Though, for our own parts, we cannot quite subscribe to the King of Hanover's indulgent estimate of his father's epistolary ability: 'No man wrote better, or knew how to express his opinion in a concise way, than George the Third.' —Jesse, ii. 47.

'I should think it the greatest instance among the many I have met with of ingratitude and injustice, if it could be supposed that any man in my dominions more ardently desired the restoration of peace and solid happiness in every part of this empire than I do; there is no personal sacrifice I could not readily yield for so desirable an object; but at the same time no inclination to get out of the present difficulties, which certainly keep my mind very far from a state of ease, can incline me to enter into what I look upon as the destruction of the empire. I have heard Lord North frequently drop that the advantages to be gained by this contest could never repay the expence; I owne that, let any war be ever so successful, if persons will sit down and weigh the expences, they will find, as in the last, that it has impoverished the State, enriched individuals, and perhaps raised the name only of the conquerors; but this is only weighing such events in the scale of a tradesman behind his counter. It is necessary for those in the station it has pleased Divine Providence to place me to weigh whether expences, though very great, are not sometimes necessary to prevent what might be more ruinous to a country than the loss of money. The present contest with America I cannot help seeing as the most serious in which any country was ever engaged; it contains such a train of consequences that they must be examined to feel its real weight. Whether the laying a tax was deserving all the evils that have arisen from it, I should suppose no man could alledge (sic) that without being thought more fit for Bedlam than a seat in the Senate; but step by step the demands of America have risen: independance is their object; that certainly is one which every man not willing to sacrifice every object to a momentary and inglorious peace must concurr with me in thinking that this country can never submit to: should America succeed in that, the West Indies must follow them, not independence, but must for its own interest be dependent on North America. Ireland would soon follow the same plan and be a separate state; then this island would be reduced to itself, and soon would be a poor island indeed, for, reduced in her trade, merchants would retire with their wealth to climates more to their advantage, and shoals of manufacturers would leave this country for the new empire. These self-evident consequences are not worse than what can arise should the Almighty permit every event to turn out to our disadvantage; consequently this country has but one sensible, one great line to follow, the being ever ready to make peace when to be obtained without submitting to terms that in their consequence must annihilate this empire, and with firmness to make every effort to deserve success.'

But to pass to

more important qualifications than good

spelling

spelling and grammar. There is no doubt that the King had not, as he himself quaintly regrets, 'the powers of oratory of a Demosthenes, or the pen of an Addison' (ii. 321). There is a striking contrast between the dulness and narrowness, and extreme of commonplace, in which he generally expresses himself respecting matters of political interest-the 'twaddle,' to speak irreverently, to which he treats Lord North-the truisms, which one would be tempted to call Joseph Surface-like, were it not for the transparent honesty of the writer, respecting the beauties of the British Constitution, and the preference due to virtue over vice, with which he is wont to preface the intimation of some audacious act of autocracy-and the resolute, able coupd'œil with which he sometimes seizes a merely practical question. Obstinate he was to the extreme extent of that quality, obstinate in adherence to what he deemed principles, obstinate in achieving his will for minor purposes; but between these two classes of subjects, there was another on which his good sense overcame his obstinacy. No one seems to have known better than he, at times, when to change his front in face of an enemy, when to seek to obtain by a flank movement what he had missed in a dash. It was not without truth, in this sense, that Lord Grenville observed in one of his private letters (as quoted by Lord Russell) that 'George the Third always knew when he must give way.'

The following short letter (hitherto unprinted) in the matter of Wilkes, with Mr. Donne's commentary on it, will illustrate our meaning:

'Queen's House, March 20th, 1771. 55 min. pt. 9 a.m.

LORD NORTH,-I am sorry the business of committing the Lord Mayor could not be concluded last night, for every delay in a breach of privilege of so enormous a kind seems to indicate to the bystander a less attachment in the House of Commons to its own authority than every wellwisher can desire; besides, whatever time is given to the Lord Mayor is in reality allowing consultation and plans of disturbance to the factious. I owne I could have wished that Wilkes had not been ordered before the House, for he must be in a jail the next term if not given new life by some punishment inflicted on him, which will bring him new supplies; and I do not doubt he will hold such a language that will oblige some notice to be taken of him.'

His Majesty, indeed (remarks Mr. Donne), was very near the truth, and showed that, whatever the House may have done, he had learnt wisdom from the Middlesex election. There can be no doubt that the printers' business did not answer Mr. Wilkes's expectations when he caught at it. "His fortunes," says Mr. Massey (Hist. ii. p. 91), were again at a low ebb; the subscriptions which had flowed

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so freely to his relief during the Middlesex elections had fallen off as that excitement wore away; the Society for the Support of the Bill of Rights began to think that their organisation might be available for other objects than the relief of a patriot's pecuniary necessities. A dispute had arisen between Wilkes and a former friend and coadjutor, the celebrated Parson Horne; and, as usually happens with patriots when they fall out, Wilkes and Horne became implacable foes, and Horne, who had proved himself a match for Junius, was much more than a match for Wilkes."-Comp. 'Lord Mahon,' v. p. 299-301.

We have always thought that the King's advice to Lord North as to the best mode of pursuing the contest with America after the accession of France to her alliance, furnished another and far more remarkable instance of his possession of this faculty, and comprehension of the maxim 'reculer pour mieux sauter.' It is a great pity that we are unable to ascertain what answers Lord North himself made to appeals thus frequently addressed to him, and (as we know) so entirely disregarded :-

" Jan. 31st, 1778. 'You will remember that after the recess I strongly advised you not to bring forward a proposition for restoring tranquility to North America, not from any absurd ideas of unconditional submission my mind never harboured, but from perceiving that whatever can be proposed will be liable not to bring America back to a sense of attachment to the mother country, yet to dissatisfy this country, which has in the most handsome manner chearfully carried on the contest, and therefore has a right to have the struggle continued untill convinced that it is in vain. Perhaps this is the minute of all others that you ought to be the least in a hurry to produce any plan of that kind, for every letter from France adds to the appearance of a speedy declaration of war: should that event happen, it might perhaps be wise to strengthen the forces in Canada, the Floridas, and Nova Scotia : withdraw the rest from North America, and without loss of time employ them in attacking New Orleans, and the French and Spanish West India possessions. Success in those parts would repay us the great expenses incurred; we must at the same time continue destroying the trade and ports of the rebellious colonies, and thus soon bring both contests to a conclusion: and this country, having had its attention diverted to a fresh object, would be in a better temper to subscribe to such terms as administration might think advisable to offer America, who on her part will at such a time be more ready to treat than at the present hour.

'Perhaps,' he says in another letter of the same month, 'the time may come when it will be wise to abandon all North America but Canada, Nova Scotia, and the Floridas: but then the generality of the nation must see it first in that light; but to treat with Independence can never be possible.'-See also ii. 207.

Mr. Donne does the King a great deal less than justice in this

matter

matter. Lord Barrington (Secretary-at-War) wrote to Lord North on August 8, 1775:

As it is the measure of Government to have a large army in North America, it is my duty and inclination to make that measure succeed to the utmost: though my opinion always has been, and still is, that the Americans may be reduced by the fleet, but never can be by the army.'

On which Mr. Donne observes:

Had the King listened to his Secretary at War, instead of trusting Lord George Germaine, and forcing Lord North into a course of which he disapproves, much "dishonour" and infinite "loss" might have been spared to England even at this moment of the crisis.'

Now, if France had not joined the United States, and if the British forces had been handled by men of ability instead of incapables like Howe and Burgoyne, it is very possible that the rebellion, in spite of all the resolution and resources of the Americans, might have been suppressed by the army; whereas it is very certain that it never could have been by the navy. But when France mingled in the business, the conditions of the problem were entirely changed; and we see that the King, if he could have had his way, would then have done what Lord Barrington prematurely advised three years before. And had the King's views prevailed, the French and American fleets would not have been paramount in the Chesapeake, while Cornwallis was besieged by a force of thrice his amount in York Town.

Although, however, our own estimate of King George's capacity is certainly very different from that professed by the authors of the 'Rolliad' and their allies, and the descendants of these in the next generation, yet we were quite unprepared for the panegyric recently pronounced upon his ability by the staunchest surviving inheritor of Whig last century traditions-by Lord Russell himself-in the last volume of his Life of Fox:'

'In the resources of skill and subtlety, and of what is commonly called “kingcraft," the King was infinitely superior to Pitt. From the commencement of his reign he had practised on the statesmen of the greatest fame and popularity. He had defeated Pitt by appealing to George Grenville and the Duke of Bedford; he had got rid of Grenville by calling in Lord Rockingham; he had supplanted Lord Rockingham by calling upon Lord Chatham; upon Lord Chatham's failure, he had supplied his loss by making a tool of Lord North; and, lastly, he had defeated the coalition of Fox and North by calling upon younger Pitt. Then, again, as to measures, he had baffled the plans of Pitt the elder, which would have pacified America, and the larger and liberal views of Pitt the younger, which would

the

have pacified Ireland, by the intimate knowledge of men and of the national character, which gave him a mastery over the greatest and highest of his subjects.'-Life of Fox,' iii. 324.

That Farmer George was a cleverer fellow than Laurence and Fitzpatrick or even Fox and Sheridan gave him credit for, we can well believe. But that he was such a crowned Machiavel as this picture represents, and the magnates of Whig and Tory tradition such innocent victims in his grasp, we for our own parts can by no means suppose. We think that George the Third's undoubted 'mastery,' in most emergencies and in the long run, over so many leading politicians, is chiefly ascribable to a cause quite independent of his abilities. He was always determined to play out his own game; and, in doing so against private opponents, he had the advantage which the Bank, at Homburg or Baden, possesses over individual players. His 'reserve' was greater than theirs. He could better afford to stand a run against him than they severally could. Possessed of the full resources of royal influence and patronage, and in the habit of making the most unsparing use of them (we avoid the word 'unscrupulous' lest we should seem to imply a moral judgment which we had no intention to pass) he could overpower them by a pressure to which they must needs ultimately succumb. Only one man ever broke the king's bank at the game of politics-and that was William Pitt. And even in that instance the final victory was a divided one. The best analogy which we can find in this respect to the case of George the Third is that of one whom he in many points resembled—the other bourgeois sovereign of modern days, Louis Philippe. But the latter's difficulties were greater, and proved insuperable, though he was doubtless in many respects the more gifted man

of the two.

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6

Of the determined self-will with which the king set about his self-imposed mission, to govern as well as reign, during the period now under review, it is unnecessary to speak, as no trait in history is better known. The power of a single will' (as Lord Russell truly says) was conspicuous: but the constitution afforded ample means of overruling that will, had the minister obeyed his own convictions, or had the House of Commons been true to the people whom they represented.' No doubt: but, generally speaking, king, majority of the House of Commons, and constituencies, were all of a mind. We are convinced that Mr. Donne, conversant as he is with the subject, mistakes in one important respect the real character of the sovereign. 'Had he not, he asks, been trained to believe it his duty to be every