Prussia. England daily expected an invasion. French cruisers plundered her commerce: expeditions against Louisbourg and Rochefort failed. "The nation trembled under a shameful panic too public to be concealed, too shameful in its consequences to be ever long forgotten." 1757-60. 12. Such was the state of things when Pitt, in June 1757, became minister. "I am sure," said he, "that I can save Pitt's victories, the country, and I am sure that no one else can." He at once set to work with extraordinary energy to restore the flagging spirits of his countrymen. "Ignorant of finance, he kept aloof from all details, drew magnificent plans, and left to others to find the magnificent means. Secluded from all eyes, his orders were received as oracles. Their success was imputed to his inspiration-misfortunes and miscarriages fell to the account of the more human agents." Such is an enemy's account of his success. " Under Pitt's guidance the war, which had begun with such disasters, soon turned out the most brilliant and successful of the century. He often wasted money and men on useless expeditions; but he saw clearly that his first duty was to maintain Frederick in his heroic struggle, and to secure English supremacy all over the world. He threw to the winds his old hatred of foreign subsidies and German alliances. His large subsidies enabled Frederick to keep an army together. America must be conquered in Germany was Pitt's answer to those who grew impatient at the vast expenses of his German campaigns. The capitulation of Kloster Zeven was repudiated. The crushing defeat of the French at Rossbach (5th November 1757), and of the Austrians at Leuthen (5th December 1757), showed that Frederick was able to struggle with success against his three mighty foes. Though in 1758 and 1759 the King of Prussia was brought to sore straits, the well-directed attacks of the English and Hanoverians kept the French busy on the Rhine, and left Frederick to struggle against the Austrians, Russians, and Swedes. On 1st August 1759 a great victory at Minden was won by Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick at the head of the English troops. On 3d November 1760 Frederick defeated the Austrians in the bloody battle of Torgau. The greatest victories of England were at sea and outside Europe. We have seen how Clive won Bengal, and Coote destroyed the French power in Southern India. In September 1759 Hawke put an end to all fears of invasion by his crushing defeat of the French in Quiberon Bay. All over the world the French colonies were now conquered. But Pitt's crowning triumph was the annihilation of French influence in North America. 13. In 1758 Pitt formed a great plan for attacking Canada from three different sides, and sent some of the best of his young officers to carry it out. Jeffrey Amherst conquered and deConquest of Canada, 1758-60. Stroyed the great fortress of Louisbourg. With him was Brigadier James Wolfe, a man after Pitt's own heart, who, with wretched health and mean appearance, had the heart " " of a hero, and whose dearest ambition was to "cut up New France by the roots. Another favourite of Pitt was the young, popular, and brilliant Lord Howe, "a complete model of military virtue," who was destined to accompany the incompetent leader Abercromby to attack Ticonderoga. But with his death "the soul of the expedition seemed to expire," and the English and Colonial forces were completely defeated by Montcalm. Yet before the year was out the French lost Fort Frontenac, and abandoned Fort Duquesne, which the colonists renamed Pittsburg, in honour of the great minister. In 1759 the French were assailed on every side. Wolfe was put at the head of an army of nearly 9000 men that sailed safely up the difficult navigation of the St. Lawrence to attack Quebec, where Montcalm had gathered nearly every able-bodied Canadian for its defence. But for a long time the two armies faced each other without coming to a serious encounter. "Montcalm," wrote Wolfe, "is at the head of a great number of bad soldiers, and I am at the head of a small number of good ones, that wish for nothing so much as to fight him; but the wary old fellow avoids an action, doubtful of the behaviour of his army.' After failing to attack Montcalm's camp on the north of the river below the town, Wolfe resolved to pass higher up the river and attack Quebec on a side thought impregnable. In the dead of night 4000 English troops were brought in row-boats to the foot of the steep cliffs that overhang the north bank of the St. Lawrence. They scaled these as best they could, swinging themselves up by the help of the trees. The French sentries were surprised and disarmed, and daybreak saw the English forces arrayed on the Heights of Abraham, to the west of Quebec. The battle that ensued was little more than a skirmish; but, measured by results, it may rank with the greater battles of the world. The Canadians fought badly, and the French regulars were outflanked and overpowered. Wolfe and Montcalm were slain in the encounter. The incompetent governor, Vaudreuil, in his terror abandoned Quebec, which soon surrendered. Meanwhile Amherst had got hold of Ticonderoga, and another force had occupied Niagara. Next year three armies marched from Lake Ontario, Ticonderoga, and Quebec upon Montreal, where, after a short resistance, the small French garrison surrendered to Amherst's larger force, and a convention was signed, by which the Canadians were abandoned. 14. On the 25th October 1760, in the midst of these great successes, George II. died suddenly. As his son, the pretentious and insincere Frederick, had died Death of in 1751, George was succeeded by Frederick's George II.,1760. eldest son, George III. His other son William (1721-1765) created Duke of Cumberland in 1726, was the victor of Culloden, a man with none of the softer virtues, but possessed of courage, honesty, and obstinacy, a capable soldier, and a fervent patron of English sports. BOOK IX. 1760-1820. INTRODUCTION. GEORGE III.'s long reign witnessed many great and farreaching changes. In 1760 England was not very different from the England of the Revolution. In 1820 modern England had been practically built up. In politics George III. upset for a time the constitution of conventions on which the power of the Whig aristocracy was based. But in the struggle he lost the American colonies and the great position in Europe which Chatham had won for England. Yet he succeeded in the end, because he got the people on his side. His triumph marks the faint beginnings of the movement which was in the end to bring the people into power. England's vigour and energy soon won her European influence back, and laid the foundations of a new commercial and colonial empire. The Expansion of England went on almost without a break. A great Industrial Revolution was now making England, hitherto almost altogether a trading and farming country, the workshop of the world. A long series of inventions made the Factory System possible. The results were an increasing population, wealth more quickly and easily won, more progress in material civilisation, and the shifting of the real centre of the country from the south to the north. But great dangers also came in. There were more glaring contrasts of riches and poverty, of luxury and want. The factory hand lived a wretched life in the unhealthy workshop and the stifling town. The new manufacturers looked with bitter jealousy on the old aristocracy. But a new zeal for religion, and a new zeal for humanity, led many good, unself ish men to do their best to make the new state of things bearable. While all this was going on, the eighteenth century system began to break up. The ideas on which it was founded had been already attacked by Voltaire and Rousseau, and its political conventions rudely assailed by Frederick of Prussia. The French Revolution completes its wreck. England weathered the storm better than any other country, though her institutions were sorely tried, and though she had a special danger in distressed and discontented Ireland, now bound more closely to Britain by the Union. Revolution soon brought about Reaction. Napoleon Buonaparte professed to carry out the work of the Revolution, while really promoting the reaction. But he strove only for himself, and sought to set up a new universal monarchy. England saved Europe from Napoleon, and upheld the doctrine of nationality, from which so much good was soon to come. After Napoleon's fall the restored priests and despots of the Holy Alliance tried to undo what was good in the Revolution, on the pretence of getting rid of the bad, and waged war against nations and Liberal principles. England now suffered more from the Reaction than from the Revolution, but she never quite sided with the restored kings of the Continent. But disgust of the long Tory rule now led to a further popular movement, beginning as soon as the war was over. However, before the reaction was completed George III. died. CHAPTER I. George III.'s First Struggles for Power, 1. George III. was twenty-two years old when he began to reign. His mother, Augusta of Sachsen-Gotha, described him as "not a wild boy, but good- Character of natured and cheerful, with a serious cast upon George III. the whole; not quick, but applicable and intelligent; his book-learning small or useless, but instructed in the general understanding of things." But she had brought objects. him up in a very narrow way. He thought Shakespeare "sad stuff, only one must not say so." But he liked Handel's music, and was a fair performer himself. He was honest, hard-working, religious, and of good private life. He lived simply and frugally, amusing himself with farming. He married in 1761 Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who was, says Horace Walpole, "not tall nor a beauty; pale and very thin, but sensible-looking and genteel." With his narrow intellect George possessed a strong will, a high courage and a vigorous character. He was thoroughly obstinate, and there was no way of getting over his prejudices. He boasted that he was "born and bred a Briton," His political and he had been taught by his mother "to be a king." He chose as his chief adviser John Stuart, Earl of Bute, a rich Scotch nobleman of culture and refinement, but inexperienced in politics and too fond of intrigue. Bute was a new Tory of the school of Bolingbroke, and taught George to take for his model Bolingbroke's Patriot King," the enemy of all corruption, the most powerful of all reformers, the admiration of every honest man." The patriot king was "to begin to govern as soon as he begins to reign, purge his Court, and call into the administration such as will serve him on his principles." He must espouse no party, for party government must always end in the government of a faction." He was to exercise freely and fully all those powers which the law still gave him, but which the custom of the last two reigns had taken away. Above all, he was to choose his own ministers. He was to accept "Revolution principles," and never break the strict law. But his great object was to overthrow the constitutional usages which had made the king a sort of Venetian doge. He was to extend his connections and enlarge his influence in every way in his power. This great object George pursued continuously and persistently for nearly fifty years. He did not flinch under a storm of unpopularity, and in the long run won the day. People respected him because his life was pure, and because he was such a thorough Englishman. His prejudices were, after all, their prejudices. His ends were honest, but he was as corrupt as Walpole in the means he took to gain them, and, though he spent little on himself, he got rid of so much money in bribery that he was constantly in debt, though his "civil list" was a liberal one. He meant to break down the organised ring of noble Whig houses that had ruled England for the last two reigns. His great advantages 66 |
