Chapter XXXVI.
George III.
The American War
(1760-1783).
The House of Hanover reigned without further contest. The Stuarts had disappeared, borne forever by their misdeeds and misfortunes far from the throne of their ancestors, and the young King George III. peaceably succeeded his grandfather. Europe now, as well as England, understood the importance of the change which had just been accomplished. William III., called to the throne by the English nation, had delivered it from an odious yoke and had assured to it its religious and political liberties. He had constantly remained a foreigner in the England which he served gloriously and effectively without loving it. George I. and George II. were Germans, elevated to the throne by the national will, which was strong and wise, without sympathy and without pleasure. They had remained Germans in manners and in speech. England had grown under their rule; her institutions were strengthened and developed. At the death of George II., thanks to the illustrious man who, as an absolute master, had governed her in freedom, she had become the arbiter of Europe, predominant in America as well as in Asia. However, the English people's loyalty of feeling had never been satisfied since the downfall of the Stuarts, and the most obstinate of the Whigs, although passionately opposed to all the attempts of the Jacobite restoration, yet excused, in the depths of their heart, those who had sacrificed all to their attachment towards the hereditary monarch. George III. was at last reigning, loved and respected beforehand, and the painful trials of his life and his long reign never caused him to lose the confidence and sympathy of his people. It was the feeling of the whole nation as well as his own that the young monarch expressed when he spontaneously said, in his first speech from the throne: "Born and brought up in this country, I glory in the name of Englishman, and it will be the pleasure of my life to give happiness to a people whose fidelity and attachment to myself I regard as the security and lasting honor of my throne."
New counsels already began to spread, less violent against France than those of Mr. Pitt. The young king had cordially received his grandfather's ministers, asking them to continue in their duties under him; but he had also admitted Lord Bute to the Privy Council, and the favorite's intrigues already came in contact with those of the Duke of Newcastle. Some weeks later, at the moment of the dissolution of Parliament, Bute succeeded Lord Holderness as secretary of state. Pitt, it is said, was not consulted.
The haughty displeasure of the great minister had its influence upon the tone of the negotiations then begun with France. The Duke de Choiseul, burning to serve his country, although active, restless, and courageous, still felt the necessity of peace. He had proposed a congress. While Pitt delayed his answer, an English squadron had blockaded Bellisle. A first assault, made on the 8th of April by General Hodgson, was repulsed. The governor, M. de St. Croix, had received no assistance, and, despite an heroic resistance, he was forced to capitulate on June 7th, 1761. It was almost at the same time that news was received of the check of De Broglie and De Soubise at Minden, and of the disastrous surrender of Pondicherry. England's answer to the proposals of peace at last arrived. The Duke de Choiseul had proposed to evacuate Hesse and Hanover, demanding the restoration of Guadaloupe and Marie Galante, and of Bellisle in exchange for Minorca. He accepted the conquest of Canada and of Cape Breton, but in return he laid claim to all the captures made at sea of the French merchant ships before the declaration of war, and required an engagement that the English troops, under the orders of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, should not proceed to reinforce the Prussian army. The ultimatum was modest, and was a bitter trial to the patriotic pride of M. de Choiseul. Pitt's answer left no hope of peace. All the conquests, all the captures, full liberty to aid the King of Prussia—such was the language of the English minister. Dunkerque must be razed, as a lasting monument of the yoke imposed on France. "So long as I hold the reins of government," said Pitt, "another Peace of Utrecht shall never sully the annals of England."
Pitt had well estimated the exhaustion and the fatigue of France. He had not foreseen the influence which the accession of a new monarch to the throne of Spain would exert upon her alliances. Ferdinand VI. had died childless. His brother, Charles III. King of Naples, had succeeded him. He brought to his hereditary kingdom a quicker intelligence than that of the dead king, a great aversion to England (of which he had lately reason to complain), and the traditional attachment of his race for the interests and glory of France. The Duke de Choiseul was adroit enough to avail himself of these tendencies. In the distress in which the war had thrown King Louis XV., at the moment when Pitt rejected his ultimatum, insulting him by inacceptable proposals, Spain generously entered the list. The treaty, known under the name of the Family Compact, was signed at Paris on the 15th of April, 1761. Pitt immediately proposed to George III. to make sure of the Isthmus of Panama, and to attack immediately the Philippine Islands.
It was the last straw for the tottering empire of the minister who had been so long absolute in the council as well as in the Houses. The cabinet had hardly accepted the harshness of the conditions which he exacted from France. A declaration of war with Spain was rejected by a large majority. Pitt arose. "I thank you, gentlemen," said he, "for the support which you have often given me, but it is the voice of the people which has called me to public affairs. I have always considered myself as accountable to it for my conduct. I cannot then remain in a position where I shall be responsible for measures of which I have no longer the direction." Several days later Pitt placed in the king's hands the seals of office. George III. received him kindly. "Sad," he said, "to part from so illustrious a servant." The haughty minister burst into tears. "I confess, your Majesty," he said, "that I expected the signs of your displeasure. Your Majesty's kindness confounds and overwhelms me." Against the advice of his friends, Pitt accepted a pension of three thousand pounds sterling and a peerage for his wife, who became Lady Chatham. His popularity in consequence suffered a slight blow, yet it remained so great that at the annual lord mayor's dinner on the 9th of November, all looks were turned toward the fallen minister, all the applause was reserved for him, at the expense of the king and of his young wife, Charlotte de Mecklenberg-Streglitz. This popular triumph became insulting to the royal personages. "At each step," said an eye-witness, "the crowd pressed around the simple carriage where were to be found Pitt and Lord Temple. They laid hold of the wheels; they embraced the servants, and even the horses."
"Mr. Pitt will not make peace because he cannot make that which he has given the nation reason to hope for," an acute observer of the court, Bubb Doddington, had already said. On succeeding to power, Lord Bute and the tories found themselves still driven by public opinion to measures more violent than their tastes or their intentions. France had made a supreme effort to reorganize its army. In the month of January, 1762, the English government declared war on Spain, striking from the first the most disastrous blows at our faithful ally. The year had not gone by before Cuba was already in the hands of the English, the Philippine Islands ravaged, and galleons laden with Spanish gold captured by British vessels. The campaign undertaken against Portugal, always friendly to England, was productive of no result. Martinique had followed the lot of Guadaloupe, which had already been conquered by the English after an heroic resistance. The war dragged on slowly in Germany. The death of the Czarina Elizabeth and the brief occupation of the throne by the young Czar Peter III., a passionate admirer of Frederick the Great, had freed the King of Prussia from a dangerous enemy, and promised him an ally faithful as well as powerful. The hope that the Family Compact had for a time given to France was deceived. The negotiations began again. On the 3d of November, 1762, the preliminaries of peace were signed at Fontainebleau. France abandoned all her possessions in America. Louisiana, which had taken no part in the war, was ceded to Spain in exchange for Florida, which was given over to the English. Only the small islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon were reserved for the French fisheries. A special stipulation guaranteed to the Canadians freedom in Catholic worship. In exchange for engaging not to introduce troops into Bengal, France recovered Chaudernagore and the ruins of Pondicherry. Guadaloupe and Martinique became again French. The English kept Tobago, Dominique, St. Vincent, and Grenada. In Germany the places and country occupied by France were to be evacuated. Like his illustrious rival. Lord Bute insisted upon the demolition of Dunkerque.
England's success had been great, and France's humiliation profound, and yet it was not enough for the persistent hatred of Pitt, now freed from the shackles of power, and at liberty to allow full reign to his rancor against Lord Bute as well as to his animosity toward our nation. He was disabled by gout, the persistent scourge of his life; he had himself carried, wrapped in flannel, to the House of Commons. Two of his friends led him to his seat, and supported him during the first part of his speech. Exhausted, he ended by sitting down, contrary to all parliamentary usage. "I have come here at the risk of my life," he exclaimed, "to raise my voice, my hand, my arm against the preliminary articles of a peace which tarnishes the glory of the war, which betrays the dearest interests of the nation, and which sacrifices public faith while deserting our allies. France is chiefly, if not entirely, formidable to us as a maritime and commercial power. What we gain in this respect is doubly precious from the loss which results to her. America, gentlemen, has been conquered in Germany; to-day you leave to France the possibility of re-establishing her navy."