th a speech which at any rate made the issue clear enough. Britain
would not give up colonies which she had founded with severe toil and
nursed with great kindness. Her army and her navy, both now increased
in size, would make her power respected. She would not, however, deal
harshly with her erring children. Royal mercy would be shown to those
who admitted their error and they need not come to England to secure it.
Persons in America would be authorized to grant pardons and furnish the
guarantees which would proceed from the royal clemency.

Such was the magnanimity of George III. Washington's rage at the tone of
the speech is almost amusing in its vehemence. He, with a mind conscious
of rectitude and sacrifice in a great cause, to ask pardon for his
course! He to bend the knee to this tyrant overseas! Washington himself
was not highly gifted with imagination. He never realized the strength
of the forces in England arrayed on his own side and attributed to the
English, as a whole, sinister and malignant designs always condemned by
the great mass of the English people. They, no less than the Americans,
were the victims of a turn in politics which, for a brief period, and
for only a brief period, left power in the hands of a corrupt Parliament
and a corrupting king.

Ministers were not all corrupt or place-hunters. One of them, the
Earl of Dartmouth, was a saint in spirit. Lord North, the king's chief
minister, was not corrupt. He disliked his office and wished to leave
it. In truth no sweeping simplicity of condemnation will include all the
ministers of George III except on this one point that they allowed to
dictate their policy a narrow-minded and ignorant king. It was their
right to furnish a policy and to exercise the powers of government,
appoint to office, spend the public revenues. Instead they let the King
say that the opinions of his ministers had no avail with him. If we ask
why, the answer is that there was a mixture of motives. North stayed in
office because the King appealed to his loyalty, a plea hard to resist
under an ancient monarchy. Others stayed from love of power or for what
they could get. In that golden age of patronage it was possible for a
man to hold a plurality of offices which would bring to himself many
thousands of pounds a year, and also to secure the reversion of offices
and pensions to his children. Horace Walpole spent a long life in
luxurious ease because of offices with high pay and f