1774
bore a gloomy and arbitrary character, with wars abroad and uneasiness
at home. The county of Nottingham omitted to raise their militia in the
former year, and in this they were fined two thousand pounds.
Louis the Fifteenth of France died this year of the small-pox, caught
from a country girl, introduced to him by Madame du Barre to gratify his
sensual desires. He was in the _sixty-fourth_ year of his age, and in
the fifty-ninth of his reign. The gross debaucheries into which he had
sank, with the despotic measures he had adopted towards the Chamber of
Deputies in his latter years, had entirely deprived him of his
appellation of the "Well-beloved." Few French sovereigns have left a
less-respected memory.
1775
was also a year of disquiet. The City of London addressed the throne,
and petitioned against the existing grievances, expressing their strong
abhorrence of the measures adopted towards the Americans, _justifying
their resistance_, and beseeching his majesty to dismiss his ministers.
The _invisible power of the queen_, however, prevented their receiving
redress, and the ministers were retained, contrary to all petition and
remonstrance. Upon these occasions, the king was obliged to submit to
any form of expression, dictated by the minister, that minister being
under the entire controul of the queen; and though the nation seemed to
wear a florid countenance, it was sick at heart. Lord North was a very
considerable favourite with her majesty; while his opponents, Messrs.
Fox and Burke, were proportionately disliked. The Duke of Grafton now
felt tired of his situation, and told the queen that he could no longer
continue in office; in consequence of which, the Earl of Dartmouth
received the privy seal.
The Americans, in the mean time, were vigorously preparing for what they
conceived to be inevitable--_a war_. Various attempts, notwithstanding,
were made by the enlightened and liberal-minded part of the community to
prevent ministers from continuing hostilities against them. That noble
and persevering patriot, Lord Chatham, raised his warning voice against
it. "I wish," said he, "not to lose a day in this urgent, pressing
crisis; an _hour now lost in allaying ferments in America, may produce_
YEARS OF CALAMITY! Never will I desert, in any stage of its progress,
the conduct of this momentous business. Unless fettered to my bed by the
extremity of sickness, I will give it unremitted attention; I will knock
at the gates of this _sleeping and confounded ministry_, and will, if it
be possible, rouse them to a sense of their danger. The recall of your
army, I urge as necessarily preparatory to the restoration of your
peace. By this it will appear that you are disposed to treat amicably
and equitably, and to consider, revise, and repeal, if it should be
found necessary, as I affirm it _will_, those violent acts and
declarations which have disseminated confusion throughout the empire.
_Resistance to these acts was necessary_, and therefore just; and your
vain declaration of the _omnipotence of Parliament_, and your
_imperious_ doctrines of the _necessity of submission_, will be found
equally _impotent to convince or enslave America_, who feels that
tyranny is equally intolerable, whether it be exercised by an individual
part of the legislature, or by the collective bodies which compose it!"
How prophetic did this language afterwards prove! Oh! England, how hast
thou been cursed by debt and blood through the impotency and villany of
thy rulers!