1658-1761 querors of Northern India. At the end of the seventeenth century the East India Company held three posts in India—Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta. In the meantime the Mogul Empire was weakened during the reign of Aurungzebe, and on his death it broke up. and power was gradually gained by the Mahrattas. Whether the Mahratta power would, under any circumstances, have mastered the whole of India, it is impossible to say. It was checked by the existence of a French settlement at Pondicherry and of an English settlement at Madras. There were still Mohammedan rulers in that part of India who were the enemies of the Mahrattas, and whose disputes among themselves offered advantages to a European who might strengthen himself by taking part in their quarrels. Dupleix, the French governor of Pondicherry, was the first to perceive this, and was also the first to enlist native soldiers, who came to be known in England as sepoys, and to drill them to fight after the European fashion. In 1746 he had captured Madras, but at the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle had been compelled to surrender it to the English again. By his policy with the natives, however, he continued to disturb the English. It was due to one of the clerks of Madras, Robert Clive, a man of undaunted bravery, that the French were checked. He seized Arcot and won over some of the most powerful native chiefs. Clive was the servant of a trading company, and his successes were not won like those of Wolfe, a few years later, by the support of the British Government and the valor of the British army. In 1755, when a war with France was imminent, the East India Company sent him out as the governor of Fort St. David, near Madras. When he arrived in 1756 he heard the bad news of the Black Hole of Calcutta, and hastened to Bengal to avenge this outrage. On June 23, 1757, he won a great victory at Plassey over 50,000 men and gained power for the company and great wealth for himself. Around Madras, in the meanwhile, the French, under Lally, began a fresh struggle for supremacy; but in 1760 Colonel Eyre Coote gained a signal victory at Wandewash, and Pondicherry surrendered to him early in 1761. The predominance of Englishmen over Frenchmen in India was thus secured. As yet the English did not undertake the actual government of any part of the country. In point of fact, the officials of the company had everything their own way. 1760 In all that had taken place George II. had little part, except so far as he had given up all thought of resisting ministers with whom he was dissatisfied. "Ministers," he once said, "are the king in this country." On October 25, 1760, he died suddenly. He was succeeded by his grandson, George III., the son of Frederick, the late Prince of Wales, a young man of twenty-two, whose character and training made it unlikely that he would be content to be thrust into the background as his grandfather had been. Chapter XLVIII THE BREAK UP OF THE WHIG PARTY 1760-1770 LEADING DATES REIGN OF GEORGE III., A.D. 1760-1780-ACCESSION OF GEORGE III., G EORGE III. had been educated by his mother, the Princess of Wales, in the principles of Bolingbroke's “Patriot King." From her he had learned that it was his duty to break down that coalition of the great Whig families which ruled England by means of the corrupting influence of wealth. "George, be a king," were the words which she had dinned into his ears. He came to the throne resolved to overthrow the Whig party connection by setting his own personal authority above that of the great Whig borough-owners, and to govern, in the interests of the whole nation, by ministers who, having been selected by himself, would be contented to carry out his policy and to act at his dictation. To a certain extent his intentions resembled those of Charles I. Both were well-meaning and desirous of governing in the interests of the nation, but Charles I. defied the House of Commons, whereas George III. knew that it was necessary to have the House of Commons on his side, and he knew that it could only be gained by a lavish employment of corruption. Personally, he was simple in his tastes, and strictly moral in his habits; but in pursuit of his political aims he employed men of the vilest character, and recklessly lavished places and gifts of money on those whose services he required. George III. and Pitt joined in detesting the yoke of the Whig families; but they differed as to the remedy for the disease. George III. aimed at crushing them by the exercise of the powers of the 1761-1763 Crown; Pitt, by appealing to the people for support. The king's first object, therefore, was to get rid of Pitt. Pitt had raised enemies in the Cabinet by his arrogance, and even among his friends there was a growing feeling that all necessary objects of the war had been accomplished. In June, 1761, there were fresh English successes, and France would probably have submitted to Pitt's terms, if Charles III., who had recently become king of Spain, had not renewed the Family Compact, knowing that the vast colonial empire of Spain was endangered by the predominance of England in North America. Pitt, having secret intelligence of what had happened, urged the Cabinet to declare war on Spain at once. The Cabinet, however, regarding him as a firebrand, refused to follow him, and on October 5 Pitt resigned office. Pitt was justified by the event. Spain declared war as soon as she thought it convenient to do so; she was, however, utterly unprepared for it. In 1762 one English expedition reduced Cuba and another reduced Manila, while Spanish commerce was swept from the sea. Pitt got all the credit because it was known that he had foreseen the struggle and had made the preparations which had proved successful. In the meanwhile, the ministry was hopelessly divided. Alongside of Newcastle and the Whigs were new ministers who had been introduced by George III. In May, 1762, Newcastle was driven to resign, and was succeeded by Lord Bute, the nominee of the king. Peace negotiations had for some time been carried on, and on February 10, 1763, the Peace of Paris was signed. England regained Minorca in the Mediterranean, while her possession of Canada, Nova Scotia, and Cape Breton, besides that of Senegal, and of several West Indian islands, was acknowledged by the French. Spain ceded Florida to England and acquired Louisiana from France, receiving back again the other colonies which she had lost. In India France received back the towns which had been taken from her, but she could not regain. the influence which had passed from her, and England thus retained her predominance in India as well as in America. Frederick complained bitterly that England had abandoned him; yet he suffered little loss in consequence, for he signed the peace of Hubertsburg, which left him in full possession of his dominions. The result of the Seven Years' War was briefly this, that the British race had become predominant in North America, and that the Prussia of Frederick the Great maintained itself against all its enemies. 1762-1763 In placing Bute in office George III. made his first attempt to break the power of the Whigs. He had already gathered round him the country gentry, who, now that Jacobitism was extinct, were delighted to transfer their devotion to a Hanoverian king, who would lead them against the great landowners. They were joined by certain discontented Whigs, and out of this combination sprung up a new Tory party. It ceased to regard the Dissenters as dangerous, and no longer asked for special legislation against The principle which now bound the Tories to the king and to one another was their abhorrence of the Whig connection. They constantly declaimed against the party system, generally holding it to be better that George III. should give office to such ministers as he held fit, than that ministers should be appointed at the dictation of the leaders of a Parliamentary party. them. The principle upheld by the Tories was so far legitimate that Parliamentary parties in those days were not, as is now the case, combinations of members of Parliament holding definite political opinions and constantly appealing for support to the large masses of their countrymen by whom those opinions are shared. The plain fact was that they were composed of wealthy and influential men who, by the possession of boroughs, gained seats in Parliament for men who would vote for them whether they thought them to be right or wrong, and who, if they could obtain office, gained more votes by the attraction of the patronage of which they had the disposal. George III., therefore, if he wished to gain his ends, had to follow their example. He consequently resolved to rely on members of Parliament known as the king's friends, who voted as he bade them, simply because they thought that he, and not the Whig Lords, would, in future, distribute honors and patronage. In this way George III. deserted the part of a constitutional king to reap the advantages of a party leader. George's attempt to change the balance of politics could not, however, succeed at once. Bute's ministry did not last long. He was a Scotchman, and at that time. Scotchmen were very unpopular in England, besides which there were scandals afloat, entirely untrue, about his relations with the king's mother, the Princess of Wales. Mobs insulted and frightened him. He had not sufficient abilities to fill the post of a Prime Minister, and being, unlike Newcastle, aware of his own defects, on April 8, 1763, he suddenly resigned. By this time the king had no longer a united Whig party to |