Chapter IV: The Reign of George III (1)

When George II. died, his grandson and successor, George III., was twenty-two years of age. The Civil List of the new King was fixed at L800,000 a year, "a provision," says Phillimore, in his "History of England," "that soon became inadequate to the clandestine purposes of George III., and for the purchase of the mercenary dependents, on the rapport of whom his unconstitutional proceedings obliged him to depend." The Civil List of George III. was not, however, really so large as that of her present Majesty. The Civil List disbursements included such items as Secret Service, now charged separately; pensions and annuities, now charged separately; diplomatic salaries, now forming distinct items; fees and salaries of ministers and judges, now forming no part of the charge against the Civil List. So that though L924,041 was the Civil List of George III. four years after he ascended the throne, in truth to-day the Royal Family alone get much more than all the great offices and machinery of State then cost. The Royal Family at the present time get from the country, avowedly and secretly, about one million sterling a year.

"At the accession of George III.," says Thackeray, "the Patricians were yet at the height of their good fortune. Society recognized their superiority, which they themselves pretty calmly took for granted. They inherited not only titles and estates, and seats in the House of Peers, but seats in the House of Commons. There were a multitude of Government places, and not merely these, but bribes of actual L500 notes, which members of the House took not much shame in assuming.. Fox went into Parliament at twenty, Pitt was just of age, his father not much older. It was the good time for Patricians."

A change of political parties was imminent; Whig rule had lasted seventy years, and England had become tolerably disgusted with the consequences.

"Now that George II. was dead," says Macaulay, "a courtier might venture to ask why England was to become a party in a dispute between two German powers. What was it to her whether the House of Hapsburg or the House of Brandenburg ruled in Silesia? Why were the best English regiments fighting on the Maine? Why were the Prussian battalions paid with English gold? The great minister seemed to think it beneath him to calculate the price of victory. As long as the Tower guns were fired, as the streets were illuminated, as French banners were carried in triumph through London, it was to him matter of indifference to what extent the public burdens were augmented. Nay, he seemed to glory in the magnitude of those sacrifices which the people, fascinated by his eloquence and success, had too readily made, and would long and bitterly regret. There was no check on waste or embezzlement. Our commissaries returned from the camp of Prince Ferdinand, to buy boroughs, to rear palaces, to rival the magnificence, of the old aristocracy of the realm. Already had we borrowed, in four years of war, more than the most skilful and economical government would pay in forty years of peace."

The Church allied itself with the Tories, who assumed the reins of government, and thenceforth totally forgot the views of liberty they had maintained when in opposition. The policy of all their succeeding legislation was that of mischievous retrogression; they sought to excel the old Whigs in their efforts to consolidate the aristocracy at the expense of the people.

"This reactionary movement," says Buckle, "was greatly aided by the personal character of George III.; for he, being despotic as well as superstitious, was equally anxious to extend the prerogative, and strengthen the Church. Every liberal sentiment, everything approaching to reform, nay, even the mere mention of inquiry, was an abomination in the eyes of that narrow and ignorant Prince. Without knowledge, without taste, without even a glimpse of one of the sciences, or a feeling for one of the fine arts, education had done nothing to enlarge a mind which nature had more than usually contracted. Totally ignorant of the history and resources of foreign countries, and barely knowing their geographical position, his information was scarcely more extensive respecting the people over whom he was called to rule. In that immense mass of evidence now extant, and which consists of every description of private correspondence, records of private conversation, and of public acts, there is not to be found the slightest proof that he knew any one of those numerous things which the governor of a country ought to know; or, indeed, that he was acquainted with a single duty of his position, except the mere mechanical routine of ordinary business, which might have been effected by the lowest clerk in the meanest office in his kingdom.

"He gathered round his throne that great party, who, clinging to the tradition of the past, have always made it their boast to check the progress of their age. During the sixty years of his reign, he, with the sole exception of Pitt, never willingly admitted to his councils a single man of great ability: not one whose name is associated with any measure of value, either in domestic or foreign policy. Even Pitt only maintained his position in the State by forgetting the lessons of his illustrious father, and abandoning those liberal principles in which he had been educated, and with which he entered public life. Because George III. hated the idea of reform, Pitt not only relinquished what he had before declared to be absolutely necessary, but did not hesitate to persecute to death the party with whom he had once associated in order to obtain it. Because George III. looked upon slavery as one of those good old customs which the wisdom of his ancestors had consecrated, Pitt did not dare to use his power for procuring its abolition, but left to his successors the glory of destroying that infamous tracle, on the preservation of which his royal master had set his heart. Because George III. detested the French, of whom he knew as much as he knew of the inhabitants of Kamschatka or Thibet, Pitt, contrary to his own judgment, engaged in a war with France, by which England was seriously imperilled, and the English people burdened with a debt that their remotest posterity will be unable to pay. But, notwithstanding all this, when Pitt, only a few years before his death, showed a determination to concede to the Irish a small share of their undoubted rights, the King dismissed him from office, and the King's friends, as they were called, expressed their indignation at the presumption of a minister who could oppose the wishes of so benign and gracious a master. And when, unhappily for his own fame, this great man determined to return to power, he could only recover office by conceding that very point for which he had relinquished it; thus setting the mischievous example of the minister of a free country sacrificing his own judgment to the personal prejudices of the reigning sovereign. As it was hardly possible to find other ministers who to equal abilities would add equal subservience, it is not surprising that the highest offices were constantly filled with men of notorious incapacity. Indeed, the King seemed to have an instinctive antipathy to everything great and noble. During the reign of George II. the elder Pitt had won for himself a reputation which covered the world, and had carried to an unprecedented height the glories of the English name. He, however, as the avowed friend of popular rights, strenuously opposed the despotic principles of the Court; and for this reason he was hated by George III. with a hatred that seemed barely compatible with a sane mind. Fox was one of the greatest statesmen of the 18th century, and was better acquainted than any-other with the character and resources of those foreign nations with which our interests were intimately connected. To this rare and important knowledge he added a sweetness and amenity of temper which extorted the praises even of his political opponents. But he, too, was the steady supporter of civil and religious liberty; and he, too, was so detested by George III., that the King, with his own hand, struck his name out of the list of Privy Councillors, and declared that he would rather abdicate the throne than admit him to a share in the government.

"While this unfavorable change was taking place in the sovereign and ministers of the country, a change equally unfavorable was being effected in the second branch of the imperial legislature. Until the reign of George III. the House of Lords was decidedly superior to the House of Commons in the liberality and general accomplishments of its members. It is true that in both Houses there prevailed a spirit which must be called narrow and superstitious if tried by the larger standard of the present age.

"The superiority of the Upper House over the Lower was, on the whole, steadily maintained during the reign of George II., the ministers not being anxious to strengthen the High Church party in the Lords, and the King himself so rarely suggesting fresh creations as to cause a belief that he particularly disliked increasing their numbers. It was reserved for George III., by an unsparing use of his prerogative, entirely to change the character of the Upper House, and thus lay the foundation for that disrepute into which, since then, the peers have been constantly falling. The creations he made were numerous beyond all precedent, their object evidently being to neutralize the liberal spirit hitherto prevailing, and thus turn the House of Lords into an engine for resisting the popular wishes, and stopping the progress of reform. How completely this plan succeeded is well known to the readers of our history; indeed, it was sure to be successful considering the character of the men who were promoted. They consisted almost entirely of two classes: of country gentlemen, remarkable for nothing but their wealth, and the number of votes their wealth enabled them to control; and of mere lawyers, who had risen to judicial appointments partly from their professional learning, but chiefly from the zeal with which they repressed the popular liberties, and favored the royal prerogative.

"That this is no exaggerated description may be ascertained by any one who will consult the lists of the new-peers made by George III.

"Here and there we find an eminent man, whose public services were so notorious that it was impossible to avoid rewarding them; but, putting aside those who were in a manner forced upon the sovereign, it would be idle to deny that the remainder, and of course the overwhelming majority, were marked by a narrowness and illiberality of sentiment which, more than anything else, brought the whole order into contempt. No great thinkers, no great writers, no great orators, no great statesmen, none of the true nobility of the land, were to be found among the spurious nobles created by George III."

In the early part of his reign, George III. (whom even the courtly Alison pictures as having "little education and no great acquired information") was very much under the influence of his mother, who had, previously to his being King, often spoken of her son with contempt. The Princess of Wales, in turn, was almost entirely guided by Lord Bute, represented by scandal, says Macaulay, as "her favored lover." "Of this attachment," says Dr. Doran, "the Prince of Wales himself is said to have had full knowledge, and did not object to Lord Bute taking solitary walks with the Princess, while _he_ could do the same with Lady Middlesex." The most infamous stories were circulated in the _Whisperer_, and other journals of the time, as to the nature of the association between the Scotch Peer and the King's mother, and its results. Phillimore regards the Princess of Wales as "before and after her husband's death the mistress of Lord Bute." The Princess Dowager seems to have been a hard woman. Walpole tells us how, when the Princess Dowager reproved one of her maids of honor for irregular habits, the latter replied, "_Madame, chacun a son But_." "Seeing," says Thackeray, "the young Duke of Gloucester silent and unhappy once, she sharply asked him the cause of his silence. 'I am thinking,' said the poor child. 'Thinking, sir! and of what?'--'I am thinking if ever I have a son, I will not make him so unhappy as you make me.'"

John Stuart, Earl of Bute, shared with William Pitt and John Wilkes the bulk of popular attention during the first ten years of the King's reign. Bute had risen rapidly to favor, having attracted the attention of the Princess Dowager at some private theatricals, and he became by her influence Groom of the Stole. His poverty and ambition made him grasp at power, both against the great Commoner and the Pelham faction; and a lady observer described the great question of the day, in 1760, as being whether the King would burn in his chamber _Scotch_ coal, _Newcastle_ coal, or _Pitt_ coal. Macaulay, who seems to have followed Lord Waldegrave's "Memoirs," says of Bute: "A handsome leg was among his chief qualifications for the stage.... His understanding was narrow, his manners cold and haughty." His qualifications for the part of a statesman were best described by Prince Frederick, who often indulged in the unprincely luxury of sneering at his dependents. "Bute," said his Royal Highness, "you are the very man to be envoy at some small proud German Court> where there is nothing to do." Phillimore speaks of Lord Bute as "a minion raised by Court favor to a post where his ignorance, mean understanding, and disregard of English honor, became national calamities."

The King's speech on his accession is said to have been drawn up by Bute, who did not then belong to the Council, but the terms being vehemently objected to by Pitt, it was actually altered after delivery, and before it found its way to the printer.

Whatever were the relations between Lord Bute and the Princess Dowager, it is quite certain that on more than one occasion George III. condescended not only to prevaricate, but to lie as to the influence exercised by Lord Bute. It is certain, from the "Memoirs" of Earl Waldegrave, and other trustworthy sources, that the Scotch Earl, after being hissed out of office by the people, was still secretly consulted by the King, who, like a truly Royal Brunswick, did not hesitate to use falsehood on the subject even to his own ministers. Phillimore, in remarkably strong language, describes George III. as "an ignorant, dishonest, obstinate, narrow-minded boy, at that very moment the tool of an adulteress and her paramour." The Duke of Bedford has put upon record, in his correspondence, not only his conviction that the King behaved unfaithfully to his ministers, but asserts that he told him so to his face.

In 1759, George was married to Hannah Lightfoot, a Quakeress, in Curzon Street Chapel, May Fair, in the presence of his brother, Edward, Duke of York. Great doubt has, however, been cast on the legality of this marriage, as it would, if in all respects valid, have rendered null as a bigamous contract the subsequent marriage entered into by the King. Dr. Doran says that the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV., when needing money in later years, used this Lightfoot marriage as a threat against his royal parents--that is, that he threatened to expose his mother's shame and his own illegitimacy if the Queen would not use her influence with Pitt. Glorious family, these Brunswicks! Walpole affirms that early in his reign George III. admitted to his uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, "that it had not been common in their family to live well together."

On the 18th of September, 1761, George was married to the Princess Charlotte Sophia, of Mecklenburgh Strelitz, Hannah Lightfoot being still alive. Of the new Queen, Philli-more says: "If to watch over the education of her children and to promote their happiness be any part of a woman's duty, she has little claim to the praises that have been so lavishly bestowed on her as a model of domestic virtue. Her religion was displayed in the scrupulous observance of external forms. Repulsive in her aspect, grovelling in her instincts, sordid in her habits; steeped from the cradle in the stupid pride which was the atmosphere of her stolid and most insignificant race; inexorably severe to those who yielded to temptation from which she was protected, not more by her situation and the vigilance of those around her, than by the extreme homeliness of her person; bigoted, avaricious, unamiable to brutality, she added dulness and gloom even to the English court."

In 1761, the Duke of Bedford was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; that unfortunate country, for centuries governed by men who tried to exterminate its natives, and which was used under the first three reigns of the House of Brunswick as a sponge out of which, regardless of much bloodshed and more misery, gold could be squeezed for the dependents and relatives of aristocrats in office. His reign of office in Ireland was brief. Walpole says that "the ill-humor of the country determined the Duke of Bedford to quit the Government, after having amply gratified his family and dependents with pensions." It was this Duke of Bedford who consented that the Princess of Hesse should have a pension of L6,000 a year out of the Irish revenues, and who gave to his own relative, the Lady Betty Waldegrave, L800 a year from the same source. Shortly after this, Prince Charles, of Strelitz, the Queen's brother, received L30,000 towards the payment of the debts he owed in Germany. This L30,000 was nominally given by the King out of the Civil List, but was really paid by the nation when discharging the Civil List debts which it increased. On the motion of Lord Barrington, L400,000 subsidy was granted this year to the Landgrave of Hesse, under a secret treaty made by George II., without the knowledge or consent of Parliament, and L300,000 was also voted to the Chancery of Hanover for forage for Hanoverian, Prussian, and Hessian Cavalry.

On August 12th, 1762, George, Prince of Wales, was born; and in the same year, with the direct connivance of George III., the peace of Paris was made; a peace as disgraceful to England, under the circumstances, as can possibly be imagined. Lord Bute, who was roundly charged with receiving money from France for his services, and this with the knowledge of the mother of George III., most certainly communicated to the French minister "the most secret councils of the English Cabinet."

This was done with the distinct concurrence of George III., who was himself bribed by the immediate evacuation of his Hanoverian dominions. In the debate in the Lords on the preliminaries of peace, Horace Walpole tells us that "the Duke of Grafton, with great weight and greater warmth, attacked them severely, and looking full on Lord Bute, imputed to him corruption and worse arts." Count Virri, the disreputable agent employed in this matter by the King and Lord Bute, was rewarded under the false name of George Charles with a pension of L1,000 a year out of the Irish revenues. Phillimore may well declare that Lord Bute was "a minion, raised by court favor to a post where his ignorance, mean understanding, and disregard of English honor, became national calamities." To carry the approval of this peace of Paris through the Commons, Fox, afterwards Lord Holland, was purchased with a most lucrative appointment, although only shortly before he had published a print of George, with the following lines, referring to the Princess Dowager and Lord Bute, written under the likeness:--

"Son of a--------
I could say more."

To gain a majority in the House of Commons, Walpole tells us "that a shop was publicly opened at the pay office, whither the members flocked and received the wages of their venality in bank bills even to so low a sum as L200, for their votes on the treaty. L25,000 was thus issued in one morning." Lord Chesterfield speaks of the large sums disbursed by the King "for the hire of Parliament men."

As an illustration of the unblushing corruption of the age, the following letter from Lord Saye and Sele to Mr. Grenville, then Prime Minister of England, tells its own terrible tale:--

"November 26th, 1763.

"Honored Sir:--I am very much obliged to you for that freedom of converse you this morning indulged me in, which I prize more than the lucrative advantage I then received. To show the sincerity of my words (pardon, sir, the over-niceness of my disposition), I return enclosed the bill for L300 you favored me with, as good manners would not permit my refusal of it when tendered by you.

"Your most obliged and obedient servant,

"Sate and Sele.

"As a free horse needs no spur, so I stand in need of no inducement or douceur to lend my small assistance to the King or his friends in the present Administration."

That this was part of the general practice of the Government under George III. may be seen by the following extract from an infamous letter written about fifteen years later by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland: "No man can see the inconvenience of increasing the Peers more forcibly than myself, but the recommendation of many of those persons submitted to his Majesty for that honor, arose from the engagements taken up at the press of the moment to rescue questions upon which the English Government were very particularly anxious. My sentiments cannot but be the same with reference to the Privy Council and pensions, and I had not contracted any absolute engagements of recommendations either to peerage or pension, till difficulties arose which necessarily occasioned so much anxiety in his Majesty's Cabinet, that I must have been culpable in neglecting any possible means to secure a majority in the House of Commons."

A good story is told of the great Commoner Pitt's repartee to Fox (afterwards Lord Holland), in one of the debates of this period. "Pitt," says the _London Chronicle_, "in the heat of his declamation, proceeded so far as to attack the personal deformity of Fox; and represented his gloomy and lowering countenance, with the penthouse of his eye-brows, as Churchill phrases it, as a true introduction of his dark and double mind. Mr. Fox was nettled at this personal reflection, and the more so, perhaps, that it was as just as it was cutting. He therefore got up, and after inveighing bitterly against the indecency of his antagonist, in descending to remark on his bodily defects, observed that his figure was such as God Almighty had made it, and he could not look otherwise; and then, in a tone between the plaintive and indignant, cried out, 'How, gentlemen, shall I _look?_' Most of the members, apprehending that Mr. Pitt had gone rather too far, were inclined to think that Mr. Fox had got the better of him. But Mr. Pitt started up, and with one of those happy turns, in which he so much excels, silenced his rival, and made him sit down with a countenance, if possible more abashed than formerly. '_Look!_ Sir,' said he--'_look_' as you _cannot_ look, if you _would--look_ as you _dare_ not look, if you _could--look_ like an _honest man_.'"

In the _London Chronicle_ for March, 1763, we find bitter complaints that since 1760, "every obsolete, useless place has been revived, and every occasion of increasing salaries seized with eagerness," and that a great Whig leader "has just condescended to stipulate for an additional salary, without power, as the price of his support to the Tory Government."

In March, 1763, George III. gave four ships of war to the King of Sardinia at the national expense, and in August appears to have given a fifth vessel.

On the 23d of April, 1763, No. 45 of the _North Briton_, a journal which had been started in opposition to Lord Bute's paper, the _Briton_, was published, severely criticising the King's speech, and warmly attacking Lord Bute. This issue provoked the ministers to a course of the utmost illegality. A _general warrant_ to seize all persons concerned in the publication of the _North Briton_, without specifying their names, was immediately issued by the Secretary of State, and a number of printers and publishers were placed in custody, some of whom were not at all concerned in the obnoxious publication. Late on the night of the 29th of April, the messengers entered the house of John Wilkes, M.P. for Aylesbury (the author of the article in question), and produced their warrant, with which he refused to comply. On the following morning, however, he was carried before the Secretary of State, and committed a close prisoner to the Tower, his papers being previously seized and sealed, and all access to his person strictly prohibited. The warrant was clearly an illegal one, and had only been previously resorted to in one or two instances, and under very extraordinary circumstances, of which there were none in the present case. Wilkes's friends immediately obtained a writ of habeas corpus, which the ministers defeated by a mean subterfuge; and it was found necessary to obtain a second before they could bring the prisoner before the Court of King's Bench, by which he was set at liberty, on the ground of his privilege as a Member of Parliament. He then opened an angry correspondence, followed by actions at law, against the Secretaries of State, on the seizure of his papers, and for the wrongful arrest. These actions abated, although in the one for the seizure of the papers a verdict was given for L1,000 damages and costs. But in the mean time the Attorney-General had been directed to institute a prosecution against Wilkes, in the King's Bench, for libel, and the King had ordered him, to be deprived of his commission as Colonel in the Buckinghamshire Militia. The King further exhibited his resentment by depriving Lord Temple of the Lord-Lieutenancy of the same county, and striking his name out of the Council-book, for an expression of personal sympathy which had fallen from him. Worse than all, this King George III. actually deprived General A'Court, MP. for Heytesbury, of his commission as colonel of the 11th Dragoons, for having voted that the arrest of Wilkes was a breach of privilege. He also caused it to be intimated to General Conway, "that the King cannot trust his army in the hands of a man who votes in Parliament against him." The House of Commons ordered the _North Briton_ to be burned by the common hangman; but when the authorities attempted to carry out the sentence, the people assembled, rescued the number, and burned instead a large jack-boot, the popular hieroglyphic for the unpopular minister.

Amongst the many rhymed squibs the following is worth repetition:--

"Because the _North Briton_ inflamed the whole nation,
To flames they commit it to show detestation;
But throughout old England how joy would have spread,
Had the real North Briton been burnt in its stead!"

The North Briton of the last line is, of course, the Scotch Earl Bute.

As an illustration of the then disgraceful state of the English law, it is enough to notice that Lord Halifax, the Secretary of State, by availing himself of his privileges as a peer, managed to delay John Wilkes in his action from June, 1763, to November, 1764; and then, Wilkes having been outlawed, the noble Earl appeared and pleaded the outlawry as a bar to further proceedings. Ultimately, after five years' delay, Wilkes annulled the outlawry, and recovered L4,000 damages against Lord Halifax. For a few months Wilkes was the popular idol, and, had he been a man of real earnestness and integrity, might have taken a permanently leading position in the State.

In August, 1763, Frederick, Duke of York, was born. He was created Prince Bishop of Osnaburg before he could speak. The King and Queen were much dissatisfied because the clergy of the diocese, who did not dispute the baby bishop's ability to attend to the souls of his flock, yet refused to entrust to him the irresponsible guardianship of the episcopal funds. This bishopric had actually been kept vacant by the King nearly three years, in order that he might not give it to the Duke of York or Duke of Cumberland. The income was about L25,000 a year, and it was to secure this Prince Bishopric for the Duke of Cumberland that George II. burdened the country with several subsidies to petty European sovereigns.

The King's sister, Augusta, was, like the rest of the Brunswick family, on extremely bad terms with her mother, the Princess of Wales. The Princess Augusta was married on January 16th, 1764, to the hereditary Prince of Brunswick, who received L80,000, besides L8,000 a year for becoming the husband of one of our Royal Family. In addition to this, George III. and Queen Charlotte insulted the newly-married couple, who returned the insult with interest. Pleasant people, these Brunswicks!

In March, 1764, the first steps were taken in the endeavor to impose taxes on the American colonies, an endeavor which at length resulted in their famous rebellion. The commanders of our ships of war on the American coast were sworn in to act as revenue officers, the consequence of which was the frequently illegal seizures of ships and cargoes without any means of redress for the Americans in their own colony. As though to add to the rising disaffection, Mr. Grenville proposed a new stamp-tax. As soon as the Stamp Act reached Boston, the ships in the harbor hung their colors half-mast high, the bells-were rung muffled, the Act of Parliament was reprinted with a death's head for title, and sold in the streets as the "Folly of England and Ruin of America." The Americans refused to use stamped paper. The Government distributors of stamps were either forced to return to England, or were obliged to renounce publicly and upon oath their official employment; and, when the matter was again brought before the English House of Commons, Pitt denied the right of Parliament to levy taxation on persons who had no right to representation, and exclaimed: "I rejoice that America has resisted; three millions of people so dead to all feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of all the rest." The supporters of the Government actually advanced the ridiculously absurd and most monstrous pretension that America was in law represented in Parliament as part of the manor of East Greenwich.

The Earl of Abercorn and Lord Harcourt appear to have been consulted by the Queen as to the effect of the previous marriage of George III. with Hannah Lightfoot, who seems to have been got rid of by some arrangement for a second marriage between her and a Mr. Axford, to whom a sum of money was paid. It is alleged that this was done without the knowledge of the King, who entreated Lord Chatham to discover where the Quakeress had gone. No fresh communication, however, took place between George III. and Hannah Lightfoot; and the King's first attack of insanity, which took place in 1764, is strongly suggested to have followed the more than doubts as to the legality of the second marriage and the legitimacy of the Royal Family. Hannah Lightfoot died in the winter of 1764, and in the early part of the year 1765, the King being then scarcely sane, a second ceremony of marriage with the Queen was privately performed by the Rev. Dr. Wilmot at Kew palace. Hannah Lightfoot left children by George III., but of these nothing is known.

In the winter of 1764, and spring of 1765, George III. was, in diplomatic language, laboring under an indisposition; in truth, he was mad. Her present Gracious Majesty often labors under an indisposition, but no loyal subject would suggest any sort of doubt as to her mental condition. A Bill was introduced in 1764 in the House of Lords, to provide for a Regency in case of the recurrence of any similar attack. In the discussion on this Bill, a doubt arose as to who were to be regarded as the Royal Family; fortunately, the Law Lords limited it to the descendants of George II. If a similar definition prevailed to-day, we should, perhaps, not be obliged to pay the pensions to the Duke of Cambridge and Princess Mary, which they at present receive as members of the Royal Family.

On the 80th of October, 1765, William, Duke of Cumberland, the King's uncle, died. Dr. Doran says of him: "As he grew in manhood, his heart became hardened; he had no affection for his family, nor fondness for the army, for which he affected attachment. When his brother (Prince Frederick) died, pleasure, not pain, made his heart throb, as he sarcastically exclaimed, 'It's a great blow to the country, but I hope it will recover in time.' He was the author of what was called 'the bloody mutiny act.' 'He was dissolute and a gambler.' After the 'disgraceful surrender of Hanover and the infamous convention of Kloster-seven,' his father George II. said of him, 'Behold the son who has ruined me, and disgraced himself.'" His own nephew, George III., believed the Duke to be capable of murder. The Dukes of Cumberland in this Brunswick family have had a most unfortunate reputation.

In 1766, William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, brother of the King, married Maria, Countess-Dowager of Waldegrave.

This marriage was at the time repudiated by the rest of the Royal Family.

In October of the same year Caroline Matilda, the King's sister, married Christian, King of Denmark, an unfeeling, dissolute brute. Our Princess, who lived very unhappily, was afterwards accused of adultery, and rescued from punishment by a British man-of-war.

In the autumn of 1766, in consequence of the high price of provisions and taxes, large gatherings took place in many parts of the kingdom; these assemblages were dispersed with considerable loss of life, of course by the military, which the House of Brunswick was not slow to use in checking political manifestations. At Derby the people were charged by the cavalry, at Colton eight were shot dead, in Gloucestershire many lives were lost; in fact, from Exeter to Berwick-on-Tweed there was one ferment of discontent and disaffection. The people were heavily taxed, the aristocracy corrupt and careless. As an instance of the madness of the governing classes, it is sufficient to point out that in 1767, while taxation was increasing, the landed gentry, who were rapidly appropriating common lands under Private Enclosure Acts, most audaciously reduced the land tax by one-fourth. During the first thirty-seven years of the reign of George III., there were no less than 1,532 Enclosure Acts passed, affecting in all 2,804,197 acres of land fliched from the nation by a few families. Wealth took and poverty lost; riches got land without burden, and labor inherited burden in lieu of land. It is worth notice that in the early part of the reign of George III., land yielding about a sixth or seventh of its present rental, paid the same nominal tax that it does to-day, the actual amount paid at the present time being however smaller through redemption; and yet then the annual interest on the National Debt was under L4,500,000, while to-day it is over L26,000,000. Then the King's Civil List covered all the expenses of our State ministers and diplomatic representatives; to-day, an enormous additional sum is required, and a Prime Minister professing economy, and well versed in history, has actually the audacity to pretend that the country gains by its present Civil List arrangement.

In 1769 George III. announced to his faithful Commons he owed half a million. John Wilkes and a few others protested, but the money was voted.

In 1770 King George III. succeeded in making several buttons at Kew, and as this is, as far as I am aware, the most useful work of his life, I desire to give it full prominence. His son, afterwards George IV., made a shoebuckle. No other useful product has resulted directly from the efforts of any male of the family.

In 1770 Henry, Duke of Cumberland, the King's brother, was sued by Lord Grosvenor for crim. con., and had to pay L10,000 damages. This same Henry, in the following year, went through the form of marriage with a Mrs. Horton, which marriage, being repudiated by the Court, troubled him but little, and in the lifetime of the lady contracted a second alliance, which gave rise to the famous Olivia Serres legitimacy issue.

The Royal Marriage Act, a most infamous measure for ensuring the perpetuation of vice, and said to be the result of the Lightfoot experience, was introduced to Parliament by a message from George III, on the 20th February, 1772, twelve days after the death of the Princess-Dowager, of Wales. George III. wrote to Lord North on the 26th February: "I expect every nerve to be strained to carry the Bill. It is not a question relating to the Administration, but personally to myself, therefore I have a right to expect a hearty support from every one in my service, and I shall remember defaulters."

In May, 1773, the East India Company, having to come before Parliament for borrowing powers, a select committee was appointed, whose inquiries laid open cases of rapacity and treachery involving the highest personages, and a resolution was carried in the House of Commons affirming that Lord Clive had dishonorably possessed himself of L234,000 at the time of the deposition of Surajah Dowlah, and the establishment of Meer Jaffier. Besides this, it was proved that Lord Clive received several other large sums in succeeding years. Phillimore describes this transaction, in terrific language, as one of "disgusting and sordid turpitude," declaring that "individual members of the English Government were to be paid for their treachery by a hire, the amount of which is almost incredible." A few years after this exposure, Lord Clive committed suicide.

On the 18th of December, 1773, the celebrated cargoes of tea were thrown over in Boston Harbor. The tea duty was a trifling one, but was unfortunately insisted upon by the King's Government as an assertion of the right of the British Parliament to tax the unrepresented American colonies, a right the colonists strenuously and successfully denied.

The news of the firm attitude of the Bay State colonists arrived in England early in March, 1774, and Lord North's Government, urged by the King, first deprived Boston of her privileges as a port; secondly, took away from the State of Massachusetts the whole of the executive powers granted by the charter of William III., and vested the nomination of magistrates of every kind in the King, or royally-appointed Governor; and thirdly, carried an enactment authorizing persons accused of political offences committed in Boston to be sent home to England to be tried.

These monstrous statutes provoked the most decided resistance; all the other American colonists joined with Boston, and a solemn league and covenant was entered into for suspending all commercial intercourse with Great Britain until the obnoxious acts were repealed. On the 5th of Sept., 1774, a congress of fifty-one representatives from twelve old colonies assembled in Philadelphia. The instructions given to them disclaimed every idea of independence, recognized the constitutional authority of the mother country, and acknowledged the prerogatives of the crown; but unanimously declared that they would never give up the rights and liberties derived to them from their ancestors as British subjects, and pronounced the late acts relative to the colony of Massachusetts Bay to be unconstitutional, oppressive and dangerous. The first public act of the congress was a resolution declarative of their favorable disposition towards the colony above mentioned; and, by subsequent resolutions, they formally approved the opposition it had given to the obnoxious acts, and declared that, if an attempt were made to carry them into execution by force, the colony should be supported by all America.

The following extract is from the "Address of the Twelve United Provinces to the Inhabitants of Great Britain," when force was actually used:--"We can retire beyond the reach of your navy, and, without any sensible diminution of the necessaries of life, enjoy a luxury, which from that period you will want--_the luxury of being free_."

On the 16th of November, 1775, Edmund Burke proposed the renunciation on the part of Great Britain of the exercise of taxation in America, the repeal of the obnoxious duty on tea, and a general pardon for past political offenders. This was directly opposed by the King, who had lists brought to him of how the members spoke and voted, and was negatived in the House of Commons by 210 votes against 105. On the 20th November, after consultation with George III., Lord North introduced a Bill by which all trade and commerce with the thirteen United colonies were interdicted. It authorized the seizure, whether in harbor or on the high seas, of all vessels laden with American property, and by a cruel stretch of refined tyranny it rendered all persons taken on board American vessels liable to be entered as sailors on board British ships of war, and to serve (if required) against their own countrymen. About the same time, as we learn by a "secret" dispatch from Lord Dartmouth to General Howe, the King had been unmanly enough to apply to the Czarina of Russia for the loan of 20,000 Russian soldiers to enable him to crush his English subjects in the American colonies. As yet the Americans had made no claim for independence. They were only petitioners for justice.

In order to crush out the spirit of liberty in the American colonies, the Government of George III., in February, 1776, hired 17,000 men from the Landgrave and Hereditary Prince of Hesse Cassel, and from the Duke of Brunswick. Besides these, there were levies of troops out of George III.'s Hanoverian dominions, and that nothing might be wanting to our glory, the King's agents stirred up the Cherokee and Creek Indians to scalp, ravish, and plunder the disaffected colonists. Jesse says: "The newly arrived troops comprised several thousand kidnapped German soldiers, whom the cupidity of the Duke of Brunswick, of the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel, and other German Princes, had induced to let out for hire to the British Government.... Frederick of Prussia not only denounced the traffic as a most scandalous one, but wherever, it is said, the unfortunate hirelings had occasion to march through any part of his dominions, used to levy a toll upon them, as if they had been so many head of bullocks.... They had been sold, he said, as cattle, and therefore he was entitled to exact the toll."

The consequence of all this was, on the 4th of July, 1776, the famous declaration of the American Congress. "The history of the reigning sovereign, they said, was a history of repeated injuries and usurpations. So evidently was it his intention to establish an absolute despotism, that it had become their duty, as well as their right, to secure themselves against further aggressions.... In every stage of these oppressions," proceeds the Declaration, "we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms. Our petitions have been answered only by repeated injuries.

"A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people." And the United Colonies solemnly declare themselves to be "free and independent States."

In 1777, during this American war, Earl Chatham, in one of his grand speeches, after denouncing "the traffic and barter driven with every little pitiful German Prince that sells his subjects to the shambles of a foreign country," adds: "The mercenary aid on which you rely, irritates to an incurable resentment the minds of your enemies, whom you overrun with the sordid sons of rapine and of plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty! If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms, never! never! never!" In reply to Lord Suffolk, who had said, in reference to employing the Indians, that "we were justified in using all the means which God and nature had put into our hands," "I am astonished," exclaimed Lord Chatham, as he rose, "shocked, to hear such principles confessed, to hear them avowed in this House, or in this country; principles equally unconstitutional, inhuman, and un-Christian. _That God and Nature put into our hands!_ I know not what idea that Lord may entertain of God and Nature, but I know that such abominable principles are equally abhorrent to religion and humanity. What! attribute the sacred sanction of God and nature to the massacres of the Indian scalping-knife, to the cannibal savage, torturing, murdering, roasting, and eating; literally, my Lords, eating the mangled victims of his barbarous battles!"

And yet even after this we find George III. writing to Lord North, on the 22d of June, 1779: "I do not yet despair that, with Clinton's activity, and the Indians in their rear, the provinces will soon now submit."

Actually so late as the 27th of November, 1781, after the surrender of Cornwallis, we find George III. saying that "retaining a firm confidence in the wisdom and protection of Divine Providence," he should be able "by the valor of his fleets and armies to conquer America." Fox, in the House of Commons, denounced this speech of the King's as one "breathing vengeance, blood, misery, and rancor;" and "as containing the sentiments of some arbitrary, despotic, hard-hearted, and unfeeling monarch, who, having involved his subjects in a ruinous and unnatural war, to glut his feelings of revenge, was determined to persevere in it in spite of calamity." "Divest the speech," said he, "of its official forms, and what was its purport? 'Our losses in America have been most calamitous; the blood of my subjects has flowed in copious streams; the treasures of Great Britain have been wantonly lavished; the load of taxes imposed on an over-burthened country is become intolerable; my rage for conquest is unquenched; my revenge unsated; nor can anything except the total subjugation of my American subjects allay my animosity.'"

The following table shows what this disastrous war ultimately cost this country in mere money; no table can efficiently show its cost in blood and misery:--

Year.
Taxation.
Loans.

1775
L10,138,061

1776
10,266,405
L2,000,000

1777.
10,604,013
6,500,000

1778
10,732,405
6,000,000

1779
11,192,141
7,000,000

1780
12,265,214
12,000,000

1781
12,454,936
12,000,000

1782
12,593,297
13,500,000

1783
11,962,718
12,000,000

1784
12,905,519
12,879,341

1785
14,871,520
10,990,651

Total
L129,975,229
L93,869,992

The American war terminated in 1783; but as the loans of the two following years were raised to wind up the expenses of that struggle, it is proper they should be included. The total expense of the American war will stand thus:--

Taxes
L129,975,229

Loans
93,869,992

Advances by the Bank of England
110,000

Advances by the East India Company
3,200,000

Increase in the Unfunded Debt
5,170,273

Total
232,325,494

Deduct expense of a peace establishment
for eleven years, as it stood in 1774
113,142,403

Net cost of the American war
L119,183,091

In addition to this must be noted L1,340,000 voted as compensation to American loyalists in 1788, and L4,000 a year pension since, and even now, paid to the descendants of William Penn, amounting, with compound interest, to an enormous additional sum, even to the present date, without reckoning future liability. And this glorious colony parted from us in blood and shame, in consequence of a vain attempt to gratify the desire of the House of Brunswick to make New England contribute to their German greed as freely and as servilely as Old England had done.

Encouraged by the willingness with which his former debts had been discharged, George HI., in 1777, sent a second message, but this time for the larger sum of L600,-000, which was not only paid, but an additional allowance of L100,000 a year was voted to his Majesty, and L40,000 was given to the Landgrave of Hesse.

As an illustration of the barbarity of our laws, it is enough to say that, in 1777, Sarah Parker was burnt for counterfeiting silver coin. In June, 1786, Phoebe Harris was burnt for the same offence. And this in a reign when persons in high position, accused of murder, forgery, perjury, and robbery, escaped almost scot free.

In April, 1778, L60,000 a year was settled on the six younger princes, and L30,000 a year on the five princesses. These pensions, however, were professedly paid out of the King's Civil List, not avowedly in addition to it, as they are to-day. The Duke of Buckingham stated that in 1778, and again in 1782, the King threatened to abdicate. This threat, which, unfortunately, was never carried out, arose from the King's obstinate persistence in the worse than insane policy against the American colonies.

In December, 1779, in consequence of England needing Irish soldiers to make war on America, Ireland was graciously permitted to export Irish woollen manufactures. The indulgences, however, to Ireland--even while the Ministers of George III. were trying to enlist Irishmen to kill the English, Scotch, and Irish in America--were made most grudgingly. Pious Protestant George III. would not consent that any Irish Catholic should own one foot of freehold land; and Edmund Burke, in a letter to an Irish peer, says that it was "pride, arrogance, and a spirit of domination" which kept up "these unjust legal disabilities."

On the 8th February, 1780, Sir G. Savile presented the famous Yorkshire petition, signed by 8,000 freeholders, praying the House of Commons to inquire into the management and expenditure of public money, to reduce all exorbitant emoluments, and to abolish all sinecure places and unmerited pensions. Three days later, Edmund Burke proposed a reduction of the national taxation (which was then only a sixth part of its amount to-day), and a diminution of the power of the Crown. Burke was defeated, but shortly after, on the motion of Mr. Dunning, the House of Commons declared, by a majority of 18 against the Government, "That the influence of the Crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished."

On the 20th March, 1782, Lord North, in consequence of the impossibility of subduing the American colonies, determined to resign. The King opposed this to the last, declaring that no difficulties should induce him to consent to a peace acknowledging the Independence of America. "So distressing," says Jesse, "was the conflict which prevailed in the mind of George III., that he not only contemplated abandoning the Crown of England for the Electorate of Hanover, but orders had actually been issued to have the royal yacht in readiness for his flight." What a blessing to the country if he had really persevered in his resolution!

Charles James Fox, who now came into power for a brief space, had, says Jesse, "taught himself to look upon his sovereign as a mere dull, obstinate, half-crazed, and narrow-minded bigot; a Prince whose shallow understanding had never been improved by education, whose prejudices it was impossible to remove, and whose resentments it would be idle to endeavor to soften."

In 1784, George, Prince of Wales, was over head and ears in debt, and the King, who appears to have hated him, refusing any aid, he resorted to threats. Dr. Doran says: "A conversation is spoken of as having passed between the Queen and the Minister, in which he is reported as having said, 'I much fear, your Majesty, that the Prince, in his wild moments, may allow expressions to escape him that may be injurious to the Crown.'--'There is little fear of that,' was the alleged reply of the Queen; 'he is too well aware of the consequences of such a course of conduct to himself. As regards that point, therefore, I can rely upon him.'" Jesse says of the Prince of Wales, that between eighteen and twenty, "to be carried home drunk, or to be taken into custody by the watch, were apparently no unfrequent episodes in the career of the Heir to the Throne. Under the auspices of his weak and frivolous uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, the Prince's conversation is said to have been a compound of the slang of grooms and the wanton vocabulary of a brothel." "When we hunt together," said the King to the Duke of Gloucester, "neither my son nor my brother speak to me; and lately, when the chase ended at a little village where there was but a single post-chaise to be hired, my son and brother got into it, and drove off, leaving me to go home in a cart, if I could find one." And this is the family Mr. Disraeli holds up for Englishmen to worship!