggering. Virtually every major city except historic Kyoto had been severely damaged by high explosives, firebombs, or nuclear weapons. The military of Japan was in disarray, its soldiers disgraced and hungry. Over 4 million remained in East Asia, outside of Japan. The civilian population was suffering, uncertain, stunned. Never before had an enemy conquered the home islands. In the city of Tokyo, 1 million out of 1.65 million buildings had been demolished, mostly by the 1945 fire raids. Nationwide, one-quarter of the wealth, onethird of the manufacturing machinery, four-fifths of the shipping, one-fifth of the vehicles had been destroyed.
What destroyed the last British attempt at a compromise settlement in 1778 was the Franco-American treaty and its promise of aid to the embattled revolutionaries. Indeed, from this moment on, the struggle to suppress the American rebellion was overshadowed by the far wider war in defence of Britain’s interests in India, the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, and by the fear of an invasion of the Home Islands themselves.
By applauding, the spectators in the theatre will acknowledge that what they have been watching is a piece of fiction. If they fail to recognise this, it is as though they and the figures on stage will remain trapped for ever inside the dramatic illusion. The actors will be unable to leave the stage, and the audience will remain frozen in the auditorium. This is why Prospero speaks of the danger of being confined to his magic island ‘by your spell’, meaning by the audience’s reluctance to let go of the fantasy they have been enjoying. Instead, they must use their hands to clap and so release him, as though he is bound fast in their imaginative fiction and unable to move. In doing so, the spectators confess that this is simply a piece of drama; but to make this confession is essential if the drama is to have real effects. Unless they applaud, abandon the theatre and return to the real world, they will be unable to put to use whatever the play has revealed to them. The spell must be broken if the magic is to work. In fact, there was a belief at the time that a magic spell could be broken by noise, which is yet another meaning of Prospero’s appeal to the audience to clap.
He then went in person to Junius, the governor of Asia, thinking it proper that he, as praetor in charge of the province, should see to the punishment of the prisoners. Junius, however, cast longing eyes at the money, which came to a considerable sum, and kept saying that he needed time to look into the case. Caesar paid no further attention to him. He went to Pergamum, took the pirates out of prison and crucified the lot of them, just as he had often told them he would do when he was on the island and they imagined that he was joking.
