To a superficial observer, the accession of George III was one of the
most fortunate events that could have occurred. The new king was born
in England, spoke English as his mother tongue, and was said to look
upon Hanover as a foreign country, whose interests were to be
considered of subordinate importance. At the same time, the last hopes
of the House of Stuart were now destroyed; the Pretender himself was
languishing in Italy, where he shortly after died: and his son, a
slave to the vices which seemed hereditary in that family, was
consuming his life in an unpitied and ignominious obscurity.
[Footnote 56: From Volume I, Chapter VII, of the "History of
Civilization in England."]
And yet these circumstances, which appeared so favorable, did of
necessity involve the most disastrous consequences. The fear of a
disputed succession being removed, the sovereign was emboldened to a
course on which he otherwise would not have ventured. All those
monstrous doctrines respecting the rights of kings, which the
Revolution was supposed to have destroyed, were suddenly revived. The
clergy, abandoning the now hopeless cause of the Pretender, displayed
the same zeal for the House of Hanover which they had formerly
displayed for the House of Stuart. The pulpits resounded with praises
of the new king, of the domestic virtues, of his piety, but, above
all, his dutiful attachment to the English Church. The result was the
establishment of an alliance between the two parties more intimate
than any had been seen in England since the time of Charles I. Under
their auspices the old Tory faction rapidly rallied, and were soon
able to dispossess their rivals of the management of the government.
This reactionary movement was greatly aided by the personal character
of George III, for he, being despotic as well as superstitious, was
equally anxious to extend the prerogative and strengthen the church.
Every liberal sentiment, everything approaching to reform, nay, even
the mere mention of inquiry, was an abomination in the eyes of that
narrow and ignorant prince. Without knowledge, without taste, without
even a glimpse of one of the sciences, or a feeling for one of the
fine arts, education had done nothing to enlarge a mind which nature
had more than usually contracted. Totally ignorant of the history and
resources of foreign countries, and barely knowing their geographical
position, his information was scarcely more extensive respecting the
people over whom he was called to rule. In that immense mass of
evidence now extant, and which consists of every description of
private correspondence, records of private conversation and of public
acts, there is not to be found the slightest proof that he knew any
one of those numerous things which the governor of a country ought to
know; or indeed, that he was acquainted with a single duty of his
position, except that mere mechanical routine of ordinary business
which might have been effected by the lowest clerk in the meanest
office in his kingdom.
The course of proceeding which such a king as this was likely to
follow could be easily foreseen. He gathered round his throne that
great party, who, clinging to the tradition of the past, have always
made it their boast to check the progress of their age. During the
sixty years of his reign, he, with the sole exception of Pitt, never
willingly admitted to his councils a single man of great ability; not
one whose name is associated with any measure of value either in
domestic or in foreign policy. Even Pitt only maintained his position
in the state by forgetting the lessons of his illustrious father, and
abandoning those liberal principles in which he had been educated, and
with which he entered public life. Because George III hated the idea
of reform, Pitt not only relinquished what he had before declared to
be absolutely necessary, but did not hesitate to persecute to the
death the party with whom he had once associated in order to obtain
it. Because George III looked upon slavery as one of those good old
customs which the wisdom of his ancestors had consecrated, Pitt did
not dare to use his power for procuring its abolition, but left to his
successors the glory of destroying that infamous trade, on the
preservation of which his royal master had set his heart. Because
George III detested the French of whom he knew as much as he knew of
the inhabitants of Kamchatka or of Tibet, Pitt, contrary to his own
judgment, engaged in a war with France by which England was seriously
imperiled, and the English people burdened with a debt that their
remotest posterity will be unable to pay. But, notwithstanding all
this, when Pitt, only a few years before his death, showed a
determination to concede to the Irish some small share of their
undoubted rights, the King dismissed him from office; and the King's
friends, as they were called, exprest their indignation at the
presumption of a minister who could oppose the wishes of so benign and
gracious a master. And when, unhappily for his own fame, this great
man determined to return to power, he could only recover office by
conceding that very point for which he had relinquished it; thus
setting the mischievous example of the minister of a free country
sacrificing his own judgment to the personal prejudices of the
sovereign.
As it was hardly possible to find other ministers who to equal
abilities would add equal subservience, it is not surprizing that the
highest offices were constantly filled by men of notorious incapacity.
Indeed, the King seemed to have an instinctive antipathy to everything
great and noble. During the reign of George II the elder Pitt had won
for himself a reputation which covered the world, and had carried to
an unprecedented height the glories of the English name. He, however,
as the avowed friend of popular rights, strenuously opposed the
despotic principles of the court; and for this reason he was hated by
George III with a hatred that seemed barely compatible with a sane
mind.