George North, 1st Earl of North

“ The Whigs were readily reconciled to Lord North's appointment, because he was not mixed up in their differences. They preferred a Minister who had no alliances amongst them to one of themselves, whose elevation would have produced discontents in the camp. At first there was a show of dissatisfaction, and some attempts were made to foment the popular passions; but the dignified firmness of the Sovereign, and the moderate bearing of the favourite, speedily tranquillized the public mind, and enabled Lord North to carry on the Government with energy and success. ”

“ Others have done worse, no doubt, from meaner motives; but the mere desire of serving the King does not absolve the Minister from censure for having acted contrary to his own convictions on a question of such grave importance.
Lord North continued to retain the royal favour until he entered into the coalition with the Whigs. ”

“ From Lord Gower I learnt that he had refused to join Lord North in opposing the peace, that he had dissuaded Lord North from the measure, and that the friends who had lately been consulted were, Mr. Edmund Burke, Mr. Keene, Mr. Charles Townshend and Mr. George North; in short the people who were to profit by the intended coalition. He told me too that the Duke of Richmond was very much against it. ”

“ It was not till Lord North was called to the head of the Ministry, in 1770, that the public uneasiness was allayed, and a Cabinet of the King's own choice was founded in security. Lord North was an especial favourite with the King, whose extraordinary regard for him originated in the promptitude with which he responded to His Majesty's appeal, at a moment of serious embarrassment, when the Duke of Grafton unexpectedly threw up the Government, and Lord North consented to undertake it. "I love you as a man of worth, as I esteem you as a Minister," writes the King to him on one occasion ”

“ Ordain, and command, that in all Times, and in all Things, such Interpreterpretations be made thereof, and allowed in all and every of our Courts whatsoever, as lawfully may be adjudged most advantageous and favourable to the said Edward Earl of Clarendon, George Duke of Albemarle, William Earl of Craven, John Lord Berkeley, Anthony Lord Ashley, Sir George Carterer, Sir John Colleton, and Sir William Berkeley, their Heirs and Assigns, although express Mention, &c. ”

“ He had also, he added, been to Lord North after his resignation, and received from him an explicit assurance of his and his friends' support of the measures of Administration, qualified by no other exception than that of any attempt to change the Constitution. Lord North agreeing that peace could not be avoided, expressed his dissatisfaction with the boundary line ”

“ In spite of dangers and difficulties abroad and at home, George the Third, with a firmness which had little affinity with virtue or with wisdom, persisted in his determination to put down the American rebels by force of arms; and his ministers submitted their judgment to his. Some of them were probably actuated merely by selfish cupidity; but their chief, Lord North, a man of high honour, amiable temper, winning manners, lively wit, and excellent talents both for business and for debate, must be acquitted of all sordid motives. ”

“ When all hopes were over of forming an Administration from the remains of Lord Shelburne's, acting under some other head, the King sent, as I imagined he would, for Lord North; having previously had some communication with him through Lord Guilford, whom he saw on Sunday. Lord North has been twice with the King, and has both times been pressed to form some system to the exclusion of the Duke of Portland and Fox, which he has peremptorily refused; alleging the necessity of strength, and the impossibility of supporting Government in Parliament, except on the basis of their coalition. ”

“ The matter was again brought up on 25 Feb., when the entry of thanks was expunged without a division, after an attempt to bring on the order of the day had been defeated by 152 votes to forty-one (ib. xxxiii. 500, 509) . The king reported to Lord North that ‘the country gentlemen were at first hurt they were not supported in defending’ Dr. Nowell (Corresp. of George III and North, i. 91–3) . ”

“ His first duty was to sign, as representing the United States, the articles of the armed neutrality. Before he had got any further, indeed before he had been recognized as minister by the Dutch government, he was called back to Paris, in July, 1781, in order to be ready to enter upon negotiations for peace with the British government. Russia and Austria had volunteered their services as mediators between George III. and the Americans; but Lord North's government rejected the offer, so that Mr. Adams had his journey for nothing, and presently went back to Holland. ”

“ North indeed wished to negotiate, but the King had no difficulty in inducing the majority of the Cabinet to reject all temperate advice, and they resolved to introduce further repressive measures, to forbid all commerce with New England, and while extending royal clemency to those who might submit, to proclaim all those who resisted, traitors and rebels. "There are men now walking in the streets of London who ought to be in Newgate or at Tyburn," said Hillsborough; and he was understood to refer to Franklin and Quincy, the friends of Shelburne. ”

“ After Lord North became Prime Minister, the likelihood of a peaceful settlement between the crown and the Colonies lessened. He ran ahead of the King in his desire to serve the King's wishes, and George III, by this time, was wrought up by the persistent tenacity of the Whigs—he wished them dead, but they would not die—and he was angered by the insolence of the Colonists who showed that they would not shrink from forcibly resisting the King's command. On both sides of the Atlantic a vehement and most enlightening debate over constitutional and legal fundamentals still went on. ”

“ If he was free from vices, he was as void of virtues; and it is a paltry eulogium of a Prime Minister of a great country, yet the best that can be allotted to Lord North, that, though his country was ruined under his administration, he preserved his good humour, and neither felt for his country nor for himself. Yet it is true, too, that he was the least odious of the Ministers with whom he acted; and though servile in obedience to a Prince who meant so ill, there was reason to think that Lord North neither stimulated, nor was more than the passive instrument of the black designs of the Court. ”

“ He soon became convinced of the impracticability of remaining at the helm of affairs, and resigned the premiership on the 1st of August, 1766.
During the long administration of Lord North, the marquis was considered, in the House of Lords, as the head of the aristocratic part of the opposition; but his conduct was entirely free from that political rancor which has too often disgraced the parliamentary behavior of the greatest statesmen in England. At length, Lord North felt compelled to succumb beneath the force and continued attacks of his powerful rival, Fox ”

“ It is probable that Lord North had reason to believe that his refusal of the Wardenship of the Cinque Ports would not be the means of securing that office for the Duke of Dorset. It is certain that no Minister ever held his high post with a personal character more unblemished. In the letters occasionally cited in these notes, the King often contrasts Lord North’s disinterestedness with the very different conduct which his Majesty had witnessed in some of his other servants. ”

“ The later eighteenth century teems with personalities, so that it is difficult not to crowd the canvas and to nullify all individual impression by the force of numbers. George III himself, much blackened by American semi-traditions of thought is not as uninteresting or as stupid or as objectionable as your pupil probably thought him. A just view of King George is a worthy aim to set up for at least one lesson. Lord North, too, always has an interest for Americans. ”

“ He resolved from the first to treat them as men who had violently broken into the Cabinet; and he called upon his friends to withhold their support from them, and to sustain him in his resistance to their policy. The ingratitude of Lord North touched him deeply; and in proportion as he shrank from all personal intercourse that could be avoided with the new allies of his former favourite, he turned for succour to men like Lord Temple, who preserved their honour unsullied, however their political views, on some subjects, might have differed from his own. ”

“ An interview had meanwhile taken place between Fox and North, at which it was formally agreed that they should forget their former differences, and coalesce in order to overthrow the Government. They agreed to make the reform of Parliament an open question, and to join in opposing the Address on the Peace which was about to be moved. With the latter object North drew up an amendment to be moved by Lord John Cavendish. To some further overtures for support made by Rigby to North on behalf of Shelburne, North replied, "It is too late." ”

“ The same spirit guided His Majesty's conduct, as far as the forms of the Constitution would permit, in his choice of Ministers. He had strong personal likings and antipathies, and rather than consent to have a Ministry imposed upon him consisting of men he disapproved, he would have suffered any amount of difficulty or inconvenience. He prevailed upon Lord North to remain in office three years in the face of sinking majorities, and against his Lordship's own wishes, for the sole purpose of keeping out the Whigs, whom he regarded with a feeling of the bitterest aversion. ”

“ The Marquess of Gran by’s places of the ordnance and commander-in-chief were left vacant for the present, and the great seal was left in commission, with the commissioners already named.
DEBATES ON THE MIDDLESEX ELECTION, ETC.
Lord North, with whose administration commences a momentous era in the annals of Great Britain, was eldest son to the Earl of Guildford. In private life he was one of the most amiable and worthy of men, and he was a man of elegant acquirements. In public life, also, he was scarcely less honoured. ”

“ It is a case, Sir, that will admit of no delay; form is to come in between such a man and his reward; we are to have papers called for with all the tediousness attendant, before the inventor of this noble discovery is to have his just rights. Is this a conduct worthy of the munificence of this House? of a nation that owes to her navigation, her wealth, her consequence, her fame! [5] Lord North rose in explanation, and in a candid manner professed himself much inclined to do justice to Mr. ”

“ North still urged the king to accept his resignation. George, conscious of the shortcomings of the ministry, gave Thurlow authority to treat with Shelburne, as head of the Chatham party, with a view to the formation of a strong administration, composed of men of different parties, to be formed without North, and independently of the existing ministry. Grafton persuaded Shelburne not to act apart from the Rockingham whigs. The united opposition would have insisted on a complete change of measures as well as of men, which would have implied the surrender of America. ”

“ North now determined to resign in spite of the king, and on 20 March announced his resignation in the House of Commons, before Lord Surrey was able to move a resolution for the dismissal of the ministry, of which he had previously given notice (ib. xxii. 1214–19) . On resigning his posts of first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer, the king is said to have ‘parted with him rudely without thanking him, adding, “Remember, my lord, that it is you who desert me, not I you”’ (Walpole, Journal of the Reign of George III, ii. 521) . ”

“ George III reduced bribery to a fine art, and, parsimonious as he was in his own affairs, he had no hesitation in buying the patron of a borough or in paying the debts of a man who was willing to stand as the "King's Friend" at the next election. "If the Duke of Northumberland requires [Pg 78] some gold pills for the election, it would be wrong not to give him some assistance," he wrote to North before the Middlesex election in 1779. ”

“ Auckland, Journals and Correspondence, 1861, i. 1 et seq.) , and the combined followers of North and Fox defeated the ministry on 17 Feb. 1783 by 224 votes to 208 (Parl. Hist. xxii. 493) , and again on the 21st by 207 votes to 190 (ib. xxii. 571) . On the 24th Shelburne resigned. The king charged North ‘with treachery and ingratitude of the blackest nature’ (Buckingham, Court and Cabinets of George III, i. 303) , and vainly endeavoured to detach him from Fox and to induce him once more to take the treasury. ”

“ George wrote on hearing of the proceedings of congress, "that the line of conduct seems now chalked out; the New England colonies are in a state of rebellion, blows must decide whether they are to be subject to this country or independent." He expressed the feeling of by far the larger part of his people. Not of all, for his ministers North and Dartmouth and a few of their party, were averse from violent measures; the merchants who traded with America were anxious for conciliation; and the whigs as a body were opposed to the king's policy. ”

“ In 1778 the losses and expenses of the war and disappointment at its results began to work a change in the feeling of the country. In parliament tories sometimes voted with the opposition. North continued to strive in vain to be released from office. He made some overtures to the opposition. Fox, in spite of the violence of his attacks, was anxious for a coalition, which [Pg 191] would have given him office, though he held first that Germain only, and in 1779 that North himself and Sandwich, must be excluded. [140] He was restrained by Rockingham, and North's efforts failed. ”