s, merchants, inhabitants of towns, and Protestant
non-conformists, had grown haughty and overbearing through long
continuance in power and had as a consequence raised up many enemies in
their own ranks. Their opponents, the Tories, had by this time given up
all hope of restoring to the throne the direct Stuart line; but they
still cherished their old notions about divine right. With the
accession of George III the coveted opportunity came to them to rally
around the throne again. George received his Tory friends with open
arms, gave them offices, and bought them seats in the House of Commons.

=The British Parliamentary System.=--The peculiarities of the British
Parliament at the time made smooth the way for the king and his allies
with their designs for controlling the entire government. In the first
place, the House of Lords was composed mainly of hereditary nobles whose
number the king could increase by the appointment of his favorites, as
of old. Though the members of the House of Commons were elected by
popular vote, they did not speak for the mass of English people. Great
towns like Leeds, Manchester, and Birmingham, for example, had no
representatives at all. While there were about eight million inhabitants
in Great Britain, there were in 1768 only about 160,000 voters; that is
to say, only about one in every ten adult males had a voice in the
government. Many boroughs returned one or more members to the Commons
although they had merely a handful of voters or in some instances no
voters at all. Furthermore, these tiny boroughs were often controlled by
lords who openly sold the right of representation to the highest bidder.
The "rotten-boroughs," as they were called by reformers, were a public
scandal, but George III readily made use of them to get his friends into
the House of Commons.

GEORGE III'S MINISTERS AND THEIR COLONIAL POLICIES

=Grenville and the War Debt.=--Within a year after the accession of
George III, William Pitt was turned out of office, the king treating him
with "gross incivility" and the crowds shouting "Pitt forever!" The
direction of affairs was entrusted to men enjoying the king's
confidence. Leadership in the House of Commons fell to George Grenville,
a grave and laborious man who for years had groaned over the increasing
cost of government.

The first task after the conclusion of peace in 1763 was the adjustment
of the disordered finances of the kingdom. The debt stood at the highes