The Peace of Paris.
Nothing could please the English king better than the conclusion of peace. He gave Bute a free hand, and readily consented to the conclusion of the treaty of Paris (February, 1763). By this agreement France ceded to England the vast province of Canada, and all her American claims east of the Mississippi, retaining only some fishing rights on the coast of Newfoundland, which have proved very troublesome in our own day. At the same time, the West Indian Islands of St. Vincent, Tobago, Grenada, and Dominica were surrendered, as well as the African settlement of Senegal. France also undertook to keep no garrisons in her factories in Hindostan, when they should be restored to her. She gave back Minorca, which she had held since Byng's disaster, and withdrew her armies from Germany. But she received back much that she had lost, and had no power of recovering—Belleisle in Europe, Martinique, St. Lucia, and Guadaloupe in the West Indies, Goree in Africa, and all her Indian establishments. In a similar way Spain ceded to us the swampy and uninhabited peninsula of Florida, which rounded off the line of our North American colonies; but she received back the two wealthy settlements of Havanna and Manilla, which she could never have regained by force of arms.
The peace of Paris was not received with enthusiasm in England. It was said, and truly, that Pitt would have asked and obtained much better terms, and that it was weak and futile to restore to France and Spain their lost colonies. Yet, looking at our enormous gains, it seems absurd to complain. The treaty made England supreme in America and in Hindostan, and ratified her permanent ascendency at sea. When so much was secured, it appeared greedy to ask for yet more, for never by any previous treaty had England won so much or brought a war so triumphantly to a close.
The treaty of Hubertsburg.
But one blot on Bute's reputation can not be passed over. He deserted, most shamelessly, our useful if unscrupulous ally, King Frederic of Prussia. Having gained what England required, he left Frederic to shift for himself, withdrawing our armies from Germany, and stopping the liberal subsidies which had maintained the king's famishing exchequer. If fortune had not favoured him, Frederic might have been ruined by the loss of his only ally. He was saved, however, by the unexpected withdrawal of Russia from the hostile ranks. He proved able to hold his own against Austria, his one remaining foe, and brought the Seven Years' War to an end by the treaty of Hubertsburg ere the year 1763 had expired. But he never forgave England for the mean trick which Bute had played him, and would never again make an alliance with her.
Resignation of Bute.
When the war was over, Bute found his position as prime minister quite unbearable. He was clamoured at by Pitt's numerous admirers for making peace on too easy terms. At the same time the Whig borough-mongers, who followed Newcastle, took their revenge on him in Parliament by rejecting all his bills. He was decried as an upstart Scot, a mere court favourite, "the Gaveston of the eighteenth century," and the enemy of the greatness of England. Though he lavished the public money and the crown patronage on all sides, even more shamelessly than Newcastle had done, he could not hold his own. Bute was a sensitive man, and apparently could not bear up against the odium which his position as a court-minister, disliked both by the nation and the Houses of Parliament, brought upon him. In April, 1763, he laid down the seals of office, much to the regret of his royal master.
Divisions of the Whig party.
Thus King George had been defeated in his first contest with the Whigs. He was compelled to draw back for a moment and to rearrange his plans. His next scheme was to try the effect of playing off the various clans and factions of the Whigs one against another. For the fall of the great Pitt-Newcastle cabinet had split the Whig party into a complicated series of family groups and alliances—divided by no difference in principle, but only by matters of personal interest. The king thought that he could make and unmake ministries by the unscrupulous use of the votes of his "friends" in Parliament, and so hold the balance between the various sections of his enemies, till he could reduce them all to powerlessness.
The Grenville-Bedford ministry.