annual Parliaments. That very day the unfitness of the multitude of those times for political power received a strong illustration. In 1778 Sir George Savile had carried a Bill relieving Roman Catholics of some of the hardships inflicted on them by the law. The cry of 'No Popery' was at once raised, and, whilst the Duke of Richmond was speaking to the peers, a mob, led by Lord George Gordon, a half-crazy fanatic, poured down to Westminster with a petition for the repeal of Savile's Act. Members of both Houses were hustled and ill-used, and for some time the mob endeavoured to burst into the House of Commons. Failing in this, they streamed off, and sacked and burnt the chapels of Roman Catholic ambassadors. The mob, however, loved riot more than they hated Popery. They burnt Newgate and liberated the prisoners. They fell, with special eagerness, upon the houses of magistrates. For six days they were in complete possession of a considerable part of London, plundering and setting fire to houses at their pleasure. Soldiers alone could arrest such a flood of mischief; and when, at last, soldiers were ordered to attack the mob, the riot was suppressed.

22. The Armed Neutrality. 1780. The suppression of the riots in London brought back some support to the king, but the enemies of England abroad were growing stronger. English ships claimed the right of search in neutral vessels on the high seas, and they proceeded to confiscate enemies' goods found in them. They also seized neutral vessels trading with ports of their enemies, which they declared to be blockaded, even when they were not in sufficient force to exercise an effective blockade. A league sprung up amongst the northern states, headed by Russia, to establish an 'Armed Neutrality' for protection against such attacks. This league, supported by France, advanced what was then the new doctrine, that 'Free ships make free goods,' and proclaimed that 'paper blockades' that is to say, blockades not enforced by a sufficient naval squadron-were inadmissible. The Dutch Republic moreover adopted this view and resisted the right of search when used by the English, just as the English, in Walpole's time, had resisted it when exercised by the Spaniards (see p. 728), and in December, 1780, England declared war on the Republic.

23. The Capitulation of Yorktown. 1781.-The campaign of 1781 was looked forward to as likely to be decisive. Cornwallis pushed on to the conquest of North Carolina, and, though his advanced guard was defeated at Cowpens in January, in March he routed an American army under Greene at Guilford. Once more the enormous size of the country frustrated the plans of the English

commander, who, after a few weeks, being unable to hold any part of the Carolinas except Charleston, went off to Virginia. The American army was quite unable to inflict a serious defeat on the British in the field. The states themselves left it unpaid and afforded it but scanty means of support. The men deserted in shoals, and those who remained were obliged to obtain food by oppression. "Scarce any state," wrote an American general, "has at this hour an eighth part of its quota in the field. . . . Instead of having the prospect of a glorious offensive campaign before us, we have a bewildered and gloomy one, unless we should receive a powerful aid of ships, land troops, and money, from our generous allies." In expectation of this help the American forces again grew in numbers, so that Cornwallis, though unconquered, was compelled to fortify a post at Yorktown on the shore of the Chesapeake, where, as long as he was master of the sea, he could defy his enemies. The French fleet under De Grasse, however, soon gained the mastery, and blockaded Yorktown on the side of the water, while the Americans blockaded it on the side of the land. On October 19 Cornwallis surrendered, and the American War was virtually at an end.

24. American success. 1781.-American Independence had been the work of an active minority, especially vigorous in New England, and in some other parts further south. This minority was always ready to take advantage of every circumstance arising in their favour, and availing themselves of the assistance of the foreign enemies of England. The cause of America was, to some extent, the cause of England herself. The same reasons which made Parliament ready to set aside by an act of power the resistance of the Americans to the payment of a tax to which their representatives had not consented had weighed with the House of Commons when they set aside the repeatedly declared choice of the Middlesex electors. In the one case the British Parliament, in the other case the British House of Commons, insisted on having its way, because it believed itself in the right. The principle of self-government-of the system which acknowledges that it is better to allow a people to blunder in order that they may learn by experience, than to coerce them for their own good-was at stake in both. It seemed as easy to suppress America as it was to suppress the Middlesex electors; and when England discovered that this was not the case, she learnt a lesson which would teach her in the future how much consideration was due to those dependencies which were still left.

25. The Last Days of North's Ministry. 1781 - 1782. - The

1781-1782

NORTH'S RESIGNATION

795

news of the surrender at Yorktown reached England on November 25. "O God!" cried North when he heard it, "it is all over." The king insisted on North's retaining office and prolonging the struggle. During the next few months Minorca surrendered to the Spaniards, and De Grasse's fleet captured one West India island after another. The supporters of the ministry. in Parliament deserted it, and on March 20, 1782, North resigned.

26. The Rockingham Ministry. 1782.- Much to his annoyance, George III. had to place the opposition in office, with Rockingham as Prime Minister, and to allow the new ministers to open negotiations on the basis of the acknowledgment of American independence. The two most important members of Rockingham's second administration were Fox and Lord Shelburne, the latter being the leader of that section of the Whigs which had followed Chatham. The king, who hated the Rockingham section as an aristocratic faction, intrigued with Shelburne against the other members of the ministry. As Shelburne disliked Fox personally, the prospect of a united ministry was not encouraging. For the moment, however, the new ministers did plenty of good work. They opened negotiations for peace, and were likely to obtain the better terms, as on April 12 Admiral Rodney gained a decisive victory in the West Indies over De Grasse's fleet. At home, the ministers set themselves to purify Parliament. They carried measures, in the first place, disqualifying revenue officers, who were liable to dismissal by the Government, from voting at elections, and, in the second place, disqualifying contractors from sitting in the House of Commons on the ground that it was their interest not to offend the ministers. Burke's Economical Reform Bill, which had been thrown out in 1781, was also passed, in a modified form, in 1782. Though the king still retained sufficient patronage to make him formidable, he would now have less corrupting influence than before.

27. Irish Religion and Commerce. 1778. The Irish Parliament had, for some time, been growing discontented with its subordinate position. It is true that it represented the Protestants only. but its desire to make itself independent had the result of rendering it unusually inclined to conciliate the Catholics. In 1778 it passed a Relief Bill, repealing the worst of the persecuting acts (see p. 686). The leader in this movement was Grattan, who pronounced that the Irish Protestant could never be free till the Irish Catholic had ceased to be a slave.' In the same year some slight diminution was effected in the restrictions which had been

imposed on Irish commerce, but the outcry raised by English manufacturers was too loud to allow North to concede to Ireland as much as he would willingly have done.

28. The Irish Volunteers. 1778-1781. — Irish Protestants were, for every reason, warm supporters of the connection with England, but they were hostile to the existing system, because it impoverished them by stopping their trade. They asked for liberty to export what they pleased and to import what they pleased. To gain this they needed legislative independence, their own Parliament being not only prohibited, by Poynings' law (see p. 350), from passing any act which had not been first approved by the English Privy Council, but being bound by a further act of George I. which declared Ireland to be subject to laws made in the British Parliament. The war with France gave to the Irish Protestants the opportunity which they sought. England, bent upon the reconquest of America, had no troops to spare for the defence of Ireland, and the Irish Protestants came forward as volunteers in defence of their own country. At the end of 1781 they had 80,000 men in arms, and with this force behind their backs they now asked for legislative independence.

29. Irish Legislative Independence. 1782.-In 1782, with recent experience gained in America, Rockingham's Government shrank from opposing a movement so formidably supported. At Fox's motion the British Parliament passed an act, by which the act of George I. binding Ireland to obey laws made in Great Britain was repealed, and Poynings' law was so modified as to put an end to the control of the British Privy Council over the making of laws in Ireland. However, the independent Parliament at Dublin-Grattan's Parliament, as it is sometimes calledhad two sources of weakness. In the first place the House of Commons was chosen by Protestants alone; in the second place it had no control over the executive government, which was exercised not, as in England, by ministers responsible to Parliament, but by the Lord Lieutenant, who was appointed by, and was responsible to, the Government in England. Nor were there any constitutional means by which either the two Parliaments in conjunction, or any third body with powers either derived from them or superior to them, could decide upon questions in which both peoples were interested.

30. The Shelburne Ministry and the Peace of Paris. 17821783.-On July 1, 1782, Rockingham died, and the king at once appointed Shelburne Prime Minister, who, as he thought, would