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CHAPTER XIV

THE RULE OF GEORGE THE THIRD

O THOU that sendest out the man
To rule by land and sea,

Strong mother of a Lion-line,

Be proud of those strong sons of thine
Who wrench'd their rights from thee!

What wonder if in noble heat

Those men thine arms withstood,
Retaught the lesson thou hadst taught,
And in thy spirit with thee fought-
Who sprang from English blood!

— TENNYSON, England and America in 1782.

SECTION I. THE NEW DESPOTISM

1760-1820.

The King who would Rule as well as Reign.-George the Second was succeeded on the throne by his grandson, the third George. Unlike his predecessors the George III, young king was English born and English bred, and he often declared that he gloried in the name of Briton. He was honest and well-meaning, simple in his habits and strictly moral. His industry was tremendous, but unfortunately he was by nature rather dull and obstinate and his early education. had been of the worst. He had been brought up by his mother, a German princess, whose teachings were summed up in the often repeated injunction,

s and

s in

k on Vhigs.

"Be king, George, be king," and he had come to
the throne determined to rule as well as reign.

The Royal Policy.-Many things favored the young
king's plan. The Whigs were no longer what they
had been. They had ceased to care for reform and
thought only of enjoying the good things of office,
titles and honors and fat places. Naturally they
quarrelled among themselves, so there was no united
party to oppose the king's measures. The Tories
too had changed. The failure of the rising of 1745
had convinced them that the Stuart cause was lost,
and that if they wanted ever to have a hand in
governing the country they must make up their
minds to accept the house of Hanover.

No sooner was George on the throne than he went boldly to work to carry out his policy. The first step was to get rid of Pitt. By refusing to support the great minister's plans for carrying on the war, the king forced him to resign. The enemies of England rejoiced at the news. "Pitt disgraced!" wrote a Frenchman; "it is worth two victories to us." To George this mattered nothing, for he had dealt the Whigs a severe blow. They were still too powerful to be set aside entirely, so the king attempted to use first one and then another of the Whig factions. But no one had his honest support, and during the first ten years of his reign he turned out four Whig ministries. At the same time he was building up a party of his own. The royal revenue was large and the king's tastes were simple, but he

was soon deep in debt. The money had been spent in buying seats in Parliament, in buying votes. Day after day the king studied the voting-lists, and

Friends."

The King's possession of a party, known as the "King's Friends" and composed of men whose only rule in voting was the royal command. "Now indeed," exulted the princess dowager, "now indeed my son is king."

England's colonial policy.

SECTION 2. WRECKING THE EMPIRE

The English Colonies in America. — At the opening of the seventeenth century England did not hold one foot of soil outside of Europe, but during the troublous times that followed the planting of colonies in America went steadily forwards. By the middle of the eighteenth century they extended in an unbroken line for a thousand miles along the Atlantic coast, and contained a million and a half inhabitants. The share of the government in this work had been small: it was individual enterprise that had created a new England beyond the sea.

For the most part the mother country left the colonists to shift for themselves. They made their own laws, levied the taxes, chose many of the officers. Only in matters of trade did England attempt to interfere, telling the colonies where they should buy and where they should sell, and forbidding them to manufacture anything for themselves which she wished them to purchase of her. These regulations were irritating, even though not very strictly enforced, but they were simply in accordance with the view of the eighteenth century that the trade of a colony belonged to the mother country.

colonists.

Usually the relations between England and her colonies were harmonious, but the Americans had shown themselves independent in spirit and impatient of authority, and more than one observer had prophesied that they would soon break away from England's hold. But those who knew them best denied Spirit of the this, declaring that they were wholly loyal. The truth was the colonists gloried in the name of Englishmen, and looked back with love and pride to the home from which they had come; but their interests were in America, and it was the province in which their lot was cast, Massachusetts or Virginia or Maryland, perhaps, which stood first in their affection, and not the mother country. Moreover, the men who dared the dangers of the wide ocean and the trackless wilderness were daring and self-reliant, and life in the New World had but strengthened these traits. Any attack therefore upon their cherished independence was certain to meet with opposition which might end in rebellion.

Trouble with the Colonies. Although the French had been driven out of Canada, the English government thought that an army should be kept in America for some years longer, and George Grenville, who became prime minister in 1763, declared that the colonists ought to pay for the army, at least in part. There was a good deal to be said for this view. England was burdened with debt, the result of the recent wars, while no part of the empire had gained so much. from the defeat of France as the colonies, and they