INTRODUCTION.

EXTRACTS from the following Letters from George III. to Lord North have been published by Lord Stanhope in his History of England from the Peace of Utrecht;' by Earl Russell in his 'Life' and in his Memorials and Correspondence' of Charles James Fox; and by Mr. Bancroft in his History of the United States.' But the samples of the King's Letters given in these works imperfectly represent the originals. The noble historian gives the following account of his acquaintance with the correspondence:

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"The original Letters from King George III. to Lord North "as his Prime Minister were laid before Sir James Mackintosh, who, extracting the most important passages, transcribed them "in a manuscript volume. This afterwards passed into the "hands of Lord North's surviving daughter, Lady Charlotte Lindsay, and from her into those of Lord Brougham. Through the friendly regard of Lady Charlotte, and in the year 1847, I obtained the communication of that volume; Lady Charlotte "at the same time giving me full permission to make any use "of it I might deem proper." a

This manuscript volume" is the common source of the extracts hitherto printed. But Sir James Mackintosh, although he had the whole correspondence before him, selected from it such portions only as may have seemed to him most important, or as best suited to a particular purpose-perhaps the history of a period or a reign. In many instances he has taken only a single sentence from a Letter, in others he has combined

a Hist. of England,' vol. v., Append. p. xlvii. As I shall have frequent occasion to refer to this valuable work, it may be convenient to state at once that

VOL. I.

it is cited by me, in accordance with its title-page, as Lord Mahon's History,' &c., and that I have used the 5th edition, in 7 volumes, 1858.

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sentences that originally were unconnected, while he has passed over a considerable number of the King's Letters as either of little moment in themselves or of none to his object in transcribing. By such combinations or omissions the context is sometimes disturbed and the series rendered incomplete. In the following pages entire and exact copies of the Letters are for the first time published. With the exception of a few brief notes of appointment of time or place, I have printed all the Letters preserved in the Queen's library at Windsor Castle, omitting and transposing nothing in the series now for the first time presented to the public.

A sovereign of Great Britain who has the credit of taking an active part in politics inevitably becomes a mark for censure or applause. Those whom he favours will regard him as a patriot king; those from whom his countenance is turned will have a keen scent for any errors he may commit. In the present instance Tory writers cannot commend George III. enough for taking to his councils a long-excluded and distrusted party: and Whig writers cannot pardon him for cancelling what they had come to consider hereditary claims to office. Perhaps the time has not even yet arrived for a history of this reign. On the one hand, we are still too near the period to be quite exempt from the feelings which agitated and did not expire with it; on the other, we may not have at present all the materials for such a work. Every contribution, however, to the narrative renders more possible the composition of it; and it is hoped that the following Letters addressed by the King to his most trusted and favoured Minister during a most eventful crisis may facilitate the task of the future historian.

No one can have studied the narratives of Earl Stanhope and Mr. Adolphus, of Belsham and Aikin, or even dipped into the Grenville or Bedford Papers, the Memoirs of Lord Rockingham or Charles James Fox, or into any collection of Letters or Reminiscences of the times of George III., without being impressed by the very opposite views taken by historians or memorialists of his public character. The commendation and

the censure alike have a tendency to the extravagant. With Tories he passes for a patriot king; with Whigs for a monarch who endeavoured to re-act the part of Charles I., under different circumstances and with different materials. Amid these discrepancies one fact remains steadfast, that the position of George III., whether won by his own exertions, or forced on him by circumstances, differed in many respects from that of every English sovereign since the Revolution of 1688. In the following pages, before proceeding to comment on the Letters themselves, I shall attempt to ascertain what that position was, how acquired, and how maintained.

With the abdication of James II. expired the overt struggle between privilege and prerogative: the right divine of kings was practically overthrown, although it continued to linger as a theory among Jacobites and Tories, and the advisers of the Crown were no longer appointed at the will or by the caprice of the wearer of it. Parliament, so far as it represented the will of the nation, prescribed to the King the nation's virtual rulers; or at least dictated to him with whose aid and advice he should conduct its affairs. Parliament again, though often expressing the wishes of a minority, took charge of the interests of the nation at large, and jealously watched every attempt at government by prerogative. The principles of civil and religious liberty were secured by the Bill of Rights and the Toleration Act; and since it was the common interest of William III. and the Whigs to resist the Jacobites who regarded him as a usurper, and the Tories who could not reconcile themselves to breaking the direct line of succession, the Whig party and the King whom they had accepted, although occasionally at variance, agreed with one another well in the main. The harmony between the Crown and the Whigs was indeed interrupted by the Tory predilections of Anne, and for a time the Act of Settlement was in danger, and the restoration of the old line a likely event. The death of the Queen saved the nation from a reaction that would probably have rendered necessary a second revolution.

The power of the Whigs was once more established by the accession of the House of Hanover. Each of the two great parties indeed competed for the favour of the Act-of-Settlement King; but the claims of the framers or supporters of that Act were naturally preferred by him to the pretensions of its open or secret opponents. The fluctuation between Whigs and Tories, which had marked the preceding reign, ceased with the accession of George I., and for a period of forty-five years one or other section of the Whigs excluded the Tories from office. The interests of the first two Hanoverian sovereigns tended to such an arrangement, and the dread of the Pretender entertained by at least an active and intelligent minority of the English people, confirmed the inclinations of the Crown. The Whigs indeed quarrelled with one another, but not sufficiently so as to make a practicable breach for the Tory party to enter, although some of the more moderate of its members were admitted into the administration which obstructed the measures, and finally effected the downfall, of Sir Robert Walpole. In the main, however, the policy of Mr. Pelham for nearly ten years, and of the Duke of Newcastle after his brother's death, did not depart widely from that of the earlier and more genuine Whigs; and the first two Georges acquiesced, with occasional murmurs on the part of the second of the name, in the counsels, or, as their enemies termed it, the dictation of an oligarchy. The nation, on its part, looked with general indifference upon the schisms of the Whigs and the exclusion of the Tories; for it was a season of general prosperity, and rulers who enrich at people are seldom unpopular. One result of their long tenure of office was to concentrate in a few Whig families claims or pretensions to conduct the government of the country. For such official monopoly there was some excuse in the necessity of the times so long as the Pretender was formidable; but after the year 1746 the plea for exclusiveness became less valid, or at least less apparent. It was contested by the father of George III., who assembled around him at Leicester House malcontent Whigs and pretended patriots, and virtually it was