K. GEORGE III.

IN tracing the long feries of royal defcents which has taken

place in this Ifland fince the foundation of the English Monarchy, it will be difficult, perhaps impoffible, to name any Prince who has fucceeded to the Crown under circumstances of greater and more fignal advantage than the prefent fovereign. At the head of a firm, vigilant and popular Administration, was placed a minifter illuftrious by the fplendor of his talents, and the magnanimity of his conduct; under whofe fuperior afcendent, party spirit and parliamentary oppofition seemed extinguished. Great Britain, in conjunction with her numerous colonies and dependencies, exhibited to the world a grand political affociation, actuated by one common intereft, and united, amidst a thousand subordinate diverfities of opinion, in the facred bonds of duty and affection. That fatal predilection for the claims of the exiled Houfe of Stuart, formerly fo prevalent, and which had rendered the task of Government fo difficult in the preceding reigns, was now no more. Notwithstanding the long continuance of a foreign war, the most complicated and extenfive in which Great Britain had ever been engaged, the internal state of the Kingdom was not only perfectly tranquil, but in the highest degree flourishing and profperous. The vaft increase of commerce and manufactures enabled her to fupport the immenfe expence incurred VOL. I.

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in the prosecution of it, with a facility, and even an alacrity, altogether unprecedented and aftonifhing; and her more recent operations had in every part of the globe been attended with the moft brilliant and fascinating fuccefs. As to the new Monarch himfelf, though his character was far from being as yet perfectly developed, a very strong and apparently juft partiality predominated in his favor. During the late reign he had uniformly abftained from all public interference in the affairs of Government. His manners were in the highest degree decorous, his morals unblemished, and his perfonal accomplishments correfponded with the elevation of his rank and station. All appearances feemed to augur a reign of uninterrupted glory and felicity; and the regret, which the Nation for a moment felt at the fudden demise of the good old King, was immediately abforbed in the tranfports of joy éxcited by the aufpicious commencement of the reign of the young Monarch, who had very lately attained the age of complete majority; being born June 4, 1738. It must however be acknowledged that certain circumstances existed, which in the minds of perfons of deeper reflection occafioned fufpicions and apprehenfions, not perfectly according with the feelings of the national enthusiafm. Throughout almost the whole courfe of the late reign, the Prince of Wales, father of the present King, from various causes of jealousy and difcontent too easily arising from the doubtful and difficult fituation of an Heir apparent, had been in direct and avowed oppofition to the Court. So far as the means of judging are afforded us, the Prince in his general fyftem of policy seems to have been distinguished by the rectitude of his intention, the generofity and ingenuoufnefs of his conduct. He was defirous to govern the English Nation upon maxims truly English, and was fired with the noble ambition of realizing in his own person that grand and perfect model of A PATRIOT KING, delineated by the happiest effort of a tranfcendent genius. In confequence however of the coalition of the Whigs, which took place after the refignation of Sir Robert

Robert Walpole, the Prince, whofe reconciliation with the Court proved of tranfient duration, was left entirely in the hands of the Tories, now affecting to ftyle themselves the Country Party;" or, if the ancient nominal diftinction was ever retained-REVOLUTION TORIES. The leaders of this party alleged with too much reason, that the Whigs, engroffing, as was notorious, the executive offices of the State with little intermiffion fince the Revolution, and without any interval whatever fince the acceffion of the House of Hanover, had introduced maxims of government totally inconsistent with the true interests of the nation. They had involved Great Britain as a principal in all the contentions, and quarrels, of the Continent; they had pretended a neceffity for supporting a political balance of power, which was never proved to be in danger; and under this pretext they had made England fubfervient to schemes of Hanoverian, of Auftrian, of Pruffian aggrandizement. In the prosecution of their wild and pernicious plans they had contracted an immenfe debt, the intereft of which was discharged by taxes the most odious and oppreffive. This debt had rapidly and alarmingly accumulated; and as no ferious or permanent measures had been adopted for it eventual liquidation, the nation was menaced with the hideous profpect of a general bankruptcy. In addition to the enormous fums raised upon the public, and mortgaged for the payment of the national creditors, the remaining branches of the revenue were appropriated to the maintaining a formidable army under the fole command of the Crown, by which the liberty of the Country and the very existence of the Conftitution were exposed to imminent and habitual danger. They affirmed, that a system of corruption had been established in confequence of the vaft increase of Minifterial and Regal influence-that a very large proportion of the King's subjects had been long exposed to a state of political profcription, though chargeable with no difaffection to the prefent Government excepting what unavoidably arose from this injurious treatment. The Prince

of Wales had deeply imbibed thefe ideas, and was laudably folicitous to extend the protection of Government to all who had not by culpable mifconduct forfeited their claim to it, without any diftinction of party; convinced that those who fulfilled the duties, were entitled to the privileges, of good citizens and subjects. It may however be juftly queftioned whether the most eminent and refpectable individuals of the Tory or country Party-a Wyndham-a Shippen—or á Carew, ever attained to thofe clear conceptions of govern ment and to the perfect and cordial adoption of those wife and beneficent maxims of policy which characterized the most virtuous and enlightened of the Whigs. The grand defect in the general theory of thefe patriots, who in many refpects deferved fo highly the esteem and gratitude of their country, was their erroneous and imperfect ideas of the nature of toleration. Devotedly attached to the ESTABLISHED CHURCH, they confidered a diffent from it as a fpecies of dangerous delinquency, or at least of culpable contumacy, permitted indeed by the indulgence of the law, but by no means founded on any iramutable claim of equity cr juftice. And they were unhappily of an opinion recently revived, and enforced with all the art of fophiftical malignity, that a Sectary is a Citizen partially difaffected to the Conftitution, including the twofold diftinction of Church and State; not confidering that the Church, as a civil institution, is the mere creation of the ftate, and exifts only by its fovereign will-that a voluntary option therefore of affent or diffent is allowed, and under a free Conftitution cannot but be allowed, to every citizen pleading the inviolable claims of confcience. In diffenting from the Church, a right is exercised which is recognized by the Conftitution, and which it must therefore be a complication of folly and injuftice to brand as a proof of difaffection to the Conftitution. It does not however appear that the Prince of Wales was himself in any degree tainted with thefe miferable prejudices; and during the lifetime of the Prince, there is good reafon to believe that great and

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