GEORGE III. WAS IN his twenty-third year when he succeeded his grandfather, George II., on October 25, 1760. His accession caused general satisfaction. The jacobite schism had come to an end; no one imagined that a restoration of the exiled house was possible, or seriously wished that it might take place. The remembrance of the rising of ‘45 strengthened the general feeling of loyalty to the reigning house; the Old Pretender had lost all interest in public affairs, and his son, Charles Edward, was a confirmed drunkard, and had alienated his friends by his disreputable life. Englishmen were determined not to have another Roman catholic king, and they were too proud of their country willingly to accept as their king a prince who was virtually a foreigner as well as a papist, and whose cause had in past years been maintained by the enemies of England. It is true that their last two kings had been foreigners, but this was so no longer; their new king had been born and brought up among them and was an Englishman to the backbone. He succeeded an old king of coarse manners and conversation and of openly immoral life, and his youth and the respectability of his morals added to the pleasure with which his people greeted him as a sovereign of their own nation.
National feeling was growing in strength; it had been kindled by Pitt, and fanned into a flame by a series of victories which were largely due to the inspiration of his lofty spirit. He had raised Great Britain from a low estate to a height such as it had never reached before. The French power had been overthrown in North America and the dominion of Canada had been added to the British territories. In India the victories of Clive and his generals were soon to be crowned by the fall of Pondicherry, and French and Dutch alike had already lost all chance of successfully opposing the advance of British rule by force of arms. Great Britain had become mistress of the sea. Her naval power secured her the possession of Canada, for her ships cut off the garrison of Montreal from help by sea; it sealed the fate of the French operations in India, for D’Aché was forced to withdraw his ships from the Coromandel coast and leave Lally without support. In the West Indies Guadeloupe had fallen, and in Africa Goree. In every quarter the power of France was destroyed, her colonies were conquered, her ships captured or driven from the sea.
The naval supremacy of England is attested, strange as it seems at first sight, by her losses in merchant shipping, which were far heavier than those of France, more than 300 in 1760, more than 800 in 1761, for many English merchantmen were at sea while the French dared not send out their merchant ships for fear of capture. Nor was this all, for the ruin of the commerce of France led the shipowners of St. Malo to fit out many of their ships as privateers and corsairs, and the ruin of her navy sent many a fine seaman aboard them. Skippers of English traders who straggled from their convoy, or sailed ahead of it in order to be first in the market, were often punished for their obstinacy or greediness by these fast-sailing privateers. In spite of these losses, England’s supremacy at sea caused a rapid increase in her wealth and commerce, and she took full advantage of her power, seizing French merchandise carried in neutral vessels. The wealth acquired through her naval supremacy enabled her to uphold the cause of her allies on the continent. England’s purse alone afforded Frederick of Prussia the means of keeping the field, and the continuance of the war depended on her subsidies. The continental war, in which our troops played a secondary part, was by no means so popular as the naval war, yet under Pitt’s administration it had helped to rouse the spirit of the nation. A new militia had been created and the old jealousy of a standing army was weakened. It was, then, at a time when national feeling was strong that Englishmen were called upon to welcome a king of their own nationality, and they answered to the call with enthusiasm.
George was in many respects worthy of their welcome. Moral in his conduct and domestic in his tastes, he set an example of sobriety and general decency of behaviour. He was kind-hearted and had the gift of pleasing. On public occasions his demeanour and words were dignified. In private he talked in a homely way, his words following one another too quickly and sometimes showing a confusion of thought and excitability of brain. To the poor he would speak with familiar kindness, chatting with them like a good-natured squire. Yet simple as he was in his habits and private talk, he always spoke and acted as a gentleman; the coarseness of the old court was a thing of the past. He was deeply and unaffectedly pious, and was strongly attached to the Church of England; his religion was of a sober kind and was carried into his daily life. He was constantly guided by the dictates of his conscience. His will was strong; and as his conscience was by no means always so well-informed as he believed it to be, his firmness often deserved the name of obstinacy. Nor, in common with the best of men, did he always clearly distinguish between his personal feelings and conscientious convictions. He had great self-control, and was both morally and physically courageous. Though as a youth he had been idle, he was never addicted to pleasure; his accession brought him work which was congenial to him, he overcame his natural tendency to sloth and, so long as his health allowed, discharged his kingly duties with diligence. His intellectual powers were small and uncultivated, but he had plenty of shrewdness and common sense; he showed a decided ability for kingcraft, not of the highest kind, and gained many successes over powerful opponents. The welfare of his people was dear to him; he was jealous for the honour of England, rejoiced in her prosperity, and strove with all his strength to save her from humiliation. In religion, tastes, and prejudices he was in sympathy with the great mass of his people; and in matters in which his policy and conduct seem most open to censure, he had the majority of the nation with him.
He had, however, some serious failings which brought trouble both on his people and himself. They were largely the results of his training. His father, Frederick, Prince of Wales, a fool, a fribble and worse, died when George was twelve years old. His mother, the Princess Augusta, was a woman of strong will, ambitious of power, unamiable in temper, thoroughly insincere, narrow-minded, and full of petty feelings. She was strict in all religious matters, had a high sense of duty, and was a careful mother. When her son became king, she acted as though she had a right to direct him in his political work. Her interference was mischievous: she was unpopular and incapable of understanding the politics of a great country; for she had the prejudices of a little German court, and regarded politics merely in a personal light. George grew up completely under her influence. Jealous of her authority and influence over her sons, she was quick to suspect their governors and preceptors of trying to act independently of her, and thwarted them continually. They had no chance of gaining George’s confidence or of giving him the benefits which a lad may derive from the society of men experienced in the ways of the world. Do what they would, the princess was always too strong for them, and Lord Waldegrave, one of the prince’s governors, records as his own experience that “the mother and the nursery always prevailed”. Nor had George the opportunity of learning anything from companions of his own age; his mother was afraid that his morals would be corrupted by association with young people, and kept him in the strictest seclusion. He had no friend except his brother Edward. Her jealousy extended to her children’s nearest relations. They had little intercourse with the court, and William, Duke of Cumberland, whose upright character and soldierly qualities might well have endeared him to his nephews, complained that as children they were taught to regard him with the most unworthy suspicion.
Brought up among bed-chamber women and pages, in an unwholesome atmosphere of petty intrigue, and carefully kept from contact with the world, George had the failings which such a system might be expected to produce. His mother certainly succeeded in implanting in his heart religious principles which he preserved through life, and she turned him out a pure-minded and well-bred young man; but the faults in his character were confirmed. He was uncharitable in his judgments of others and harsh in his condemnation of conduct which he did not approve. His prejudices were strengthened; he put too high a value on his own opinions and was extremely stubborn. In dealing with men, he thought too much of what was due to himself and too little of what was due to others. As a lad he lacked frankness, and in later life was disingenuous and intriguing. When he was displeased his temper was sullen and resentful. He was always overcareful about money, and in old age this tendency developed into parsimony. His education was deficient; it had not been carried on steadily, and he had been allowed to indulge a constitutional inertness. Though he overcame this habit, the time which he had lost could not be made up for, and ideas which might have been corrected or enlarged by a more thorough education, remained firmly fixed in his mind.
Among these ideas were an exaggerated conception of the royal prerogative and the belief that it was his duty as king to govern as well as to reign. His mother’s constant exhortation to him, “George, be a king,” fell upon willing ears, and appears to have been enforced by his tutors. A more powerful influence on the mind of the young prince than that of any of his tutors was exercised by John Stuart, Earl of Bute, his mother’s chief friend and adviser. He was a fine showy man, vain of his handsome person, theatrical in his manners, pompous, slow and sententious in his speech. His private life was respectable; he had literary and scientific tastes, and a good deal of superficial knowledge. His abilities were small; he would, George’s father used to say, “make an excellent ambassador in any court where there was nothing to do”. He lacked the steadfast self-reliance necessary to the part which he undertook to play, and had none of the dogged resolution of his royal pupil. His enemies freely accused him of falsehood; he was certainly addicted to intrigue, but he was probably too proud a man to utter direct lies. The friendship between him and the princess was close and lasting. It was generally believed that he was her paramour, but for this there is no real evidence. It would have been contrary to the character of the princess, and the assertion seems to have been a malicious scandal. George liked him, and when he was provided with a household of his own in 1756, he persuaded the king to put the earl at the head of it as his groom of the stole. Though utterly incompetent for the task, Bute instructed the prince in the duties of kingship; he encouraged him in the idea that a king should exercise a direct control over public affairs, and is said to have borrowed for him a portion of Blackstone’s then unpublished Commentaries on the Laws of England in which the royal authority is magnified.
George’s political system was, it is evident, largely based on Bolingbroke’s essay On the Idea of a Patriot King. In this essay Bolingbroke lays down that a king who desires the welfare of his people should “begin to govern as soon as he begins to reign,” that he must choose as his ministers men who “will serve on the same principles on which he intends to govern,” and that he must avoid governing by a party. Such a king will unite his people, and put himself at their head, “in order to govern, or more properly subdue, all parties”. This doctrine seemed specially appropriate to the state of affairs at George’s accession. During the last two reigns the power of the crown had dwindled. Neither George I. nor George II. had cared for, or indeed understood, domestic politics, and the government had fallen into the hands of the whig party which became dominant at the Revolution. The whigs posed as defenders of the Hanoverian house and of the principles of 1688. Those principles limited the exercise of the prerogative, but they did not involve depriving the crown of all participation in the government. The whig party exaggerated them, and while the fortunes of Hanover and continental affairs absorbed the attention of the king, they completely usurped the government of the country. They were strong in the house of lords, and secured their position in the commons by employing the patronage of the crown, the money of the nation, and their own wealth and influence to control the borough elections. For nearly fifty years a small number of whig lords shared the government of the country among themselves. During Walpole’s administration the whigs became split into sections. Several of the more powerful lords of the party had each his own following or “connexion” in parliament, composed of men bound to him by family ties, interest, or the gift of a seat. These sections, while they agreed in keeping the crown out of all part in the government, and the tories out of all share in the good things which the crown had to bestow, struggled with one another for office.
Meanwhile the tories were left out in the cold. So long as jacobitism was a danger to the state, this was not a fair cause of complaint, for many tories had corresponded with the exiled princes. By 1760, however, tories had become as loyal as whigs. George was fully determined to put an end to this state of things: he would be master in his own kingdom; he and not the whigs should govern England. He naturally rejoiced to see the tories, a large and important body of his subjects, reconciled to the throne; and as he had been brought up in tory principles, he welcomed with peculiar pleasure the support of the party of prerogative. The tories were no longer to be neglected by the crown; the whig monopoly was to be brought to an end. He did not contemplate taking political power from one party in order to vest it in another. He designed to rule independently of party; no political section was necessarily to be excluded from office, but no body of men, whether united by common principles or common interest, was henceforth to dictate to the crown. To be willing and able to carry on the government in accordance with his will was to be the sole qualification for a share in the administration. Ministers might or might not be agreed on matters of the first importance; all the agreement between them which was necessary was that each in his own sphere should act as an agent of the king’s policy.
The system was not so impossible as it would be at present. The idea of the cabinet as a homogeneous body, collectively responsible to parliament, was not yet established. Government was largely carried on by ministers working more or less independently of one another. In 1760 the cabinet, an informal committee of the privy council, was an institution of a different character from that of to-day. During the last two reigns it had included, along with the ministers holding the chief political offices, whether of business or dignity, certain great court officials, and some other personages of conspicuous position whose assistance might be useful to the government. Nominally the “lords of the cabinet” were fairly numerous. They did not all take an equal share in government. The king’s “most serious affairs” were directed by not more than five or six of them, who formed a kind of inner cabinet, the first lord of the treasury, the two secretaries of state, one or more of the principal supporters of the administration, and generally the lord chancellor. They discussed matters privately, sometimes settling what should be laid before a cabinet meeting, and sometimes communicating their decisions to the king as the advice of his ministers, without submitting them to the cabinet at large. Outside this small inner circle the lords of the cabinet held a position rather of dignity than of power, and some of them rarely attended a cabinet meeting. This arrangement was mainly due to the long predominance of Sir Robert Walpole and to the overwhelming political influence of a few great whig houses. The strife among the whigs which followed Walpole’s retirement and the critical character of foreign affairs tended to increase the number of councillors who commonly took part in cabinet business.
The first cabinet of George III. as settled with reference to a meeting held on November 17, consisted of the keeper of the great seal (Lord Henley), the president of the council (Lord Granville), the two secretaries of state (Pitt and Holdernesse), the Duke of Newcastle (first lord of the treasury), Lord Hardwicke (ex-chancellor), Lord Anson (first lord of the admiralty), Lord Ligonier (master-general of the ordnance), Lord Mansfield (lord chief-justice), the Duke of Bedford (lord-lieutenant of Ireland) and the Duke of Devonshire (lord chamberlain). If Lord Halifax (president of the board of trade) pleased, he might attend to give information on American affairs; and Newcastle suggested that Legge (the chancellor of the exchequer, whose office, as finance was then largely managed by the first lord of the treasury, was of less importance than it soon became) and the “solicitor” (Charles Yorke, solicitor-general) should also be summoned. Soon afterwards Bute was appointed groom of the stole to the king and entered the cabinet. After 1760 the cabinet began to assume its later form; questions of the highest importance were debated and decided on in meetings of eleven or twelve councillors, and in 1761 Hardwicke complained that the king’s “most serious affairs” were discussed by as many as would in earlier days have formed a whole cabinet. From 1765 the existence of an inner circle becomes less distinct, though at all times a prime minister naturally takes counsel privately with the most prominent or most trusted members of his government. Non-efficient members of a cabinet appear more rarely until, in 1783, they disappear altogether. The old inner cabinet becomes expanded into a council consisting generally of high political officers, and the members, ten or twelve in number, discuss and settle the weightiest affairs of state. With the critical negotiations with France in 1796 came a new development; the prime minister, the younger Pitt, and Lord Grenville, the foreign secretary, arranged that the British ambassador should write private despatches for their information, and others of a less confidential character which might be read by the cabinet at large. Here a new inner cabinet is foreshadowed. It differed from the old one: that arose from the small number who were entrusted with an actual share in the government; this, from the fact that the number of the king’s confidential servants was so large that it was advisable that certain matters of special secrecy should only be made known to and discussed by two or three. The subsequent increase of the council promoted the development of an inner cabinet, and such a body is understood to have existed for many years during which cabinets have been of a size undreamt of by ministers of George III.
The solidarity of the cabinet is now secured by the peculiar functions and powers of a prime minister. It was not so at the accession of George III. That there should be an avowed prime minister possessing the chief weight in the council and the principal place in the confidence of the king is a doctrine which was not established until the first administration of the younger Pitt; and though the title of prime minister had come into use by 1760, it was still regarded as invidious by constitutional purists. According to George’s system he was himself to be the only element of coherence in a ministry; it was to be formed by the prime minister in accordance with his instructions, and each member of it was to be guided by his will. The factious spirit of the whigs, the extent to which they monopolised power, and the humiliating position to which they had reduced the crown, afford a measure of defence for his scheme of government. Yet it was in itself unconstitutional, for it would have made the ministers who were responsible to parliament mere agents of the king who was not personally responsible for his public acts. And it was not, nor indeed could it be, carried out except by adopting means which were unconstitutional and disastrous. It necessarily made the king the head of a party. He needed votes in parliament, and he obtained them, as the whig leaders had done, by discreditable means. If his ministers did not please him he sought support from the members of his party, “the king’s friends,” as they were called; and so there arose an influence behind the throne distinct from and often opposed to that of his responsible advisers.
Since 1757 the strife of the whig factions had been stilled by coalition. At the king’s accession the administration was strong. It owed its strength to the co-operation of the Duke of Newcastle, the first lord of the treasury, and Pitt, secretary of state.Newcastle, the most prominent figure among the great whig nobles, derived his power from influence; he had an unrivalled experience in party management and as a dispenser of patronage, and though personally above accepting a bribe of any kind, he was an adept at corrupt practices. He would have been incapable of conducting the war, for he was ignorant, timid, and vacillating, but he knew how to gain the support of parliament and how to find the supplies which the war demanded. Pitt was strong in the popular favour which he had gained by his management of the war; he was supremely fitted to guide the country in time of war, but he was too haughty and imperious to be successful in the management of a party. He did not care to concern himself about applications for bishoprics, excisorships, titles, and pensions, or the purchase of seats in parliament. All such work was done by Newcastle. For his attack on the whig party George needed a scheme and a man—some one to act for him in matters in which as king he could not appear personally to interfere. The man was ready to his hand, his friend and teacher, Bute. His scheme of attack was to create a division between Newcastle and Pitt, to make peace with France, and force Pitt to leave the ministry, Pitt’s resignation would weaken the whigs, and the king would be in a position to give office to Bute and any other ministers he might choose. Newcastle and Pitt were not really in accord, for not only was Newcastle jealous of Pitt, but he was anxious to bring the war to an end while Pitt wished to continue it. George therefore started on his work of sowing dissension between them with something in his favour. He disliked Pitt’s war policy. He and Bute desired peace, no doubt for its own sake, as well as because it would forward their plan, for when the war ended the great war minister would no longer be necessary to the whigs.
On the day of his accession George privately offered to make Bute a secretary of state. He refused the offer, for to have stepped into the place of Holdernesse while the whig party was still united would have been premature. The council was immediately summoned to Carlton house, a residence of the princess-dowager. George at once showed that he would take a line of his own. After a few gracious words to Newcastle in private audience, he closed the interview by saying, “My lord Bute is your very good friend and will tell you my thoughts at large”. The duke, Pitt, and Holdernesse were called into the closet to hear the declaration he was about to make to the privy council; it is said to have been written by the king himself with the help of Bute. When it had been read George merely asked if anything was “wrong in point of form”. Pitt could scarcely believe his ears; the war was described as “bloody and expensive”. He had an interview with Bute in the evening and insisted on a change in the sentence. He carried his point, and the words in the council-book with reference to the war are: “As I mount the throne in the midst of an expensive, but just and necessary war, I shall endeavour to prosecute it in a manner most likely to bring about an honourable and lasting peace in concert with my allies”. The last five words were dictated by Pitt. Bute having been sworn of the privy council, and having entered the cabinet as groom of the stole, assumed “a magisterial air of authority,” and was universally recognised as the king’s confidant and mouthpiece.
The king opened parliament on November 19, wearing his crown. His speech was settled by his ministers, and was sent to Bute for his perusal, Newcastle intending himself to lay it before the king, as it was his right to do. Bute, however, took it to the king, and Newcastle to his amazement received it back from the earl with an additional clause written by the king’s hand, and a message that the king would have it inserted in the speech which was to be laid before him next day in cabinet council. The clause began: “Born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of Britain” [sic], and went on to express the king’s confidence in the loyalty of his people and his desire to promote their welfare. The words were unexceptionable, but the absolute command to insert them in the speech for which the ministers, not the king, were responsible, was unwise. The use of the word Britain was attributed to the Scotsman Bute. In later life the king declared that he had written the clause without suggestion from any one. His command was obeyed, and the manner in which his words were received illustrates the adulation then customarily rendered to the sovereign. Hardwicke, who was in the habit of composing addresses for his colleagues, seems to have taken “Britain” for “Briton,” as indeed it usually appears in print, and inserted a clause in the lords’ address ending with—"What a lustre does it cast on the name of Briton when you, Sir, are pleased to esteem it among your glories!” When whig lords could adopt such words as these, a young king might well be encouraged to think over-highly of the royal prerogative. The incident has a special interest. The cabinet council of the 17th, in which the speech was read in its final form, was held by the king in person. By the end of the last reign it had become unusual that the king should preside at cabinet meetings. With one doubtful exception, George III. never again presided at a meeting, and so the absence of the sovereign from the deliberations of the cabinet became an established constitutional usage. Thus at the time when the king was preparing to assume a preponderance in the government, the crown finally abandoned one of the few remaining customs which indicated a right to govern as well as to reign.
A like contrast is afforded by the arrangement of the civil list. George was the first sovereign who entirely surrendered his interest in the hereditary revenues of the crown in England, and placed them at the disposal of parliament. In return parliament voted him a civil list, or fixed revenue, “for the support of his household and the dignity of the crown”. The sum voted was £800,000 a year, which was at first charged with some pensions to members of the royal family. By this arrangement the control of parliament over the king’s expenditure was asserted at a time when the king was relying on his prerogative to enable him to become independent of ministerial control. Besides this income George had the hereditary revenues from Scotland, a civil list in Ireland, the duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster, and certain admiralty and other dues, the whole amounting to “certainly not much short of a million annually”. If the value of money at the time is considered, it may be allowed that the crown was amply provided for, and that so thrifty a king as George would always have found his revenues sufficient for his needs, if he had not spent large sums in supplying pensions and places of profit for his political adherents, and in other methods of corruption. The good impression made by the young king was heightened by a speech from the throne on March 3, 1761, recommending that in order to complete the independence of judges, their commission should not for the future be terminated by the demise of the crown, and that sufficient salaries should be assigned to them. An act to that effect was accordingly passed. On the 19th the king closed the session, and parliament was dissolved shortly afterwards.
The war was going on gloriously under Pitt’s direction. Our ally, Frederick of Prussia, was, indeed, in distress in spite of his hard-earned victory at Torgau, for his resources were exhausted, and half his dominions were occupied by his enemies. During 1761 Prince Henry made no progress in Saxony. Frederick himself lost Schweidnitz, and, with it, half Silesia, while the fall of Colberg left the Russians free either to besiege Stettin in the following spring, or to seize on Brandenburg. In Western Germany, however, where a British army was serving under Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick in the defence of Hanover against the French, a signal success was gained. Early in the year the allies entered Hesse, and forced the French to retreat almost to the Main. Nevertheless they failed to take Cassel, the chief object of the campaign, and were obliged to retire from Hesse. In June two French armies, under Marshal de Broglie and Prince Soubise, effected a junction at Paderborn, advanced to Soest, and threatened Lippstadt. Ferdinand took up a position between the Lippe and the Ahse at Vellinghausen. On July 15 he was attacked by the French. The enemy engaged his left wing, formed by the British troops under their commander, the gallant Marquis of Granby. The attack was splendidly met and finally repulsed. The battle was renewed the next morning at daybreak, and the allies gained a complete victory. The British troops, who formed about a fourth part of the allied army, highly distinguished themselves; Maxwell’s grenadiers alone captured four French battalions. This victory, won against heavy odds, foiled the most serious attempt of the French against Hanover; it saved Lippstadt, which would have been exceedingly useful to them as a depôt; and, more than that, it caused a quarrel between Broglie and Soubise, which ended in the recall of Broglie, by far the abler of the two generals. Meanwhile they parted company; Soubise did much mischief in Westphalia, and Broglie campaigned to the east of the Weser. The French kept their hold on Göttingen and Cassel, and were therefore in a position to renew their attacks on Hanover the following year.
News came from India of the fall of Pondicherry on January 15, 1761, and this was the end of the French power in that land. Few were the French ships which put out to sea during the year, and they were all taken. In the West Indies Dominica, one of the so-called neutral islands, of which the French had taken possession, was reduced by Lord Rollo, then holding a command in New York. About the same time the French received a more galling blow. On March 29 a fleet under the command of Keppel, carrying a land force of about 9,000 men under General Hodgson, sailed for Belle Ile, a small and barren island with a population of 5,000, mostly fisher-folk. It was fortified and well garrisoned. A first attempt to land was repulsed with nearly 500 casualties. Tidings of the repulse were brought to Pitt; he sent reinforcements and ordered the commander to persevere. A second attempt, carried out with remarkable daring, was successful, and siege was laid to Palais, the strong place of the island. It was gallantly defended by the governor, who in a night attack surprised the British in their trenches and inflicted a heavy loss upon them. The lines which covered the town were taken by storm and the place was abandoned, but the fortress still held out. As, however, the British ships cut off all supplies, the garrison was at last, on June 7, forced to capitulate. They marched out with the honours of war and were conveyed to the mainland. By the capture of Belle Ile England gained far more than the barren island; it was French soil, and France would be prepared to surrender possessions of greater value in exchange for it. For Pitt the success of the expedition was a special triumph, for he had insisted upon it in spite of the opposition of Newcastle and the adverse opinion of the admirals Hawke and Boscawen.
While Pitt was laying down and carrying out plans of victory, the king and Bute were exciting discord between him and Newcastle. For a few days after the accession Newcastle seemed more in favour than Pitt, who was justly displeased because Lord George Sackville, one of Bute’s friends, was received at court in spite of his recent disgrace. Before long, however, Newcastle found himself slighted and became violently jealous of Pitt. If Bute were to ally himself with Pitt and adopt his policy, the old minister knew that his own day would soon be over. He received a hint that a change was contemplated. At the end of six months, Bute said, the king “will declare whom he will call to his cabinet council”. The alliance between Pitt and Bute seemed complete. In January, 1761, the Spanish ambassador wrote: “there is no better voice in council than his [Pitt’s], which joined to that of my Lord Bute seems to decide matters”. Pitt could work well with the rising star so long as Bute did not oppose the continuance of the war, for he heartily approved of breaking down party distinctions, and, like the king, hated government by connexion. While, however, the king desired to destroy factions in order to establish personal government, Pitt desired that they should give place to a system of government by the best men, supported by the king and the nation. Tories were graciously received at court, and among them many of Bute’s fellow-countrymen. In November, 1760, six tory lords and grooms of the bed-chamber were appointed without any intimation having been given to Newcastle. The whigs were amazed, and the duke’s mortification was keen.
The king’s determination to break down the system which had so long secured the whig power was set forth and commended in a remarkable pamphlet written by Douglas, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, and probably inspired by his patron, Lord Bath. It urged the king to be on his guard against “the pretensions of a confederacy of ministers,” and to exercise the full extent of power allowed him by the constitution. He must not let his patronage go by the advice of ministers. Let him rely on his people; let him be master. Proscription, the writer says, is ended, and he expresses his belief that if the king will pursue the line marked out in his pamphlet, corruption also will disappear; for so long as a minister disposes of places, he has the means of corrupting parliament, whereas if the crown dispenses its own patronage it will gain strength, and the independence of parliament will be restored. For Newcastle, the veteran dispenser of the royal patronage, such a system meant political extinction. Its meaning was already brought home to him by an intimation that he was not to have “the choice of parliament,” the management of the coming general election in boroughs under government influence, nor to purchase seats with the treasury money. Anson was reproved by Bute for having, according to custom, provided members for the admiralty boroughs. Newcastle believed, with good reason, that Pitt and Bute were agreed on this matter. He was deeply distressed, and told his friend Hardwicke that he thought he must resign office. That, however, was the last thing he was likely to do.
While Pitt may have welcomed the co-operation of his new ally from a belief that they had a common policy as regards government by connexion, and as a means of checking the opposition with which his plans were often received by Newcastle and his friends, it is certain from later events that the king and Bute were not sincere in their dealings with him. They designed to raise dissension between him and his fellow-ministers, and so prepare a way for Bute’s assumption of office and for the termination of the war. As early as January 18, 1761, when Newcastle was sufficiently frightened and humbled, the Sardinian minister, Count de Viri, one of Bute’s tools, had a secret interview with him, and proposed that the earl should be made a secretary of state. Newcastle, who was mortally afraid of Pitt, said that the appointment must be made with his concurrence, for otherwise Pitt might blame him, and might perhaps resign office and leave him and Bute saddled with the conduct of the war.
Bute intended when in office to make a peace which would immortalise his name. He saw that this would soonest be obtained if England withdrew from the war on the continent and confined her operations to the sea. France would then be induced by the loss of her colonies to make a separate peace. Pitt was determined not to assent to any peace which was not made in concert with our allies and did not insure England a full return for her victories. Bute would have had the country stand apart from continental politics; Pitt desired that it should have continental allies and make itself felt in the politics of Europe. The two opposing views are characteristic of the two men. Pitt maintained that the continental war was profitable because it had hindered France from putting forth her full strength in defence of her colonies. Statesmanlike as his position was, there was much to be said on the side of the tories and others, who held that England should confine herself to a naval war. We have, they argued, no interest in a war for Silesia. Why should we pay Frederick £670,000 a year, the amount of the subsidy again granted to him soon after the accession, for fighting in his own quarrel? What profit do we derive from the £340,000 paid to the Landgrave of Hesse for the hire of troops? The naval war has brought a rich return; on the continent we have nothing to gain by victory. As for the argument that the German war is one of diversion, why should we divert a war from the sea, where we are supreme, to land, where we must necessarily be inferior to France? To fight in Germany for Hanover is to surrender the advantages of an insular position. Better let France overrun Hanover, for, as we shall possess her colonies, we can force her to surrender it again.
These arguments are ably stated in a pamphlet entitled Considerations on the German War, written by one Israel Mauduit, and published at the end of 1760. It had a strong effect on public opinion, and was followed by other pamphlets more or less on the same lines, and probably written at the instigation of Bute, for he employed and largely rewarded the services of pamphleteers. Their arguments were enforced by the growing expenses of the war and the difficulty of obtaining men for the army. The supplies granted for the year 1760 were £15,503,563; for 1761 they amounted to £19,616,119, the interest on which was to be paid by the continuance of the old taxes and a new tax of three shillings per barrel on beer and ale. The national debt of Great Britain and Ireland, which in 1755 was £72,505,572, entailing a charge for interest and expenses of a little over £2,500,000, amounted in 1760 to £102,000,000, with a charge of £3,500,000. In 1761 the British troops serving abroad were thirty-nine regiments of foot and thirty-one of horse and dragoons; in all, 110,000 men, besides 60,000 German auxiliaries in British pay. In Germany we had about 25,000 men. At the same time sea-pay was drawn for 288 ships of various kinds and 80,675 men, the navy then consisting of 378 vessels, of which 285 were first to sixth rates. Of these, 121 ships of the line with about 70,000 men were in active service. The call for men was very heavy in proportion to the population, and high bounties were offered for enlistment. Balloting for the new militia caused some riots in the north, specially at Hexham, where the miners fiercely attacked the militia, and forty-two men were killed and forty-eight wounded.
Before the king and Bute opened their campaign they insured support in parliament. Early in 1761 preparations were made for the general election. The court spread the idea that it was for purity of election; it was known that Newcastle’s hands were tied, and it was expected that no money would be issued from the treasury. Nothing was less true. Corruption was rampant and the treasury issued large sums. George personally named candidates for boroughs belonging to the crown, to which the ministry had hitherto appointed, and otherwise took an active share in the arrangements. For the most part he worked through Bute, to whom Newcastle was forced to submit his lists of candidates that he might compare them with his own and decide who should be brought in. This was galling to the old minister, but he had already done much to forward the whig interest in the coming election, and flattered himself that “they [the court] had left matters too late for them to do any mischief”. In former elections the whigs used the resources of the crown to secure power for themselves; in this election the crown itself used its own means of corrupt influence. Private men followed its example. A new class of candidates appeared, men without party connexion or local interest, who had lately become rich, West India merchants, “nabobs” gorged with the spoils of the East, shareholders of the East India Company, admirals and others who had reaped a splendid harvest from the destruction of the commerce and shipping of France. The competition for seats was extraordinary; at Andover there were nine candidates. Constituencies which had long obeyed the orders of great landlords were no longer to be reckoned upon. No political question was exciting public interest, and the borough elections were decided rather by money than by measures. Bribery was carried to a preposterous height, and the new-rich bought seats as openly as they bought their horses. The borough of Sudbury went so far as to advertise itself for sale. Those who without political aims or connexions forced themselves into parliament by their wealth were peculiarly open to court influence. Newcastle’s belief that the elections would secure his position was ill-founded; many members on whom he relied were ready to desert him at the bidding of the court. By the beginning of March, before the elections were over, the king and Bute were sure of the support they desired.
Bute was in a position which enabled him to take office and to begin to carry out the designs cherished by his master and himself, to bring the war to an end and to encourage the jealousy of Pitt’s colleagues to such an extent that they would force him to leave them. He could be dispensed with as soon as peace was made, and without him the whig ranks could easily be broken up, for Newcastle could be crushed at any time. With Bute as an ally Pitt dominated over his fellow-ministers, who bore his yoke with rebellious feelings. If Bute came over to their side they could make a stand against him. Viri’s secret negotiations on Bute’s behalf gave them a chance not to be neglected. Newcastle, Hardwicke, and the Duke of Devonshire took counsel together, and Newcastle went to the king with a proposal that Bute should accept office. To this George, of course, readily assented. Pitt knew nothing of all this until the matter was settled. On March 12 Holdernesse was dismissed. It was not a creditable business; four months before he had signified his readiness to make room for Bute, and he received a present pension of £4,000 a year and the reversion of the wardenship of the Cinque Ports, which was at least equally valuable, as a reward for his complaisance. He was succeeded by Bute as secretary of state on the 25th.
At the same time Legge, the chancellor of the exchequer, who had refused to accede to Bute’s wishes with regard to two elections, and was much disliked by the king, was dismissed, and was succeeded by Lord Barrington, an honest man, with no strong political convictions, who was always ready to carry out the king’s plans. Barrington was succeeded as secretary-at-war by Charles Townshend, a brilliant wit and orator, “the delight and ornament” of the house of commons, a reckless and unstable politician, who was destined to bring evil on his country. A month earlier, one of Bute’s adherents, George Grenville, the treasurer of the navy, a brother of Earl Temple, lord privy seal, and a brother-in-law of Pitt, was rewarded by a seat in the cabinet. He had considerable ability, great aptitude for business, and a thorough knowledge of parliamentary affairs, was a statesman of unsullied purity, public-spirited, hard-working and ambitious; he was deficient in tact, had no generosity of mind, and was harsh, formal, and impatient of opposition. Newcastle’s perfidy increased the ill-feeling between him and Pitt, against whom the new alliance was avowedly directed, for at the time that Newcastle sold himself to Bute in order to gain his support, Pitt was becoming aware that the king was probably about to oppose his policy with respect to the war. Newcastle was delighted with the success of his trick, but he soon found that Bute slighted him, and that his power was going from him, for he was no longer allowed to control the patronage of the crown. By treating him in this way the king and Bute kept him subservient. Bute aggravated the division between the ministers, and used Pitt’s colleagues against him in the conflict which was impending on the question of peace and war. The history of that conflict is for convenience’ sake deferred to the next chapter.
The satisfaction caused by the young king’s gracious manners and respectable life was increased by his marriage. In 1755 his grandfather had proposed that he should marry a princess of the house of Brunswick, but abandoned the project in consequence of the opposition of George’s mother. About a year before his accession George fell in love with Lady Sarah Lennox, a daughter of the late Duke of Richmond and sister-in-law of Henry Fox, a young lady of remarkable beauty. His attentions to her were continued after his accession. Fox and his wife, Lady Caroline, took care that he should have every opportunity of seeing her; and George, as he rode through Kensington, was charmed to find her in a fancy dress playing at hay-making in front of Fox’s residence, Holland House. He went so far as to signify plainly to her that he meant to make her a formal offer of marriage. Most inopportunely Lady Sarah broke her leg, and while she was laid up, the princess-dowager and Bute persuaded George to change his mind. They at once arranged a marriage for him with the Princess Charlotte, a daughter of the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and the marriage took place on September 8. The queen did not meddle in affairs of state; she bore fifteen children, and had many domestic virtues. On the 22nd the king and queen were crowned.