talked to a guy in our campsite last night. He bought his used tent trailer from a guy who said it needed a 1 7/8 ball, so they put one on the buyer's hitch, and the buyer hit the highway for ~60 miles. I believe the highway was I5, i.e. big, busy, and fast. He made it home before discovering when he cleaned the trailer up that the tires were so old (>20 years, original 4 plys) you could see cord between the treads, the spare tire mount was virtually falling off which could have killed someone on the highway, and to top it all off, the trailer hitch was 2", not 1 7/8". That he made it home without accident was serious dumb luck. 2" receiver on a 1 7/8 ball is classic. Sorry you were not as lucky.
In case I come off the wrong way here, I should mention that I narrowly missed a likely fatal wreck when an improperly loaded utility trailer behind my van became so violently unstable that its oscillations dragged the ass of the van sideways across dry pavement. I managed to keep the damn thing on the road by steering to follow the trailer, but only barely, and the only reason I did not front end the approaching eighteen wheeler was that I happened to be on my side of the road when the poor bugger went by - the trailer was still wildly unstable. Somehow, I managed to get speed down to super slow and things stabilized and I limped home at ~15km/hr with my flashers going. Serious mistake made when I was young and did not know what I was doing. Towing is serious business.