The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1888-03-10
THE BEGINNING OF THE REV
OLUTION
BY JOHN FIsKE.

tam hLnu VI bUlilty, WAlCu OltSh SoeS
highly rated in this not too clear-sighted
world. He could see an immediate end
very distinctly, and acquired considera-
BILE power from the logged industry with
which he pursued it. In an age where
some OF the noblest English statesmen
drank their gallon of strong wine daily,
or sat late at the gambling table, or lived
in scarcely hidden eoncubinage, George
III. was decorous in personal habits and
pure in domestic relations, and no bank
er's clerk in London applied himself to
the details of business more industriously
than ne. He had genuine talent for
administration, and he devoted this talent
most assiduously to selfish ends. Scant-
lily endowed with human sympathy, and
almost boorishly stiff in his ordinary I'M
studied manner, he could be smooth as
oil whenever he liked. He was an adept
in gaining mems confidence by show of
interest, and securing their aid by dint
of fair promises; and when he found them
of no further use, he could turn them
adrift with wanton insult. Any one who
dared to disagree with him upon even the
slightest point of policy he straightway
regarded as natural enemy, and pur-
sued him ever afterward with vindictive
hatred. AS a natural consequence, he
surrounded himself with weak and short
sighted advisers, and toward all states
men of broad views and independent
character he nurse the bitterest rancor.
He had little faith in human honor or
rectitude. In pursuing an end he was
not often deferred by scruples, and as
liar-well, mendscity has usually been
part of the royal prerogative in most
countriesl
Such was the man who, on coming to
the throne in 1850, had it for his first and
chiefest thought to break down the grow
ing system of cabinet government in
England.
In strong opposition to the Old Wing
policy there had grown up the party of
New Wings, bent upon bringing about
some measure of parliamentary reform,
whereby the House OF Commons might
truly represent the people of Great Brit
ain. In parliament this party was small
in numbers, but weighty in character,
and at its head was the greatest English
man OF the eighteenth century, the elder
William Pitt, under whose guidance
England had won her Indian empire and
established her dominion over the seas,
while she had driven the French from
America, and enabled Frederick the
Great to lay the foundations Of modern
Germany.
Now when George III. came to the
throne, he took advantage of this division
in the two parties in order to break down
the power of the Old Wing families,
which so long had ruled the country.
To this end he used the revived Tory
party with great effect, and BID against
the Old Wings for the rotten boroughs;
and in playing of one set OF prejudices
and interests against another, he display
ed in the highest degree the cunning and
craft of seIf-seeking politician. His
ordinary methods would have aroused
the envy OF Tammany. While engaged
in such work, he had sense enough to see
that the party from which he bad most to
fear was that of the New Wings, whose
scheme of parliamentary reform, if ever
successful, would deprive him of the ma
chinery of corruption on which he relied.
Much as he hated the Old Wing families,
he hated Pitt and his followers still more
heartily. He was perpetually denounc-
| ing Pitt as "trumpeter of sedition," and
often vehemently declared in public, and
in the most offensive manner, that he
wished that great man were dead. Such
had been his eagerness to cast discredit
upon Pitts policy that he had utterly
lost sight of the imperial interests of
England, which indeed his narrow intel
ligence was incapable of comprehending.
One of the first acts of his reign had been
to throw away Cuba and the Philippine
Islands, which Pitt had just conquered
from Spain; while at the same time, by
leaving Prussia in the lurch before the
Seven Years War had fairly closed, he
converted the great Frederick from one
of Englsnd's warmest friends into one of
her bitterest enemies.
This political attitude of George III.
toward the Wings in general, and toward
Pitt in particular, explains the fierce OBJ
stinacy with which he took up and car
ried on Townshend's quarrel with the
American colonies. For if the Ameri-
can position, that there should be no
taxation without representation, we're
once to be granted, then it would straight
way become necessary to admit the prin-
ciples of parliamentary reform. The
same principle that applied to such COM
monweslths as Massachusetts, and Vir-
ginia would be forthwith applied to such
towns as Birmingham and Leeds. The
system of rotten boroughs would be
swept away; the chief engine of kingly
corruption would thus be destroyed;a re-
formed House of Commons, with the peo-
pie at its back, would curb forever the
pretensions of the Grown; and the de-
tested Lord Chatham would become the
real ruler of renovated England, in
which George III. would be parsonage
of very little political Importance.
In these considerations we find the ex-