throw of Lord North's ministry, 1782. Final over from his resolution to maintain the war with America: but the House of Commons was now determined upon peace; and a struggle ensued which was to decide the fate of the minister, and to overcome, by the power of Parliament, the stubborn will of the king. On the 22nd February, 1782, General Conway moved an address deprecating the continuance of the war, but was defeated by a majority of one.1 On the 27th, he proposed another address with the same object. Lord North begged for a short respite: but an adjournment being refused by a majority of nineteen, the motion was agreed to without a division.2 On the receipt of the king's answer, General Conway moved a resolution that "the House will consider as enemies to the king and country all who shall advise, or by any means attempt, the further prosecution of offensive war, for the purpose of reducing the revolted colonies to obedience by force."3 In reply to this proposal, Lord North astonished the House by announcing, -not that he proposed to resign on the reversal of the policy, to which he was pledged,—but that he was prepared to give effect to the instructions of the House! Mr. Fox repudiated the principle of a minister remaining in office, to carry out the policy of his opponents, against his own judgment; and General Conway's resolution was agreed to. Lord North, however, persevered with his propositions for peace, and declared his determination to retain office until the king should command him to resign, or the House should point out to him, in the clearest manner, the propriety of withdrawing. No time was lost in pressing him with the latter alternative. On the 8th March, a mo 1 Parl. Hist., xxii. 1028. 34th March. Ibid., 1067. 4 Ibid., 1107. tion of Lord John Cavendish, charging all the misfortunes of the war upon the incompetency of the ministers, was lost by a majority of ten. On the 15th, Sir J. Rous moved that "the House could no longer repose confidence in the present ministers," and his motion was negatived by a majority of nine." On the 20th the assault was about to be repeated, when Lord North announced his resignation.3 concern at ters. The king had watched this struggle with great anxiety, The king's as one personal to himself. Writing to Lord North on the fate of the 17th March, after the motion of Sir J. Rous, he his minissaid: "I am resolved not to throw myself into the hands of the opposition at all events; and shall certainly, if things go as they seem to tend, know what my conscience as well as honour dictates, as the only way left for me."4 He even desired the royal yacht to be prepared, and talked as if nothing were now left for him but to retire to Hanover. But it had become impossible to retain any longer in his service that "confidential minister," whom he had "always treated more as his friend than minister."6 By the earnest solicitations of the king7, Lord North had been induced to retain office against his own wishes: he had persisted in a policy of which he disapproved; and when forced to abandon it, he still held his ground, in order to protect the king from the intrusion of those whom his Majesty regarded as personal enemies.8. He was now fairly driven 1 Parl. Hist., xxii. 1114. 2 Ibid., 1170. 3 Ibid., 1214. 4 Fox Mem., i. 288; King's Letters to Lord North. 5 Fox Mem., i. 287 (Lord Holland's text). 6 King to Lord North, 2nd June, 1778. King's Letters to Lord North, 31st Jan., 17th, 22nd, 23rd, 29th, VOL. I. E and 30th March, 8th April, May 8 On the 19th March, 1782, the The king's influence during Lord North's from his post, and the king, appreciating the personal devotion of his minister, rewarded his zeal and fidelity with a munificent present from the privy purse.1 The king's correspondence with Lord North2 gives us a remarkable insight into the relations of his Majesty with that minister, and with the government of the ministry. country. Not only did he direct the minister in all important matters of foreign and domestic policy, but he instructed him as to the management of debates in Parliament, suggested what motions should be made or opposed, and how measures should be carried. He reserved to himself all the patronage,—he arranged the entire cast of the administration,-settled the relative places and pretensions of ministers of state, of law officers, and members of his household,-nominated and promoted the English and Scotch judges,-appointed and translated bishops, nominated deans, and dispensed other preferments in the church. He disposed of military governments, regiments, and commissions; and himself ordered the marching of troops. He gave or refused titles, honours, and pensions. All his directions were peremptory: Louis the Great himself could not have been more royal-he enjoyed the consciousness of power, and felt himself "every inch a king." But what had been the 1 The king, in his letter to Lord North, says: "Allow me to assist you with 10,000l., 15,000l., or even 20,0007., if that will be sufficient.' -Lord Brougham's Life of George III.; Works, iii. 18. Mr. Adolphus states, from private information, that the present amounted to 30,0007. 2 Appendix to Lord Brougham's Life of Lord North; Works, iii. 67. 3 Wraxall's Mem., ii. 148. Much to his credit, he secured the ap result of twenty years of pointment of the poet Gray to the professorship of Modern History at Cambridge, 8th March, 1771. 4 25th October, 1775: "On the receipt of your letter, I have ordered Elliott's dragoons to march from Henley to Hounslow." "We must husband honours," wrote the king to Lord North on the 18th July, 1777, on refusing to make Sir W. Hamilton a privycouncillor. the king's policy. kingcraft? Whenever the king's personal influence had Results of been the greatest, there had been the fiercest turbulence and discontent among the people, the most signal failures in the measures of the government, and the heaviest disasters to the state. Of all the evil days of England during this king's long reign, the worst are recollected in the ministries of Lord Bute, Mr. Grenville, the Duke of Grafton, and Lord North. Nor had the royal will,—however potential with ministers,-prevailed in the government of the country. He had been thwarted and humbled by his parliaments, and insulted by demagogues: parliamentary privilege, which he had sought to uphold as boldly as his own prerogative, had been defied and overcome by Wilkes and the printers: the liberty of the press, which he would have restrained, had been provoked into licentiousness; and his kingdom had been shorn of some of its fairest provinces.1 ham minis On the retirement of Lord North, the king submitted, Rocking with a bad grace, to the Rockingham administration. try, 1782. He found places, indeed, for his own friends, but the policy of the cabinet was as distasteful to him as were the persons of some of the statesmen of whom it was composed. Its first principle was the concession of independence to America, which he had so long resisted its second was the reduction of the influence of the crown, by the abolition of offices, the exclusion of contractors from Parliament, and the disfranchisement of revenue officers.2 Shortly after its formation, Mr. Fox, writing to Mr. Fitzpatrick 3, said: "provided we can stay in long enough to give a good stout blow to the influence of the crown, I do 2 Rockingham Mem., i. 452. not think it much signifies how soon we go out after.”1 This ministry was constituted of materials not likely to unite, of men who had supported the late ministry, and of the leaders of the parliamentary opposition,— or, as Mr. Fox expressed it, "it consisted of two parts, one belonging to the king, the other to the public."2 Such men could not be expected to act cordially together but they aimed their blow at the influence of the crown, by passing the contractors' bill, the revenue officers' bill, and a bill for the reduction of offices.3 They also suffered the former policy of the court to be stigmatised, by expunging from the journals of the House of Commons, the obnoxious resolutions which had affirmed the disability of Wilkes. A ministry promoting such measures as these, was naturally viewed with distrust and ill-will by the court. So hard was the struggle between them, that the surly chancellor, Lord Thurlow,-who had retained his office by the express desire of the king, and voted against all the measures of the government,-affirmed that Lord Rockingham was "bringing things to a pass where either his head or the king's must go, in order to settle which of them is to govern the country."4 The king was described by his Tory friends as a prisoner in the hands of his ministers, and represented in the caricatures of the day, as being put in fetters by his gaolers. In the same spirit, ministers were termed the "Regency," as if they had assumed to exercise the royal authority. In a few months, however, this ministry was on the point of breaking up, 1 Fox Mem., i. 317. 2 Fox Mem., i. 292; Lord John Russell's Life of Fox, i. 284, et seq. Lord John Russell says: "It must be owned that the composition of the Rockingham ministry was a masterpiece of royal skill."-Ibid. |