to lay down its arms to the French, who thereupon took possession of Hanover. At the same time Minorca was captured from the English by the French, through the negligence of Admiral Byng. For this he was tried by a court-martial, and, though acquitted of cowardice, he was executed to gratify the rage of the populace. The position of England was at this time most humiliating, and the national voice compelled the king to recall to his councils the greatest statesman of his time, William Pitt, who had been driven from the government to make room for worthless men, but who was now regarded as the only man who could save the nation. "As soon as Mr. Pitt took the helm, the steadiness of the hand that held it came to be felt in

every motion of the vessel. There was no more of wavering counsels, of torpid inaction, or abject despondency. His firmness gave confidence, his spirit roused courage, his vigilance secured exertion in every department under his sway. The effects of this change in the whole management of public business and in all the plans of the government were speedily manifest to all the world."

The French were compelled to retire from Germany. At the battle of Minden, fought on August 1, 1759, they were utterly routed by the English and German troops under Prince Ferdinand. In the West Indies all the French Islands were captured by the English except St. Domingo; and Admiral Hawke defeated the French fleets at sea the same year. General Wolfe, a young commander of great ability led the English troops in Canada. Quebec was taken by him from the French; but to the great grief of the nation he fell in

the moment of victory. Soon after, the whole province of Canada surrendered to England.

At the same time, under Clive, the English arms were successful against the French and natives, at the battle of Plassey, which established English supremacy in India.

These successes gratified the nation, and William Pitt became justly the most popular man in the country.

In the midst of this war George the Second died suddenly, on the 25th October, in the seventy-seventh year of his age; and as his eldest son Frederick had died in 1751, the crown descended to his grandson George, then in his twenty-third year.

George the Second was a prince of moderate abilities and good intentions, and of great personal bravery.

The prosperity of the nation during his reign steadily increased; and in spite of the extraordinary burdens of the war, the resources of England were sufficient to carry the nation successfully through one of the most arduous struggles in its history.

During the whole of the reign the liberties of the subject were not invaded in the smallest degree. The laws were administered by able and upright judges, among whom Lord Hardwicke (Chancellor from 1737 to 1756) deserves to be remembered for his wonderful legal knowledge, and the genius which has made his decisions the basis of a great part of our equitable jurisprudence. In literature, Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne excelled as novelists. Pope continued to write Other poets were Thom

poetry to his death in 1744.

son, the author of the "Seasons," Collins, Gray, and Johnson.

219

CHAP. XXXVII.

GEORGE III. 1760-1820.

GEORGE THE THIRD came to the throne with more advantages than any of his predecessors since the Revolution. Fourth in descent and third in succession of his royal family, even the zealots of hereditary right in him saw something to flatter their favourite prejudices; and to justify a transfer of their attachments without a change of their principles. The person and cause of the Pretender were become contemptible; his title disowned throughout Europe; his party disbanded in England. The king came indeed to the inheritance of a mighty war; but, victorious in every part of the globe, peace was always in his power, not to negotiate, but to dictate. No foreign attachments, as in the case of his father and grandfather, withdrew his affections from England. As he himself said in his first speech at the opening of Parliament, Born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of Briton;" and his people in their loyal enthusiasm were willing to believe him when he added "the peculiar happiness of my life will ever consist in promoting the welfare of a people whose loyalty and warm affection to me I consider as the greatest and most permanent security of my throne."

66

George the Third when Prince of Wales had been much under the influence of the Earl of Bute, and it

was his determination to make that lord, prime minister. He first made him secretary of state against the wishes of Mr. Pitt, who considered himself slighted. The Earl of Bute desired to make peace with France, and was disinclined to declare war against Spain; although it was quite evident that Spain was about to join France against Britain. The king supported the Earl of Bute, and Pitt left the ministry. His conduct was approved by the nation, who justly regarded him as the victim of the royal dislike and the jealousy of Lord Bute. War with Spain, however, did break out, as Pitt had foreseen. At sea the British fleets were everywhere triumphant. Spain lost Havannah, Manilla, and all the Philippine Islands. But in 1763 the ministry made peace with France and Spain; and by the treaty of Paris signed in that year, Britain acquired, as the results of the war, Canada, Cape Breton, and free access to the unsettled country west of the Mississippi; the islands of Grenada, Dominica, St. Vincent's and Tobago, with most of the French settlements in the East Indies; and from Spain, Minorca and Florida. At the close of this war the national debt was upwards of £130,000,000.

But the peace did not satisfy the nation. The Earl of Bute, in spite of his influence at court, was compelled to retire from the government shortly after peace was made, and was succeeded as prime minister by Mr. George Grenville. The high tory notions of Bute and the king were very offensive to the nation; and the king's friends, as they were called, were attacked virulently by the press. A newspaper called the North Briton, conducted by John Wilkes the member for Aylesbury, was peculiarly violent against the king and court.

A

general warrant was issued by the secretary of state to apprehend Wilkes and commit him to the tower. He was, however, brought up before the chief justice of the Common Pleas by habeas corpus, and discharged on the ground that general warrants were contrary to the law of England.

Mr. Grenville finding the revenue unequal to the expenditure, determined to lay some part of the national burdens on the colonies. Sir Robert Walpole had once intended to do this, but became alarmed at the opposition it was likely to meet with, and did not attempt it.

In 1764 a Stamp Act was passed, by which certain duties were to be levied in America and paid into the national exchequer. This fatal step ultimately led to the loss of America to England. Before tracing further the history of the contest thus begun, we shall give some account of the rise and progress of these colonies.

After the discovery of North America by Cabot, at the close of the fifteenth century, few or no attempts at colonisation were made by the English, till the reign of Elizabeth, when Virginia was founded, partly by the exertions of Raleigh. In the early part of James the First's reign a company of Puritans landed near Boston, and founded the state of Massachusetts; their numbers were increased by exiles from England in the reign of Charles. Charles the Second granted a charter to William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, and to Lord Baltimore, who established Carolina. In this way thirteen states were founded.

During the seventeenth century the New England states received large accessions of population from England; for the persecutions of Charles the Second and