Great Events in the History of North and South America

by Charles A. Goodrich

Grenville.

George Grenville was born 1712. In 1741, he was returned to parliament for the town of Buckingham, for which place he served during the remainder of his life. He held several important offices. In April, 1763, he became first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer. He resigned his office in July, 1765, and died in November, 1770. During his premiership, the project of imposing internal taxes in America was carried into effect. The project was first named to him by the king, and urged upon him. At first, the minister was opposed to the idea, but after having adopted it as a measure of his administration, which he was compelled to do by royal authority, he urged and supported it by all the means in his power.

DUKE OF GRAFTON.

Henry Augustus Fitzroy, Duke of Grafton, was born 1735. He was educated at Cambridge, where he was notoriously profligate. In July, 1766, the Rockingham administration was dissolved, and the Duke of Grafton was made first lord commissioner of the treasury, which office he held until January, 1770. He has received an unenviable notoriety from the strictures of Junius. His administration was composed of men of different political principles and parties. Junius, in a letter addressed to the duke, thus narrates, and severely animadverts upon, the circumstances of his grace's appointment to the premiership: "The spirit of the favorite (Lord Bute) had some apparent influence upon every administration; and every set of ministers preserved an appearance of duration as long as they submitted to that influence; but there were certain services to be performed for the favorite's security, or to gratify his resentments, which your predecessors in office had the wisdom, or the virtue, not to undertake. A submissive administration was, at last, gradually collected from the deserters of all parties, interests, and connexions; and nothing remained but to find a leader for these gallant, well-disciplined troops. Stand forth, my lord, for thou art the man! Lord Bute found no resource of dependence or security in the proud, imposing superiority of Lord Chatham's abilities; the shrewd, inflexible judgment of Mr. Grenville; nor in the mild, but determined integrity of Lord Rockingham. His views and situation required a creature void of all these properties; and he was forced to go through all his division, resolution, composition, and refinement of political chemistry, before he happily arrived at the caput mortuum of vitriol in your grace. Flat and insipid in your retired state, but brought into action, you become vitriol again. Such are the extremes of alternate indolence or fury, which have governed your whole administration!"

FREDERICK NORTH, EARL OF GUILFORD.

This nobleman, better known as Lord North, was the minister of George III., under whose administration England lost her American colonies. He succeeded Charles Townshend, as chancellor of the exchequer; and, in 1770, the Duke of Grafton, as first lord of the treasury, and continued in that high, but laborious office, till the conclusion of the war. As a public character, Lord North was a flowing and persuasive orator, well skilled in argumentation, and master of great presence and coolness of mind; and, in private life, he was very amiable, cheerful, and jocose in conversation, the friend of learned men, and correct in conduct. In his policy towards America, he was stern and uncompromising. On first coming into power, he was inclined to be conciliatory; but soon he adopted restrictive and oppressive measures, more so than his predecessors, and, at length, declared that he would omit no means but that he would bring America in humility at his feet. The faithful warnings of Pitt, Burke, Fox, and others, had no restraining influence, and the consequence was, that America was lost to the British crown. Lord North, in the latter years of his life, was afflicted with blindness. He died July, 1792, aged sixty.

BARRASTRE TARLETON.

Colonel Tarleton was born in Liverpool, on the 21st of August, 1754, and at first commenced studying law, but, on the breaking out of war in America, he entered the army, and, having arrived in that country, he was permitted to raise a body of troops called the "British Legion," which he commanded in several successful excursions against the enemy. Such was the daring intrepidity, energy, and skill, with which he conducted his corps, that he may be said to have greatly accelerated, if not secured, some of the most important victories under Lord Cornwallis. On his return to England, he was made a colonel, and became so popular that, in 1790, he was returned, free of expense, as a member for Liverpool, which he represented in three subsequent parliaments.

In 1818, previously to which he had been raised to the rank of general, he was created a baronet, and, on the coronation of George the Fourth, was made a K. C. B. He was one of the bravest officers of his time, and is described as having been to the British, in the American war, what Arnold, in his early career, was to the Americans.