Motion of Mr. Fox for the Removal of Lord Sandwich 465 Committee of Enquiry respecting the Conduct of the Ame- rican War - - K. GEORGE III. ! IN tracing the long feries of royal descents which has taken place in this Island since the foundation of the English Monarchy, it will be difficult, perhaps impossible, to name any Prince who has succeeded to the Crown under circumstances of greater and more signal advantage than the present sovereign. At the head of a firm, vigilant and popular Administration, was placed a minister illustrious by the splendor of his talents, and the magnanimity of his conduct; under whose superior afcendent, party spirit and parliamentary oppofition seemed extinguished. Great Britain, in conjunction with her numerous colonies and dependencies, exhibited to the world a grand political association, actuated by one common interest, and united, amidst a thousand fubordinate diversities of opinion, in the facred bonds of duty and affection. That fatal predilec tion for the claims of the exiled House of Stuart, formerly so prevalent, and which had rendered the task of Government so difficult in the preceding reigns, was now no more. Notwithstanding the long continuance of a foreign war, the most complicated and extensive in which Great Britain had ever been engaged, the internal state of the Kingdom was not only perfectly tranquil, but in the highest degree flourishing and profperous. The vast increase of commerce and manufactures enabled her to support the immenfe expence incurred VOL. I. B in in the profecution of it, with a facility, and even an alacrity, altogether unprecedented and aftonishing; and her more re cent operations had in every part of the globe been attended with the most brilliant and fafcinating fuccess. As to the new Monarch himself, though his character was far from being as yet perfectly developed, a very strong and apparently just partiality predominated in his favor. During the late reign he had uniformly abstained from all public interference in the affairs of Government. His manners were in the highest degree decorous, his morals unblemished, and his personal accomplishments corresponded with the elevation of his rank and station. All appearances seemed to augur a reign of uninterrupted glory and felicity; and the regret, which the Nation for a moment felt at the fudden demise of the good old King, was immediately absorbed in the tranfports of joy excited by the aufpicious commencement of the reign of the young Monarch, who had very lately attained the age of complete majority; being born June 4, 1738. It must however be acknowledged that certain circumstances existed, which in the minds of perfons of deeper reflection occafioned fufpicions and apprehenfions, not perfectly according with the feelings of the national enthusiasm. Throughout almoft the whole course of the late reign, the Prince of Wales, father of the present King, from various causes of jealoufy and discontent too easily arifing from the doubtful and difficult situation of an Heir apparent, had been in direct and avowed oppofition to the Court. So far as the means of judging are afforded us, the Prince in his general system of policy feems to have been diftinguished by the rectitude of his intention, the generofity and ingenuousness of his conduct. He was defirous to govern the English Nation upon maxims truly English, and was fired with the noble ambition of realizing in his own person that grand and perfect model of A PATRIOT KING, delineated by the happiest effort of a tranfcendent genius. In consequence however of the coalition of the Whigs, which took place after the refignation of Sir Robert |