Towards the close of the reign of George II., who died on October 25th, 1760, his Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland, by an exhibition of great strategy, combined with much discretionary valor, succeeded in making peace on terms which ensured the repose of himself and his Hanoverian forces during the remainder of the war. At home his Royal Highness was much attacked, some venturing to describe his personal conduct as cowardly, and his generalship as contemptible. It is a sufficient refutation of such a calumny to say that the Duke of Cumberland was as brave a soldier and as able a general as our present Commander-in-Chief, his Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge.
Lord Waldegrave, who wrote in favor of George II., admits that the King "is accused by his ministers of being hasty and passionate when any measure is proposed which; he does not approve of." That "too great attention to money seems to be his capital failing." And that "his political courage seems somewhat problematical." Philli-more says: "In public life he was altogether indifferent to the welfare of England, except as it affected his Electorate's or his own. Always purchasing concubines, he was always governed by his wife. In private life he was a gross lover, an unreasonable master, a coarsely unfaithful husband, an unnatural parent, and a selfish man."
No more fitting conclusion can be found to this chapter than the following pregnant words from the pen of Lord Macaulay: "At the close of the reign of George II. the feeling of aversion with which the House of Brunswick had long been regarded by half the nation had died away; but no feeling of affection to that house had yet sprung up. There was little, indeed, in the old King's character to inspire esteem or tenderness. He was not our countryman. He never set foot on our soil till he was more than thirty years old. His speech belayed his foreign origin and breeding. His love for his native land, though the most amiable part of his character, was not likely to endear him to his British subjects. He was never so happy as when he could exchange St. James's for Heranhausen. Year after year our fleets were employed to convoy him to the Continent, and the interests of his kingdom were as nothing to him when compared with the interests of his Electorate. As to the rest, he had neither the qualities which make dulness respectable, nor the qualities which make libertinism attractive. He had been a bad son and a worse father, an unfaithful husband and an ungraceful lover. Not one magnanimous or humane action is recorded of him; but many instances of meanness, and of a harshness which, but for the strong constitutional restraints under which he was placed, might have made the misery of his people."
CHAPTER IV. THE REIGN OF GEORGE III
When George II. died, his grandson and successor, George III., was twenty-two years of age. The Civil List of the new King was fixed at £800,000 a year, "a provision," says Phillimore, in his "History of England," "that soon became inadequate to the clandestine purposes of George III., and for the purchase of the mercenary dependents, on the rapport of whom his unconstitutional proceedings obliged him to depend." The Civil List of George III. was not, however, really so large as that of her present Majesty. The Civil List disbursements included such items as Secret Service, now charged separately; pensions and annuities, now charged separately; diplomatic salaries, now forming distinct items; fees and salaries of ministers and judges, now forming no part of the charge against the Civil List. So that though £924,041 was the Civil List of George III. four years after he ascended the throne, in truth to-day the Royal Family alone get much more than all the great offices and machinery of State then cost. The Royal Family at the present time get from the country, avowedly and secretly, about one million sterling a year.
"At the accession of George III.," says Thackeray, "the Patricians were yet at the height of their good fortune. Society recognized their superiority, which they themselves pretty calmly took for granted. They inherited not only titles and estates, and seats in the House of Peers, but seats in the House of Commons. There were a multitude of Government places, and not merely these, but bribes of actual £500 notes, which members of the House took not much shame in assuming.. Fox went into Parliament at twenty, Pitt was just of age, his father not much older. It was the good time for Patricians."
A change of political parties was imminent; Whig rule had lasted seventy years, and England had become tolerably disgusted with the consequences.
"Now that George II. was dead," says Macaulay, "a courtier might venture to ask why England was to become a party in a dispute between two German powers. What was it to her whether the House of Hapsburg or the House of Brandenburg ruled in Silesia? Why were the best English regiments fighting on the Maine? Why were the Prussian battalions paid with English gold? The great minister seemed to think it beneath him to calculate the price of victory. As long as the Tower guns were fired, as the streets were illuminated, as French banners were carried in triumph through London, it was to him matter of indifference to what extent the public burdens were augmented. Nay, he seemed to glory in the magnitude of those sacrifices which the people, fascinated by his eloquence and success, had too readily made, and would long and bitterly regret. There was no check on waste or embezzlement. Our commissaries returned from the camp of Prince Ferdinand, to buy boroughs, to rear palaces, to rival the magnificence, of the old aristocracy of the realm. Already had we borrowed, in four years of war, more than the most skilful and economical government would pay in forty years of peace."
The Church allied itself with the Tories, who assumed the reins of government, and thenceforth totally forgot the views of liberty they had maintained when in opposition. The policy of all their succeeding legislation was that of mischievous retrogression; they sought to excel the old Whigs in their efforts to consolidate the aristocracy at the expense of the people.