GEORGE III. 



GEORGE III. 



70 



In the meantime however the famous coalition between the followers 

 of Mr. Fox and of Lord North, parties which had been so long and 

 BO bitterly opposed, had succeeded in the beginning of April 1783 in 

 driving Lord Shelburne and hia friends from power. Lord North and 

 Mr. Fox now became secretaries of state together, with the Duke of 

 Portland as first lord of the treasury and nominal premier. This 

 arrangement however was soon overthrown. The new cabinet was 

 exposed from the first to a storm of public outcry, and this greatly 

 aided the determined efforts of the crown to shake itself free from a 

 ministry that had been forced upon it. The only strength of the 

 coalition indeed lay in the existing House of Commons. The defeat 

 of Mr. Fox's India Bill in the House of Lords by the private exertion 

 of the influence of the crown, 17th of December, on the question of 

 going into committee, was followed the next day by the dismissal of 

 both Fox and North, and the immediate appointment of a new ministry 

 with Mr. Pitt at its head. The contest of parties which ensued is the 

 most memorable in the annals of parliament. It was only terminated 

 by the dissolution of the parliament, 24th of March 1784, and the 

 overwhelming majority of supporters which the result of the elections 

 gave to the court and the ministry in the new House of Commons. 

 Throughout this long and violent struggle, Mr. Pitt's own firmness 

 and resolution were seconded by the steady support of the king, who 

 is said to have openly declared his determination, rather than receive 

 back Mr. Fox as minister, to resign his crown and retire to Hanover. 



The formidable front presented by the Irish volunteers in the season 

 of the national difficulties and disorders had extorted from the British 

 parliament, in 1782 and 17S3, the repeal of the restrictive statute of 

 1720 [GEORGE I.], and the acknowledgment (by the 23 Geo. III., c. 28) 

 of the complete independence of the parliament of Ireland. Both in 

 Ireland and in England the agitation of the question of parliamentary 

 reform occupied public attention for some time after the conclusion of 

 the war; bnt it was productive of no results. On the 2nd of August 

 1786, an attempt was made upon the king's life by a madwoman named 

 Margaret Nicolson, who struck at him with a knife as he was alighting 

 from his carriage at St. James's, but missed her aim. In November 

 1788, hia majesty was visited with a second and more serious attack 

 of illness, which was admitted to be delirium, and from which he did 

 not recover till the following March. On this occasion Mr. Fox and 

 his friends contended that the powers of the government devolved as 

 of right upon the Prince of Wales ; but parliament stood by Mr. Pitt 

 in bis opposition to that doctrine, and a bill conferring the regency 

 upon the prince with certain restrictions had nearly passed both houses 

 when the king recovered. The parliament of Ireland in the mean time 

 had made use of their lately acquired independence to offer the prince 

 the government of that kingdom, without any restrictions. As the 

 prince had attached himself to the party of which Mr. Fox was the 

 head, expectations of important political changes were excited by the 

 prospect of bis royal highness becoming the head of the state. 



The quiet which had for some years reigned in Europe was broken 

 in 1789, by what soon became the all-absorbing subject of interest, the 

 Revolution in France. The history of the remainder of the reign is 

 chiefly that of the share borne by England in the want which grew 

 out of that great convulsion. Whatever may have been the inclina- 

 tion of the court, there can be no doubt that Mr. Pitt was reluctantly 

 drawn into the war with France. The demand however that the 

 country should take up arms was loudly made by the large section of 

 the Whig body, which, with Mr. Burke for it* soul, went over to the 

 ministry in 1782 and 1798 ; and this was alao decidedly the general 

 voice of the country. In point of (act, war was at last declared, not 

 by England, but by France, on the lt of February 1793, a few days 

 after the execution of the French king. 



The general course of the war, almost from its commencement to its 

 dose, has already been sketched in the article BOHAPARTB NAPO- 

 LEON I. We shall here merely enumerate in their chronological 

 order the principal event* more immediately belonging to English 

 history. 



Conventions were, immediately on the declaration of war, made for 

 carrying on operations against France with Naples, Sardinia, Prussia, 

 Tnperor, Hesse-Caascl, Baden, Hctse-Darmatadt, Brunswick, and 

 by George III. with himself in bis capacity of Elector of Hanover. A 

 treaty of mutual alliance with Holland already subsisted. Spain and 

 Portugal also immediately became parties to the war. Finally Russia 

 still professed to adhere to the combination against France, though 

 the real object of the Empress Catharine was merely the partition of 

 Poland, which she soon after effected in association with Austria and 

 Prussia. The first military measure of the British government was 

 to sand a force to Holland under the command of the Duke of York. 

 In the campaign of 1793 the French were expelled from Flanders by 

 Uie Austrians ; and the allied army under the Prince of Saxe-Coburg 

 and the Duke of York took Valenciennes and Conde'. The duke how- 

 ever was afterwards repulsed with great loas in an attempt upon Dun- 

 kirk. Toulon was taken possession of by Lord Hood, but speedily 

 recovered by the French. In 1794 the French fleet was signally 

 defeated by Lord Howe in the Channel on the 1st of June ; the English 

 alio became masters of Corsica. In 1795 the islands of Martinique, 

 na, and Guadaloupe in the Went Indies, were taken from the 

 li ; Guadeloupe however was soon after retaken. The people of 

 Holland now drove out the stallholder, and with the assistance of the 



French established what was called the Batavian Republic ; on this the 

 Cape of Good Hope, Ceylon, and other Dutch possessions in the East 

 Indies were seized by England. Peace was made with France by 

 Prussia April 5th, and by Spain July 22nd. In 1796 the English were 

 compelled to withdraw from Corsica; on the 5th of October Spain 

 declared war against England ; in the latter part of the same month 

 an ineffective attempt was made to open negociatious for peace by the 

 mission of Lord Malmesbury to Paris ; in December an attempt of the 

 French to make a descent upon Ireland was defeated by a storm which 

 dispersed the invading fleet, having a force of 15,000 men on board, 

 only two ships reaching the neighbourhood of Bantry Bay, which they 

 left in a few days. 'The military events in which the British arms were 

 concerned in 1797 were the defeat of the Spanish fleet off Cape St. 

 Vincent by Sir John Jervis, 14th of February ; the capture from tho 

 Spaniards of Trinidad, Porto Rico, and Teneriffe ; and the great victory 

 obtained by Lord Duncan over the Dutch fleet off Caruperdown, llth 

 of October. Peace with France having been made by Austria in April, 

 another attempt at negociation was made by the English government 

 in the course of the following summer, Lord Malmesbury having been 

 sent to meet the French plenipotentiaries at Lisle, but it ended in 

 nothing. This was also the year of the suspension of cash-payments 

 by the Bank of England, on the 27th of February, and of the mutiny 

 in the fleet at Spithead in April, and at the Nore in June. The great 

 domestic event of 1793 was the rebellion in Ireland, organised by the 

 society of United Irishmen, which broke out in the end of May, and 

 was not finally suppressed till the end of September. A small French 

 force landed at Killala on the 22nd of August, and penetrated a con- 

 siderable way into Connaught, but surrendered after a sharp contest 

 to a detachment of the army of Lord Cornwallis, on the llth of 

 September. On the 1 st of August this year Nelson gained his great 

 victory of the Nile. In 1799 a new confederacy having been formed 

 against France, to which Austria, Russia, Naples, and Turkey were 

 parties, an English army was sent to the Netherlands under the com- 

 mand of the Duke of York, but it was soon compelled to evacuate the 

 country. On the 4th of May, Tippoo Saib, the sultan of Mysore, who 

 had entered into alliance with the French, was defeated and killed, 

 and his capital of Seringapatam taken by Sir David Baird, on which 

 the greater part of his dominions was added to the English territory. 

 In August Surinam was taken from the Dutch, whose ships of war also 

 in the course of this year almost all fell into the hands of the English. 

 Minorca and Malta were taken by the English iii the course of the 

 year IS 00. 



Notwithstanding these and other partial successes, however, the 

 heavy pecuniary exactions of the war, together with its evident failure 

 in so fur as respected an advance towards the attainment of any intel- 

 ligible ultimate object, and the steady progress of, the French arms in 

 the subjugation of the continent, had now wearied and worn out the 

 enthusiasm even of the greater number of those who had been 

 originally its most ardent supporters. By a considerable part of the 

 nation the contest had come to be regarded with feelings of the bitterest 

 aversion. The inflamed temper of the populace, excited in part by 

 the notion which very generally possessed them, that the real object 

 of the war in which the country was engaged was the repression of 

 democracy and liberty both at home and abroad, had, among other 

 excesses, led to an attack upon the king by the mob as he passed 

 through the park in going to and returning from the House of Lords 

 at the opening of the session of parliament on the 29th of October 

 1795. The feelings however which vented themselves in this manner 

 were never participated in by any considerable portion of the com- 

 munity; the sentiment of the great majority of all classes of the 

 nation was certainly, throughout the reign, one of kindness and respect 

 towards his majesty, with which, in most cases, even strong political 

 dissent from the general course of his government did not much inter- 

 fere. The affection that was entertained for the king personally was 

 remarkably shown by the numerous addresses of congratulation that 

 were presented from all parts of the kingdom on bis escape from the 

 attempt of a maniac named Hatfield, by whom he was fired at with 

 a pistol from the pit of Drury-Lane Theatre, on the 15th of May 1800. 

 In the spring of 1801 his majesty had another slight attack of his 

 mental malady. 



The important measure of the union of Great Britain and Ireland 

 was after many difficulties at last effected in 1800. This event led, in 

 March 1801, to the resignation of Mr. Pitt, who now considered him- 

 self pledged to the removal of the Catholic disabilities, to which 

 however the king firmly refused his assent. A new ministry was in 

 consequence constructed, with the Right Hon. Henry Addington 

 (afterwards Lord Sidmoutb) at its head. Immediately before these 

 events a rupture bad taken place with Russia, and that power had 

 united with Sweden and Denmark in the establishment of a new armed 

 neutrality. The death of the Emperor Paul however soon led to a 

 reconciliation between England and the three northern kingdoms. 

 Meanwhile, on the 2nd of April, Copenhagen was bombarded, and the 

 Danish fleet partly taken, partly destroyed, by Nelson. In the East 

 also, this year, the victory of Alexandria was gained over the French, 

 with the JOBS of the gallant Sir Ralph Abercromby, on the 21st of 

 March ; and on the 2nd of September, Alexandria surrendered to 

 Lord Hutcliinson, and the Freuch were compelled to evacuate Egypt. 

 In the beginning of October it was unexpectedly announced that 



