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Home Domestic Affairs, 1760-1815 1760-1815; Part 5 |
1760-1815; Part 5The disasters and mismanagement of the American War, however, finally led to great dissatisfaction. The growing power of George III was regarded with alarm, and in 1780 a motion was carried in the House of Commons that the "influence of the Crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished". In the same year came a formidable ultra-Protestant riot, owing to an Act of Parliament repealing some of the laws against the Roman Catholics; its leader was Lord George Gordon, and all London east of Charing Cross was at the mercy of a mob, till George III himself ordered the troops to disperse the people without waiting to read the Riot Act (For four days London was in the hands of the mob; Newgate prison was destroyed, and its 300 prisoners released; Roman Catholic chapels were burnt; and a distillery was attacked, with the result that immense casks of spirits were broken, and many of the mob were killed by drinking too much. The leader, Lord George Gordon, eventually became a Jew and died a chadman). The proposal of a similar Bill for Scotland, granting concessions to the Roman Catholics, aroused such an uproar in that country that it had to be abandoned. Finally, in 1782, after the capitulation of Yorktown and the loss of Minorca, Lord North insisted upon resigning - to the great disgust of the king, who never forgave him for this "desertion", as he called it; "remember, my Lord," said the king on parting from him, "that it is you who desert me, not I you".On Lord North's fall, in 1782, the Whigs again returned to power. By this time many of the older politicians, such as Newcastle, Grenville, and Chatham, had died. Lord Rockingham was, however, still alive, and the other most prominent Whigs were Shelburne, Fox, and Burke. Shelburne was a man of great ability and great foresight, but he was much distrusted, and known as "the Jesuit of Berkeley Square". The truth seems to have been that though, as a distinguished writer has said, his conduct was always exemplary, it was always in need of explanation, and was consequently apt to be misunderstood, whilst his speeches were often ambiguous and liable to misinterpretation. Charles James Fox was a strange mixture of virtues and vices. He has been described as the most genial of all associates and the most beloved of all friends. He was a great lover of literature, and read through his Homer, it was said, every year. He was energetic in all that he did, whether in taking writing lessons when secretary of state to improve his handwriting, or in swimming and cricket, and he became, through constant practice, an incomparable debater (In one session he spoke at every sitting except one, and he always regretted that he had abstained from speaking on that occasion). Yet he ran through a fortune by gambling before he was twenty-four, was the leader of every sort of extravagant fashion - including red-heeled shoes and blue hair-powder - and a man of no sort of moderation or of judgment in his opinions. His political life was varied. Beginning as a Tory and a member of Lord North's ministry, he became a violent Whig during the American War, and developed into a still more violent Radical as a supporter of the French Revolution. Towards the end of his life he was a believer in the good faith and good intentions of Napoleon towards Great Britain. Whatever views he held he supported passionately. As a statesman, however, he failed to gain the confidence of the king or of the nation, and from the time he left the Tory ministry, in 1774, till the time of his death, in 1806, he was only in office for twenty months. |
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