s judgment more than once; the state of mind
which, when it encounters an obstacle to its plans, regards that
obstacle as an enemy, and remarks in language brutally frank, though
not wholly elegant: "We will lick him first and then decide who is
right." In 1770 King George III, who fretted at all seasons at the
slowness with which he was able to break down the ascendency of the
Whigs, manipulated the Government so as to make Lord North Prime
Minister. Lord North was a servant, one might say a lackey, after
the King's own heart. He abandoned lifelong traditions, principles,
fleeting whims, prejudices even, in order to keep up with the King's
wish of the moment. After Lord North became Prime Minister, the
likelihood of a peaceful settlement between the crown and the Colonies
lessened. He ran ahead of the King in his desire to serve the King's
wishes, and George III, by this time, was wrought up by the persistent
tenacity of the Whigs--he wished them dead, but they would not
die--and he was angered by the insolence of the Colonists who showed
that they would not shrink from forcibly resisting the King's command.
On both sides of the Atlantic a vehement and most enlightening debate
over constitutional and legal fundamentals still went on. Although
the King had packed Parliament, not all the oratory poured out at
Westminster favored the King. On the contrary, the three chief masters
of British eloquence at that time, and in all time--Edmund Burke,
William Pitt, and Charles James Fox--spoke on the side of the
Colonists. Reading the magnificent arguments of Burke to-day, we ask
ourselves how any group in Parliament could have withstood them. But
there comes a moment in every vital discussion when arguments and
logic fail to convince. Passions deeper than logic controlled motives
and actions. The Colonists contended that in proclaiming "no taxation
without representation," they were appealing to a principle of
Anglo-Saxon liberty inherent in their race. When King George, or any
one else, denied this principle, he denied an essential without which
Anglo-Saxon polity could not survive, but neither King George nor Lord
North accepted the premises. If they had condescended to reply at all,
they might have sung the hymn of their successors a hundred years
later:

"We don't want to fight,
But by jingo! if we do,
We've got the men, we've got the ships,
We've got the money too."

Meanwhile, the Virginia Planter watched the