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government totally inconsistent with the true in-воок terests of the nation. They had involved Great Britain as a principal in all the contentions and 1760. quarrels of the continent; they had pretended a necessity for supporting a political balance of power, which was never proved to be in danger; and under this pretext they had made England subservient to schemes of Hanoverian, of Austrian, of Prussian aggrandizement. In the prosecution of their wild and pernicious plans they had contracted an immense debt, the interest of which was discharged by taxes the most odious and oppressive. This debt had rapidly and alarmingly accumulated; and as no serious or permanent measures had been adopted for its eventual liquidation, the nation was menaced with the hideous prospect of a generał bankruptcy. In addition to the enormous sums raised upon the public, and mortgaged for the payment of the national creditors, the remaining branches of the revenue wère appropriated to the maintaining a formidable army under the sole command of the crown, by which the liberty of the country, and the very existence of the constitution, were exposed to imminent and habitual danger. They affirmed, that a system of corruption had been established in consequence of the vast increase of ministerial and regal influence; that a very large proportion of the king's subjects had been long exposed to a state of political proscription, though chargeable

BOOK with no disaffection to the present government,

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~ excepting what unavoidably arose from this in1760. jurious treatment. The prince of Wales had

deeply imbibed these ideas, and was laudably solicitous to extend the protection of government to all who had not, by culpable misconduct, forfeited their claim to it, without any distinction of party; convinced that those who fulfilled the duties were entitled to the privileges of good citizens and subjects. It may however be justly questioned, whether the most eminent and respectable individuals of the Tory, or Country party-a Wyndham-a Shippen-or a Carew, ever attained to those clear conceptions of government, and to the perfect and cordial adoption of those wise and beneficent maxims of policy, which characterized the most virtuous and enlightened of the Whigs. The grand defect in the general theory of these patriots, who in many respects deserved so highly the esteem and gratitude of their country, was their erroneous and imperfect ideas of the nature of toleration. Devotedly attached to the ESTABLISHED CHURCH, they considered a dissent from it as a species of dangerous delinquency, or at least of culpable contumacy, permitted indeed by the indulgence of the law, but by no means founded on any immutable claim of equity or justice. And they were unhappily of an opinion recently revived, and enforced with all the art of

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1760.

sophistical malignity, that a sectary is a citizen BOOK partially disaffected to the constitution, including the twofold distinction of church and state; not considering that the church, as a civil institution, is the mere creation of the state, and exists only by its sovereign will; that a voluntary option therefore of assent or dissent is allowed, and, under a free constitution, cannot but be allowed to every citizen pleading the inviolable claims of conscience. In dissenting from the church, a right is exercised which is recognized by the constitution, and which it must therefore be a complication of folly and injustice to brand as a proof of disaffection to the constitution. It does not however appear that the prince of Wales was himself in any degree tainted with these miserable prejudices; and, during the lifetime of the prince, there is good reason to believe that great and incessant pains were taken to infuse into the minds of his rising offspring, and more particularly into that of his eldest-born, "the second hope of Britain," just and elevated sentiments of government, and of liberty civil and religious*.

* In an occasional address or prologue, spoken by prince George, on acting a part in the tragedy of CATO, performed at Leicester-House, about the year 1749, he was instructed thus to express himself

The poet's labours elevate the mind,

Teach our young hearts with generous fire to burn,
And feel the virtuous sentiments we learn.

1

BOOK But from the period of the untimely and laXIII. mented death of the prince, the system of educa1760. tion adopted by the princess dowager of Wales,

to whom the guardianship of the royal issue was entrusted, appeared to be impressed with a bias entirely new; and the ominous resignation of lord Harcourt and the bishop of Norwich, with the reasons assigned in vindication of their conduct, was the subject of much anxious apprehension; especially as it was but too well known that the earl of Bute, a nobleman haughty in his manners, contracted in his capacity, despotic in his sentiments, and mysterious in his conduct, was successfully insinuating himself into the con

fidence of the princess of Wales, and of her son Flevation the heir apparent of the crown. On the 27th of of Bute. October 1760, Sunday only having intervened

of the earl

since the death of the late king, the earl of Bute was sworn a member of the privy council-a mark of distinction so striking and peculiar, as appa

T'attain these glorious ends, what play so fit
As that where all the powers of human wit
Combine to dignify great CATO's name,
To deck his tomb, and consecrate his fame?
Where LIBERTY-O name for ever dear!
Breathes forth in every line, and bids us fear
Nor pains nor death to guard her sacred laws,
But bravely perish in our country's cause.
Should this superior to my years be thought,

Know, 'TWAS THE FIRST GREAT LESSON I WAS TAUGHT.

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~

rently to portend changes of great political im- BOOK portance. After a short interval, the rangership of Richmond park was taken from the princess 1760. Amelia, the only unmarried daughter of the late king, and whom he had ever delighted to distinguish by marks of his affection, and bestowed upon the earl of Bute*; and, by an order of the king in council, the name of the duke of Cumberland, dear since the memorable day of Culloden to the Whigs, was struck out of the liturgy. The commencement of the present reign was also distinguished by a grand creation of peers, and far more offensively by the nomination of twelve additional LORDS of the BEDCHAMBER-an office of worse than Turkish or Persian servility.

The parliament, which, agreeably to the sa-First seslutary provisions of an act passed for that pur-liament. pose, continued to exercise its functions for a period of six months after the death of the sovereign, met on the 18th of November, when

sion of par

* As the rangership was held for life by patent from the crown, the princess could not be divested of it but by her own consent, which was obtained by the grant of a pension of 1,200l. per annum on the Irish establishment. But she withdrew entirely from court, in consequence of the disrespectful treatment she received; retaining to the last moment of her life a deep sense of the insult, if not the injury she had sustained; leaving her immense wealth, to the entire exclusion of the royal family of Great Britain, amongst the descendents of her sister, the princess of Hesse.

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