heads of the Whig party. All placemen, who had voted against the preliminaries of peace, were dismissed. Their humble friends and clients were also proscribed. Clerks were removed from public offices, and inferior officers from the customs, and excise, and other small appointments, for no other offence than that of having been appointed by their obnoxious patrons. While bribes were being lavished to purchase adhesion to the court policy, this severity was intended to discourage opposition. upon par ties. The preliminaries of peace were approved by Parlia- Its effect ment; and the Princess of Wales, exulting in the success of the court, exclaimed, "Now my son is king of England."2 But her exultation was premature. As yet there had been little more than a contention for power, between rival parties in the aristocracy; but these stretches of prerogative served to unite the Whigs into an organised opposition. Since the accession of the House of Hanover, this party had supported the Crown as ministers. It now became their office to assert the liberties of the people, and to resist the encroachments of prerogative. Thus the king's attempt to restore the personal influence of the Sovereign, which the Revolution had impaired, so far from strengthening the throne, advanced the popular cause, and gave it powerful leaders, whose interests had hitherto been enlisted on the side of the Crown. Claims of prerogative became the signal for the assertion of new rights and liberties, on the part of the people. The fall of the king's favoured minister was even more Sudden fall sudden than his rise. He shrank from the difficulties of Bute, 1 Walp. Mem., i. 233; Gren- 2 Walp. Mem., i. 233. ville Papers, i. 453; Rockingham, Mem., i. 152, 158. of Lord His continued influence with the king. ville 1763. mi oppo his position, -a disunited cabinet, -a formidable Nor did Lord Bute propose to relinquish his own power together with his office. He retreated to the interior cabinet, whence he could direct more securely the measures of the court2; having previously negotiated the appointment of Mr. George Grenville as his successor, and arranged with him the nomiThe Gren- nation of the cabinet.3 The ministry of Mr. nistry, Grenville was constituted in a manner favourable to the king's personal views, and was expected to be under the control of himself and his favourite. And at first there can be little doubt that Mr. Grenville found himself the mere agent of the court. "The voice was Jacob's voice, but the hands were the hands of Esau. " "The public looked still at Lord Bute through the curtain," said Lord Chesterfield, "which indeed was a very transparent one." But Mr. Grenville was by no means contented with the appearance of power. He was jealous of Lord Bute's superior influence, and 1 He was hissed and pelted at the opening of Parliament, 25th Nov., 1762, and his family were alarmed for his personal safety. 2 Mr. Grenville to Lord Egremont; Grenville Papers, ii. 85. 3 Grenville Papers, ii. 32, 33. complained to the king that his was withheld from his minister.1 Majesty's confidence as the king himself, and with a will as strong and imperious, tenacious of his rights as a minister, and confident in his own abilities and influence, he looked to Parliament rather than to the Crown, as the source of his authority. Bute to Mr. Pitt. The king finding his own scheme of government op- The king posed, and disliking the uncongenial views and hard sends Lord temper of his minister, resolved to dismiss him on the first convenient opportunity. Accordingly, on the death of Lord Egremont, he commissioned Lord Bute to open negotiations with Mr. Pitt, for the formation of a new administration. And now the king tasted the bitter fruits of his recent policy. He had proscribed the Whig leaders. He had determined "never upon any account to suffer those ministers of the late reign, who had attempted to fetter and enslave him, to come into his service, while he lived to hold the sceptre.' "3 Yet these were the very ministers whom Mr. Pitt proposed to restore to power; and stranger still, the premier in whom the king was asked to repose his confidence, was Earl Temple, who had recently aroused his bitter resentment. His Majesty was not likely so soon to retract his resolution, and refused these hateful terms: "My honour is concerned," he said, "and I must support it." 4 The Grenville ministry, however distasteful, was not so hard to bear as the restoration of the dreaded Whigs; and he was therefore obliged to retain it. Mr. Grenville now remonstrated more strongly than ever against the 1 Grenville Papers, ii. 84, 85, 89. 2 Ibid., ii. 83, 85. 3 Letter of Lord Bute to the Duke of Bedford, 2nd April, 1763; Duke of Bedford's Correspondence, 4 Grenville Papers, ii. 96, 107. Active interest of the mea sures of government. influence of the favourite who had been employed to : supplant him the king promised his confidence to the ministers, and Lord Bute retired from the court.1 Though George III. and Mr. Grenville differed as to the king in their relative powers, they were but too well agreed in their policy. Both were arbitrary in their views, impatient of opposition, and resolute in the exercise of authority. The chief claims of the Grenville ministry to distinction were its arbitrary proceedings against Wilkes, which the king encouraged and approved, and the first taxation of America, which he himself suggested. In the policy of proscription, which had disgraced the late administration, the king was even more forward than his ministers. Earl Temple's friendship for Wilkes was punished by the erasure of his name from the list of privy councillors, and by dismissal from the lord-lieutenancy of his county. General Conway, Colonel Barré, and Colonel A'Court were, for their votes in Parliament, deprived of their military commands 4, and Lord Shelburne of his office of aide-de-camp to his Majesty. His violation of the of Parlia ment. The privileges of Parliament were systematically privileges violated by the king. In order to guard against the arbitrary interference of the Crown in its proceedings, Parliament had established, for centuries, the constitutional doctrine that the king should not hear or give credit to reports of its debates, and that no member should suffer molestation for his speaking or reasoning.5 Yet, during the proceedings of the Commons against Wilkes, the king obtained from Mr. Grenville the most 1 Grenville Papers, ii. 106, 483, 2 Wraxall's Mem., ii. 111. 4Chatham Correspondence,ii. 275; Walp. Mem., ii. 65. 5 Rot. Parl., iii. 456, 611; 4 Hen. VIII. c. 8. minute and circumstantial reports. Not only did he watch the progress of every debate, and the result of each division, but he kept a jealous eye upon the opinions and votes of every member; and expressed his personal resentment against all who did not support the government. It was he who first proposed the dismissal of General Conway, "both from his civil ard military commissions: " it was he who insisted on the removal of Mr.Fitzherbert from the Board of Trade, and of all placemen who took a different view of parliamentary privilege from that adopted by the court.1 Mr. Grenville endeavoured to moderate the king's severity he desired to postpone such violent measures till the proceedings against Wilkes should be concluded2; and, in the meantime, opened communications with General Conway in the hope of averting his dismissal.3 But, at length the blow was struck, and General Conway was dismissed not only from his office of Groom of the Bedchamber, but from the command of his regiment of dragoons. Mr. Calcraft was also deprived of the office of Deputy Muster-Master.5 The king himself was, throughout, the chief promoter of this policy of proscription. To commit General Conway or Colonel Barré to prison, as James I. had committed Sir Edwin Sandys, 1 Grenville Papers, ii. 162, 165, 166 (letters from the king to Mr. Grenville, 16th, 23rd, and 24th Nov., 1763); ibid., 223, 228-9. 2 Ibid., 224, 229, 230, 266, 267, 484 (Diary, 16th, 25th, and 30th Nov.; 2nd Dec. 1763; 19th Jan., 1764). 3 Ibid., 231-233. 4 Grenville Papers, ii. 296. "Mr. Grenville never would admit the distinction between civil and military appointments.' Grenville Papers, ii. 234, 507. It has been stated that |