[1759-1760 A.D.]

but now obey my orders." The fight went on till night whilst a tempest was raging. Signal guns of vessels in distress were heard on every side. When the morning came, two British ships were found to be stranded, but their crews were saved. Four of the French fleet had been sunk, amongst which was the admiral's ship. Two had struck. The rest had fled up the Vilaine. This final victory put an end to all those apprehensions of a descent upon England, which prevailed before Pitt had infused his spirit into commanders by land and sea. The French admiral, Thurot, was to have co-operated with Conflans in an attempt at invasion. He landed in the north of Ireland; attacked Carrickfergus, which was bravely defended by seventy-two men; and then went again to sea, having

plundered the town, and carried off the mayor and three other inhabitants as his prisoners.

It was the determination to believe nothing impossible to a strong will, and to think no loss irretrievable, which sustained Frederick of Prussia through the reverses of 1759 - the most disastrous of all his campaigns. The defeat by the Russians at Kunersdorf would have annihilated a less resolute man. But he rallied; and he fought through another year of chequered fortune, during which his own territories suffered the extremities of misery, to win the two victories of Legnitz and of Torgau.

DEATH OF GEORGE II (1760 A.D.)

There was

The year 1760 was not a year of excitement to the English people. The war went on; but even the defence of the conquests of 1759 required no great exertions. Quebec was besieged; but the besiegers were compelled to retire, when an English fleet appeared in the St. Lawrence. little domestic agitation, except a ministerial difference with the court, which somewhat detracts from the dignity of Pitt, in his exhibition of contempt for that influence which prevented his brother-in-law, Earl Temple, from obtaining the Garter. Parliament had little more to do than vote supplies. "Success, said Pitt, "had produced unanimity, not unanimity success." A sudden event came, destined in a short time to change the whole aspect of affairsto involve England once again in political contests more to be dreaded than the ordinary course of party warfare more to be dreaded, because other leaders appeared than those of parliament, and the representatives of the people were not on the popular side. The reign of George II came suddenly to a close on the 25th of October. The king had risen at his usual hour of six: had taken his cup of chocolate; and had been left alone by his attendants. A noise as of a heavy fall was heard; then a groan. The old man lay on the ground, and never spoke more. The right ventricle of his heart had burst.k

LECKY'S ESTIMATE OF GEORGE II

[1727-1760 A.D.]

Without being in any sense of the word a great, or in any high sense of the word a good man, this sovereign deserves, I think, at least in his public capacity, more respect than he has received, and England owes much to his government. He was, it is true, narrow, ignorant, ill-tempered, avaricious, and somewhat vain, exceedingly faulty in his domestic relations, and entirely destitute of all taste for literature, science, or art; but he was also an eminently honest, truthful, and honourable man; and during a period of thirty-three years, and often under circumstances of strong temptation, he discharged with remarkable fidelity the duties of a constitutional monarch. He was unfaithful to his marriage-bed, but he had a sincere respect and admiration for his wife; and, to the great advantage of the country, he allowed himself to be governed mainly by her superior intellect. He was extremely fond of war, and showed distinguished personal courage at Oudenarde and at Dettingen; but he cordially recognised the ability of the most pacific minister of the age, and he supported Walpole with honourable constancy through all the vicissitudes of his career. He loved money greatly, but he lived strictly within the revenues that were assigned to him, and was the most economical English sovereign since Elizabeth. He was a despotic sovereign in Germany, as well as a constitutional sovereign in England; but the habits he had formed in the first capacity never induced him to trench in the smallest degree upon the liberties of England, and on several occasions he sacrificed frankly his strongest preferences and antipathies.

It was thus that he allowed Walpole to restrain him from the war which he desired; that he received Newcastle as minister; that he discarded Carteret, who, of all politicians, was most pleasing to him; that he consented, though only after a long struggle, to give his confidence to Pitt, who had grossly insulted him. He yielded, ungracefully and ungraciously indeed, and usually with an explosion of violent language, but yet honestly and frankly; and no minister to whom he had ever given his confidence had cause to complain of him. "The late good old king," said Chatham, in the succeeding reign, "had something of humanity, and amongst many other royal virtues he possessed justice, truth, and sincerity in an eminent degree, so that he had something about him ch it was possible to know whether he liked you or disliked you." He Wd respectable military administrator and an industrious man of business, and some of the sayings recorded of him exhibit considerable shrewdness and point. Courtly divines and poets were accustomed to eulogise him in language which would be exaggerated if applied to the genius of Napoleon or to the virtues of Marcus Aurelius. An impartial historian will acknowledge that the reign of George II was in its early part one of the most prosperous and tranquil, and in its latter part one of the most glorious periods of English history; and that the moderation with which the Sovereign exercised his prerogative, and the fidelity with which he sacrificed his own wishes in the support of his ministers, contributed in no small measure to the result.m

George III-whose reign, including the years of regency, proved to be the longest and the most eventful in the English annals - was, at the time of his accession, twenty-two years of age. His figure was tall and strongly built; his countenance open and engaging. A heartfelt and unaffected Christian piety formed the foundation of his character. In the private and domestic virtues few men, and certainly no monarch, ever excelled him. But his manner in conversation did great injustice to his endowments. His rapid utterance and frequent reiteration of trivial phrases- his unceasing "What! What!" and "Hey! Hey!"-gave him an aspect of shallowness to mere superficial observers. and obscured (literary subjects apart) the clear good sense, the sterling judgment within. Thus also wn style in writing was not always strictly grammatical, but always es plain, and to the point. To the exalted duties of his station he devoted hi elf with conscientious and constant attention. At all times, and under all vicissitudes- whether in victory or in disaster-whether counselled by ministers of his own choice, or in the hands of a party he abhorred-he was most truly and emphatically an honest man.-STANHOPE.

THE young prince of Wales-henceforth King George III—was riding with Lord Bute in the neighbourhood of Kew, when a groom first brought him the hasty tidings of his grandfather's decease. Ere long the groom was followed by Pitt as secretary of state. His majesty, after returning to Kew, proceeded to Carlton house, the residence of the princess dowager, to meet the privy council and, according to ancient form, read to them a short address, which he had directed Bute to prepare. Next morning he was proclaimed in London with the usual solemnities. On these and the ensuing days the demeanour of the young monarch was generally and justly extolled. He seemed neither elated, nor yet abashed and perplexed, by his sudden accession; all he said or did was calm and equable, full of graciousness and goodness. The address to his council was well and feelingly delivered, and he dismissed the guards on himself to wait on his grandfather's body. "He has behaved throughout,"

[1760 A.D.]

says Horace Walpole, a critic of no courtly temper, "with the greatest propriety, dignity, and decency."

From the first moment of the new reign the ascendancy of Bute had been foreseen and foretold. Only a few days afterwards a hand-bill was affixed to the royal exchange, with these words: "No petticoat government-no Scotch favourite-no Lord George Sackville!" Of the second of these surmises confirmation was not, indeed, slow in coming. On the next morning but one after his accession the king directed that his brother, Edward duke of York, and his groom of the stole, Lord Bute, should be sworn of the privy council; and Bute appears henceforward to have been consulted on all the principal affairs. The quick-eyed tribe of courtiers at once perceived that this was the channel through which the royal favours would most probably flow, and to which their own applications would most wisely be addressed.

But while the king thus indulged his predilection towards the friend of his early years, he received all his grandfather's ministers with cordial kindness, and pressed them to continue in his service. Pitt declared his willingness to remain on the same footing as before. Newcastle, now sixty-six years of age, made at first a show of resignation, with a view, no doubt, of enhancing his importance, but as he took care to consult only such followers and expectants as had an interest in his stay, he did not fail to receive earnest entreaties in support of his real inclinations, and magnanimously consented to resume the treasury.

On the 31st of October the king highly gratified the more serious portion of his people by a proclamation "for the encouragement of piety and virtue, and for preventing and punishing of vice, profaneness, and immorality." Such proclamations are worth little more than the paper they are written on when not consonant to the personal conduct of the sovereign, but in this case the document was happily upheld by half a century of undeviating royal example. It was also observed, with satisfaction, that the archbishop of Canterbury, proud of so promising a pupil, and having no longer a Lady Yarmouth to encounter, had become frequent in attendance at the court.

The parliament, which had been prorogued for a few days on account of the demise of the Crown, was on the 18th of November opened by the king. Never, it was remarked, had there been greater crowds at such a ceremony, nor louder acclamations. The royal speech had been drawn up by Lord Hardwicke, and revised by Pitt; but when complete his majesty is said to have added with his own hand a paragraph as follows: "Born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of Briton; and the peculiar happiness of my life will ever consist in promoting the welfare of a people whose loyalty and warm attachment to me I consider as the greatest and most permanent security of my throne." Such cordial language met with no less cordial responses from both houses. "What a lustre," exclaim the lords, "does it cast upon the name of Briton, when you, sir, are pleased to esteem it among your glories!" "We acknowledge," say the commons, "with the liveliest sentiments of duty, gratitude, and exultation of mind, these most affecting and animating words."

In other passages his majesty's speech professed a thorough concurrence in the counsels which during the last few years had guided his grandfather's reign. It praised the "magnanimity and perseverance, almost beyond example," of his good brother the king of Prussia; to British victories it adverted in becoming terms of exultation: it declared that his majesty would have been happier still could he have found his kingdoms at peace; "but since," it added, "the ambition, injurious encroachments, and dangerous designs of my

[1760-1761 A.D.]

enemies rendered the war both just and necessary, I am determined to prosecute this war with vigour." In conclusion, the king expressed his delight at the present happy extinction of divisions, and recommended to his parliament "unanimity." Never was any recommendation more fully complied with; scarce one public difference of opinion appeared. Another annual subsidy of £670,000 to the king of Prussia was proposed by Pitt, and granted by the house of commons. Supplies to the unprecedented amount of nearly £20,000,000 were cheerfully voted. The civil list for the new reign, on the king's surrendering the

branches of his hereditary revenue, was fixed at £800,000 a year. Nothing was heard in either house but dutiful addresses and loyal congratulations.

But, however fair and specious seemed the unanimity which greeted the new reign, it was no more than apparent. Beneath that smooth surface jealousy, rancour, and ambition were already beginning to stir and heave. A small knot of grasping families among the peers-which wished to be thought exclusively the friends of the Hanover succession, and which had hitherto looked upon court officers, honours, and emoluments as almost an heirloom belonging to themselves - viewed with envious eyes the admission of new claim

ants, not as involving any principle of politics, but only as contracting their own chances of appointment. Such malcontents found a congenial mouthpiece in the duke of Newcastle.

On the other hand, the cabals of Bute were to the full as numerous and as crooked as Newcastle's. It was his object to hold himself forth as the sole expounder of the king's wishes and opinions-as the single and mysterious high priest of the royal oracle. On the 21st of March the parliament was dissolved by a proclamation; and the Gazette of the same day announced several changes in the ministry. On the 25th of March the Gazette made known to the world that his majesty had been pleased to appoint the earl of Bute one of his secretaries of state-Holderness being the minister removed. Neither Pitt nor Holderness himself had received any notice of the contemplated change as to the seals until that change was matured, and on the very point of execution. To soften Pitt, his kinsman, James Grenville,