excited attention. But what was deemed by the government of George II. to be a dangerous stretch of arbitrary power, was eagerly welcomed by the government of George III. For the new king, having the most exalted notion of his own authority, and being, from his miserable education, entirely ignorant of public affairs, thought that to tax the Americans for the benefit of the English would be a masterpiece of policy. When, therefore, the old idea was revived, it met with his cordial acquiescence; and when the Americans showed their intention of resisting this monstrous injustice, he was only the more confirmed in his opinion that it was necessary to curb their unruly will. Nor need we be surprised at the rapidity with which such angry feelings broke out. Indeed, looking, on the one hand, at the despotic principles which, for the first time since the Revolution, were now revived at the English court; and looking, on the other hand, at the independent spirit of the colonists, it was impossible to avoid a struggle between the two parties; and the only questions were, as to what form the contest would take, and towards which side victory was most likely to incline.

On the part of the English government no time was lost. Five years after the accession of George III. a bill was brought into Parliament to tax the Americans; and so complete had been the change in political affairs that not the least difficulty was found in passing a measure which, in the reign of George II., no minister had dared to propose. Formerly such a proposition, if made, would certainly have been rejected; now the most powerful parties in the state were united in its favour. The king on every occasion paid a court to the clergy to which, since the death of Anne, they had been unaccustomed; he was therefore sure of their support, and they zealously aided him in every attempt to oppress the colonies. The aristocracy, a few leading Whigs alone excepted, were on the same side, and looked to the taxation of America as a means of lessening their own contributions. As to George III., his feelings on the subject were notorious, and the more liberal party not having yet recovered from the loss of power consequent on the death of George II., there was little fear of difficulties from the cabinet; it being well known that the

throne was occupied by a prince whose first object was to keep ministers in strict dependence on himself, and who, whenever it was practicable, called into office such weak and flexible men as would yield unhesitating submission to his wishes.

Everything being thus prepared, there followed those events which were to be expected from such a combination. Without stopping to relate details which are known to every reader, it may be briefly mentioned that, in this new state of things, the wise and forbearing policy of the preceding reign was set at naught, and the national councils guided by rash and ignorant men, who soon brought the greatest disasters upon the country, and within a few years actually dismembered the empire. In order to enforce the monstrous claim of taxing a whole people without their consent, there was waged against America a war ill-conducted, unsuccessful, and what is far worse, accompanied by cruelties disgraceful to a civilized nation. To this may be added, that an immense trade was nearly annihilated; every branch of commerce was thrown into confusion; we were disgraced in the eyes of Europe; we incurred an expense of 140,000,0007.; and we lost by far the most valuable colonies any nation has ever possessed.

Such were the first fruits of the policy of George III. But the mischief did not stop there. The opinions which it was necessary to advocate in order to justify this barbarous war, recoiled upon ourselves. In order to defend the attempt to destroy the liberties of America, principles were laid down which, if carried into effect, would have subverted the liberties of England. Not only in the court, but in both houses of Parliament, from the episcopal bench, and from the pulpits of the church-party, there were promulgated doctrines of the most dangerous kind-doctrines unsuited to a limited monarchy, and, indeed, incompatible with it. The extent to which this reaction proceeded is known to very few readers, because the evidence of it is chiefly to be found in the parliamentary debates, and in the theological literature, particularly the sermons, of that time, none of which are now much studied. But, not to anticipate matters belonging to another part of this work, it is enough to say that the danger was so imminent

as to make the ablest defenders of popular liberty believe that everything was at stake; and that if the Americans were vanquished, the next step would be to attack the liberties of England, and endeavour to extend to the mother-country the same arbitrary government which by that time would have been established in the colonies.

SMYTH'S HISTORICAL SUMMARY.

Lectures on Modern History, Lecture XXXI.

What are the causes that can be mentioned as having produced such unhappy effects on this side of the Atlantic? I will offer to your consideration such as have occurred to me. I will mention first those that were natural and not discreditable to us, then those that were discreditable.

Of the first kind, then, was a general notion in the English people that their cause was just. The sovereignty was supposed to be in the parent state; in the rights of sovereignty were included the rights of taxation; England, too, was considered as having protected the Americans from the French in the war that had been lately concluded. The Americans, therefore, when they resisted the mother country in her attempts to tax them, were considered on the first account as rebellious, and in the second as ungrateful.

The sentiment, then, of the contest, as far as it was honorable to the inhabitants of this country, originated in the consideration just mentioned. But this sentiment would have produced no such effect as the American War, had it not been excited and exasperated by other considerations which I shall now lay before you, and which were not creditable to us.

Turning, then, at present, from the causes first mentioned, an opinion in the people of England that the Americans were rebellious and ungrateful, and alluding to the causes that were less honourable in the sentiment, and that were discreditable to us, and that operated so fatally to the reduction and exasperation of the American contest, the first was, I think, a deplorable ignorance or inattention to the great leading princi ples of political economy.

The result of this ignorance or inattention was an indisposition to listen to the arguments of those who laid down from time to time, and explained the proper manner in which colo-. nies might become sources of revenue to the mother country, not by means of taxes and tax-gatherers, but by the interchange of their appropriate products, and by the exertions of the real revenue officers of every country, the merchants, farmers, and manufacturers. This was one of what I consider as the discreditable causes of the war on our part.

Secondly, A very blind, and indeed disgraceful selfishness, in the mere matter of money and payment of taxes; this was another. It was hence that the country gentlemen of the House of Commons, and the landed interest of England, had actually the egregious folly to support ministers in their scheme of coercing America, from an expectation that their own burdens, their land-tax, for instance, might be made lighter, or at least prevented from becoming heavier.

Thirdly, An overweening national pride, not operating in its more honourable direction to beat off invaders, or repel the approach of insult or injustice, but in making us despise our enemy, vilify the American character, and suppose that nothing could stand opposed to our own good pleasure, or resist the valour of our fleets and armies.

Fourthly, Very high principles of government; a disposition to push too far the rights of authority; to insist too sternly on the expediency of control; to expect the duty of submission to laws without much inquiry into the exact reasonableness of their enactments. These high principles of government operated very fatally, when the question was whether Great Britain could not only claim, but actually exercise, sovereignty over the colonies of America; whether the people of America could be constitutionally taxed by the Parliament of Great Britain, a parliament in which it could have no representatives.

Fifthly, A certain vulgarity of thinking on political subjects; narrow, and what will commonly be found popular, notions in national concerns. In these last few words I might perhaps at once comprehend all the causes I have already mentioned. It was thus that men like Mr. Burke, who drew their reasonings from philosophic principles of a general

nature, were not comprehended or were disregarded, while the most commonplace declaimer was applauded, and decided the different issues of the dispute.

II. ACCOUNTS AND ESTIMATES OF BURKE.

Buckle, History of Civilization in England, Vol. I., pp. 326-334.

The slightest sketch of the reign of George III. would indeed be miserably imperfect, if it were to omit the name of Edmund Burke. The studies of this extraordinary man not only covered the whole field of political inquiry, but extended to an immense variety of subjects, which, though apparently unconnected with politics, do in reality bear upon them as important adjuncts; since, to a philosophic mind, every branch of knowledge lights up even those that seem most remote from it. The eulogy passed upon him by one who was no mean judge of men might be justified, and more than justified, by passages from his works, as well as by the opinions of the most eminent of his contemporaries. Thus it is that while his insight into the philosophy of jurisprudence has gained the applause of lawyers, his acquaintance with the whole range and theory of the fine arts has won the admiration of artists; a striking combination of two pursuits, often, though erroneously, held to be incompatible with each other. At the same time, and notwithstanding the occupations of political life, we know on good authority that he had paid great attention to the history and filiation of languages; a vast subject, which within the last thirty years has become an important resource for the study of the human mind, but the very idea of which had, in its large sense, only begun te dawn upon a few solitary thinkers. And, what is even more remarkable, when Adam Smith came to London full of those discoveries which have immortalized his name, he found to his amazement that Burke had anticipated conclusions the maturing of which cost Smith himself many years of anxious and unremitting labor.

To these great inquiries, which touch the basis of social