The Sun.
London, England, 1867-07-24 00:00:00

George 111.

Had George 111. been bra heir to absolute
sovereignty, his reign would have been one of the
luckiest accidents possible for his subjects. Ile had
certain qualities which win for absolute monarchs
the loyalty of their people and the devotion of their
personal adherents. His theory of government

somewhat resembled that of the governor of a
Crown colony, assisted, but not controlled, by his
council. As it was, George 111. was after 1790
extremely popular with the bulk of the English
people, who knew nothing of his relations towards
the leaders of political parties, and cared little for
the punctilios of constitutional government. To
the traders and bankers outside the circle of metro-
politan agitation—to the squirearchy in the coun-
try, to the middle-class inhabitants of provincial
towns—above all to the clergy and the yeomanry,
it was a matter of supreme indifference that their
King was suspected of intriguing to oust George
Grenville, or of circumventing Lord Rockingham,
or of conspiring to make the great Commoner un-
popular, or holding in reserve a corps of devoted
official Janizaries prepared to upset his recognised
Ministers. To some of them the worst of these
suspicions appeared—and we think justly appeared
—to be destitute of foundation. To the majority
they appeared utterly unimportant. They saw in
the King a man who practised the virtues which
they themselves most admired, and reflected the
prejudices by which they themselves were mainly
actuated. He was temperate, he was frugal, he
was industrious, he was devout, he was courageous,
he was affectionate. Did not the King work
harder at public business than the generality of
merchants worked at their own? Was not his
dinner the model of a gentleman-farmer's family
dinner ? Did not the King ride about the country
without pomp, and talk to yeoman and farmers
like the good "Farmer George" that he was? Did
he not keep his accounts with marvellous minute-
ness ? Did he not date each of his letters with
a methodical precision and particularity unrivalled
by scriveners, bankers, and lawyers. Again, had
not they seen him on the day of his coronation, un-
advised by precedent or counsel, himself doff the
Royal Crown that he might with becoming humility
partake of the Holy Communion ? They knew, too,
bow, on ascending the throne, he had rebuked a
courtly preacher for a too adulatory sermon, and how
be had written to most reverend prelates to
express
his disapprobation of the secular festivities which had
violated the traditional sanctity of episcopal palaces.
At a later period than that of Lord North's Ministry
good and thoughtful persons were melted into tears
at the spectacle of the aged monarch going to the
great metropolitan cathedral to return humble thanks
to the Almighty for His goodness in restoring him
from the dread darkness of a malady worse than death
to life, reason, and health. They knew, too, that on
occasions which made Ministers and Privy Council-
lors mute through fear, the King alone had breathed
courage into the cowed and hesitating circle. It was
to his promptitude and spirit that London owed its
rescue from the anarchy, at once shameful and ter-
rible, with which the grotesque fanaticism of Lord
G. Gordon had afflicted it. It was the King who

took down on the spot Wed.derburn's opinion that
the troops might be legally employed ; it was the
King who ordered them to be called out; it was the
King who declared his reaiiness to lead them. When
an angry mob pelted the royal carriage on its way to
Westminster, and his courtiers turned pale at the
rude a,vault, the King alone was calm and undis-
mayed ; when fired at in the theatre, he alone of the
royal rarty retained his composure. It was in no
vaunting spirit of fictitious bravery, then, that the
King had written in 1755, when incendiary handbills
were circulated about the streets of London to pre-
vent the meeting of Parliament—" These handbills
are certainly spread to cause terror ; that they may
in the timid duke (sc. of Grafton) I saw yesterday,
but I thank God lau not of that make. I know what
my duty to my country makes me undertake, and
threats cannot prevent me from doing that to the
fullest extent." Indeetl, next to gambling and de-
bauchery he seems to have had the most utter aversion
to cowardice. Ile is never tired of sneering at the
pusillanimity which made the Duke of Grafton desert
him, and contrasting it with the courage shown by
Lord North in confronting the dangers and respon-
sibilities of office. If his courage and firmness de-
generated into an obstinacy which resisted the elo-
quence of reasoning and the logic of facts, a few
brilliant statesmen or profound philosophers might
deride a stubborn temper which the King shared