The Shasta courier., 1858-12-11
Lord North.

Lord North. Ts1
The following sketch of Lord North the Prime
Minister of George ILL.,, whose tyrannical meas
ures towards this country led to the war of the
Revolution, is taken from review of Meningitis s
life of Edmund Burke
Since the spectacle of q Nero fiddlng while
Rome was burning" perhaps no greater con-
trast has been seen than that exhibited by the
4 jolly good humor of Lord North, on the one
hand, and the stern severity on the other, OF
the measures he adopted against this country,
and the intensity of the suffering he inflicted
upon its inhabitants Mr.. Macknight thus
sketches the Prime Minister:
In his personal appearance, there never was
q Minister less graceful. He than
awkward-he was ridicuously ungainly His
tongue was larger than his mouth, which OPEN
ed very slowly. His eyes were too big for his
head, though these optical organs were consti-
tutionaly deficient in power. His body set all
proportion at defiance. Every motion was roll,
every expression caricature. He had not yet
obtained the blue ribbon, which, in later years,
so constantly adorned his corpulent and un-
wieldy person, singing him out from his col
leagues and appearing to attract towards him
all the thunderbolts of the opposition. Neither
had he yet grown so short-sighted as when,
some years later, he carried the wig of 4 stoop-
ing colleague down the House on the point of
his sword, and saw not the feat of arms he had
| performed, until the laughter from all sides
greeted this unprecedented ministerial achieve
ment. But, always goggling, snoring and
laughing, soyenly in dress and abstracted in
manner-enjoying the jokes against himself,
and habitually joking at other people-it was
scarcely possible to imagine more lHdicrous
embodiment of the dignity which is supposed to
belong to the first Minister of great Empire
and the tried leader of an enduring ministry.
When the news arrived in England that blood
had been shed by British troops in the streets of
Boston, and Burke made one of his most elo-
quent speeches motion for censure of the
ministry, the first Minister of the Grown drop
ped oil to sleep. His slumber was only disturbed
ty the laughter which arose when William
Burke, who supported his kinsman in the de-
bate, regretted that none of the Minister'S COL
leagues had one of Swifts fappers to keep him
awake to American affairs. He could rouse up
to correct a false quantity in Latin quotation
greater crime then-perhaps now-in the
British Parliament, than the shedding of inno-
cent blood; or after vehement denuncaton
OF his cruelty in hiring foreign mercenaries to
fight against Englshmen, or employing Indian
allies, who scalped women aud children, he
laugh against his indignant adversaries. Even
under the strong reprobation which subsequent
disgraces and disasters called forth, he still kept
his temper, and answered every grave remon-
STRANGE with a pleasant joke. There came news,
however, which sobered even Lord North. 1t
was the surrender of CORVALLIS.
Nearly five weeks after the surrender of York
town, a hackney coach was seen on Sunday
morning, the 25th ofNovember, leaving the door
of Lord Germaine's mansion in Pail Mall In
that humble vehicle the noble Secretary
himself He was driving during church time to
communicate to his colleagues the disasterous
intelligence which had just arrived at the War
Office, in Whitehall. lie first called on Lord
Stormont, in Portland Place and thence the
two Ministers drove to the residence of the Lord
Chancellor in Great Russell street The bold
Thurlow, though the keeper of the royal con-
science, was not at his public devotions. These
same officials jumped into the same hackney
coach, of which the driver was, at least, in luck
that morning, and the three Ministers went in a
body to the official residence of their chief, in
Downing street. The easy temper which had
buoyed up Lord North amid the ruin which his
policy bad inflicted on the country, at last gave
away. He saw at glance the enormity OF the
crimes he had committed. He saw that no royal
favor could at last shield him from the deserved
reprobation OF all future generations in both
hemispheres. The news was to him like the re-
cipient of a bullet in his bosom. He stretched
forth his arms and paced wildly to and fro, ex-
claiming repeatedly, in the deepest agony of
mind, " 0 God it is all over"
His last appearance upon the stage in this BIZ
ography is more characteristic. Compelled to
resign his office by the disastrous news from
America, he went down to the House, and con-
veyed the intelligence in the brief words, eThe
Il " mn
Immediately after adjourned, but, as this early
adjournment could not have been anticipated.
no member but Lord North had carriage in
waiting. The night was bitterly cold heavy
flakes of snow were falling, and the keen winds
were whistling through the branches of the trees
near the old Abbey. He passed through the
crowd of his enemies, who were waiting for We
hicles to carry them to their clubs and firesides.
and, on driving off, the fallen Minister, with a
last CLEAN OF that good temper which had so
often shone serenely amid the disasters he had
brought upon his country, exclaimed, "Good
night, gentlemen; you see what it is to be in
tn e secret"