possessed amply. Perhaps no Minister has ever retained such large majorities in the face of so many and increasing failures. Mr. Massey goes on to say :

'No creeping ambition actuated his conduct. When he enumerated his unpopular votes as a proof that he was not ambitious, I have no doubt that he spoke with perfect sincerity; although it so happened that the very course which seemed to him to lead in an opposite direction was the one which conducted him to power. . . . He supported the King against the aristocracy; the Parliament against the people; and the nation against the Colonies. Had Lord North shrunk from the post of danger, it is not likely that any other man could have been found to occupy it. The King must have given way.'

Assuming this portrait to be true, it only proves that Lord North must have possessed in an eminent degree the qualities which are required in a leader of the House of Commons. In a House, in which Burke and Barré, Conway and Sir George Savile, were distinguished speakers, the Minister who could hold his own against so formidable a phalanx could have been no common debater. And all the accounts which we have received of that era represent him as powerful in debate, and a master of financial details. With an easy and playful wit he combined a clear and forcible expression; and he recommended both by a singular sweetness and placidity of temper. Often assailed in language which would not be tolerated in Parliament now-a-days, he always replied without bitterness, and generally with good-humoured banter. A personal allusion of Burke serves at the same time to show the reckless license in which even the great parliamentary speakers of those days indulged, and the physical disadvantages under which Lord North laboured. The noble lord who spoke last, after extending his right leg a full yard before his left, rolling his flaming eyes, and moving his ponderous frame, has at length opened his mouth. But the same great orator, in his letter to a Noble Lord,' describes him in these terms: He was a man of admirable parts, of general knowledge, of a versatile understanding, fitted for every kind of business, of infinite wit and pleasantry, of a delightful temper, and with a mind most perfectly disinterested. His great defect was a want of firmness 'which made him unable to resist the influence of those he loved;' though in defending their opinions he often encountered greater difficulties than he would have done in following We shall see, in the course of this correspondence, how often he would cheerfully have resigned office, had his feelings of friendship to the King permitted him. At the same

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his own.

time it is difficult to see that a policy essentially different from that which he pursued in respect to America would have been followed by any contemporary Minister, except Lord Rockingham; and Lord Rockingham's views on this subject were not the views generally entertained by the nation. We may further add that Lord North was an elegant scholar of the Eton type; and, emphatically a gentleman. And, as the King, painfully impressed by his former experience, remarked, 'It was no slight thing having to do business with a gentleman.'

Those who like to see a dramatic unity preserved throughout the relations of life, and those who love to see warm friendships perpetuated to the close of life, will be equally pained at the change which finally came over the mutual sentiments of the King and Lord North. While we read this correspondence, it seems impossible to believe that the time should ever come when the King and his Minister would be no longer friends. Yet that time did come, and came much sooner than either of the correspondents dreamed of. The Minister who had played the part of buffer between the Court and the Opposition, who had won majorities over to the side of the Court, and stood by the Court when they had dwindled to minorities, was himself to become a leader of Opposition, and a colleague both in Opposition and office with the man whose political principles and personal character were peculiarly odious to the King. His name was to be associated with a coalition which even the lax morality of those days deemed flagrantly dishonest, and with tactics which public opinion, then and since, has pronounced to be wholly unworthy of him as a man and a statesman. He was destined at a later period to act with men who abetted the HeirApparent's unconstitutional projects on the throne, and encouraged the unseemly jests of his parasites at its helpless occupant. It is not strange that the King should have felt deeply this bitter return for friendly intercourse and continued kindnesses; or that he should have spoken of Lord North as that ungrateful man.' Chatham, indeed, had been treated with great consideration, and had not returned it with the gratitude which the King thought due. But Chatham's nature was arrogant, dictatorial, and ungracious. Besides, Chatham did not ever, like North

... bear the key of all his counsels,

And know the very bottom of his soul;

And almost might have coined him into gold.'

In the ingratitude of Lord North the King experienced the ingratitude of an old and familiar friend; one who knew his every thought and wish. And to us this ingratitude seems

inexplicable by any other assumption than that Lord North, with all his cleverness and good-nature, was wholly without sensibility. This is not an uncommon occurrence. Many of the people who pass through life with the character of being 'genial' and 'good-tempered,' owe their reputation entirely to the fact that they are not sensitive and thin-skinned. A man who has a good digestion, strong nerves, a smiling face, and a constitutional insensibility to ridicule or invective, may be a man without tenderness, without scruples, and without gratitude; but, in the estimation of the world, he will pass for being a far 'better fellow' than the man whose kindliness or scrupulousness is marred by a thin-skinned susceptibility to blame or reproof. Lord North's nature was devoid of all profound emotion; probably, of all profound convictions. It was this want of depth which made him equally forgetful of former slights and former kindnesses; of old friends and old enemies; equally ready to help the King against Fox, and to coalesce with Fox against the King; to tolerate for years a servant who was perpetually giving him offence, and to ally himself with a faction which had for years been reviling and deriding him. This is not a great character, but it is an eminently popular one; and, as in the case of Lord North, there are seasons when it may be very useful.

We will now proceed to examine some of the letters which show in the strongest light the King's personal qualities, political opinions, and estimate of his Minister.

We will begin with those letters in which the King gives expression to his affection for and confidence in his Minister. The first letter we shall quote relates to a matter of domestic interest which had caused the King great pain. His third brother the Duke of Cumberland, a Prince of handsome features but low stature, mean talents, and small acquirements, had crowned many amours by an intrigue with the Countess Grosvenor. An action was brought by her husband against her seducer, and the jury assessed the damages at 10,000l. The sequel of the Duke's history was not calculated to reconcile him to the King. After a notorious intrigue with the young wife of a citizen who seems to have been rather gratified at the scandal, His Royal Highness married the widow of Mr. Christopher Horton, a woman whose attractions, according to Walpole, consisted in her being extremely pretty, well made, with the most amorous eyes in the world, and eyelashes a yard long.' The other brother spoken of in the letter is the Duke of Gloucester, the second and once the bestloved brother of George III.

Richmond Lodge, Nov. 5th, 1770. 'LORD NORTH,-A subject of a most private and delicate kind obliges me to lose no time in acquainting you that my two brothers have this day applied to me on the difficulty which the folly of the youngest has drawn him into; the affair is too publick for you to doubt but that it regards the lawsuit; the time will expire this day sevennight, when he must pay the damages and the other expenses attending it. He has taken no one step to raise the money, and now has applied to me as the only means by which he can obtain it, promising to repay it in a year and half; I therefore promised to write to you, though I saw great difficulty in your finding so large a sum as thirteen thousand pounds in so short a time; but their pointing out to me that the prosecutor would certainly force the House, which would at this licentious time occasion disagreeable reflections on the rest of his family as well as on him. I shall speak more fully to you on this subject on Wednesday, but the time is so short that I did [not] choose to delay opening this affair till then; besides, I am not fond of taking persons on delicate affairs unprepared; whatever can be done ought to be done; and I ought as little as possible to appear in so very improper a business. GEORGE R.'*

The King's personal solicitude for his Minister's health appears in this :

:

'Queen's House, Feb. 24th, 1777. 50 min. pt. 5 p.m.

'LORD NORTH,-I am sorry to find your cold is encreased, and I strongly recommend ABSTINENCE and WATER as the ablest and safest physicians.' (Vol. ii. p. 55.)

The anxiety of the King depicted in the following letter points to the wish to resign office, which Lord North had some time entertained and avowed to the King, in consequence of the success of the American arms and the conclusion of a treaty between the United States and France :

:

'Kew, May 26th, 1778.

"LORD NORTH,-You cannot be surprised that the degree to which you have pressed to resign during the space of the last three months has given me much uneasiness, but it never made me harbour any thought to the disadvantage of your worth. Now you are allarmed least you have offended me, when there is not the least reason for it. As you have declared a resolution of continuing if I cannot make an arrangement to my satisfaction, this declaration of yours has thoroughly satisfied me, and I trust to be in a few days able to decide whether I can make a proper arrangement, or whether, agreable to your present request, I shall think it best to continue you in your present office: in either case you shall by deeds, not words, see that I have a real regard for you.' (Vol. ii. pp. 197, 198.)

* Donne, Correspondence of George III., vol. i. p. 33.

As the year went on, the parliamentary contest became more hot and violent, recriminations between the adherents of the Ministry and the Opposition became more and more virulent. Lord North had to fight almost single-handed. against Burke, Barré, and Savile. Burke's motion on Economical Reform enlisted the support of many partisans of the Government. Dunning's celebrated motion directed against the growth of the Crown's influence had been affirmed by a majority of eighteen in a House of four hundred and fortyeight. A general resolution to press vigorously for reform and retrenchment was displayed both within and without the House. But through want of unanimity or of honesty these majorities at last began to dwindle, and the Ministry regained temporary ascendancy. It was after one of these favourable divisions that the King wrote the following letter:—

'Queen's House, May 19th, 1780. 15 min. pt. 8 a.m.

'LORD NORTH cannot doubt that I received with pleasure his account of Mr. Burke's Bill having been defeated in the several clauses that were before the Committee yesterday.

:

'But he cannot be surprised at the real sorrow occasioned by seeing he persists in the idea that his health will not long permit him to remain in his present situation. If I had the powers of oratory of Demosthenes, or the pen of an Addison, I could not say more on the subject than what I can convey in the following few lines that I am conscious, if Lord North will resolve with spirit to continue in his present employment, that with the assistance of a new Parliament I shall be able to keep the present constitution of this country in its pristine lustre; that there is no means of letting Lord North retire from taking the lead in the House of Commons that will not probably end in evil; therefore till I see things change to a more favourable appearance I shall not think myself at liberty to consent to Lord North's request. He must be the judge whether he can therefore honorably desert me, when infalable [sic] mischief must ensue.' (Vol. ii. p. 321.)

In almost the very last letter addressed to Lord North as Prime Minister, the King thus unbosoms himself, respecting the demands of Lord North's successor :

Queen's House, March 27th, 1782. 'LORD NORTH,-At last the fatal day has come which the misfortunes of the times and the sudden change of sentiments of the House of Commons have drove me to of changing the Ministry, and a more general removal of other persons than I believe ever was known before. I have to the last fought for individuals, but the number I have saved, except my Bedchamber, is incredibly few. You would hardly believe that even the Duke of Montagu was strongly run at, but I declared that I would sooner let confusion follow than part