George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 4, 15th edition.

[381] a standing army, and for the support of that

chap. XVI.} 1760.

army a grant of an American revenue by a British parliament. The decision was settled, after eleven years reflection and experience, by Halifax and his associates at the Board of Trade, and for its execution needed only a prime minister and a resolute monarch to lend it countenance. In the midst of these schemes, surrounded by victory, the aged George the Second died suddenly of apoplexy; and on the morning of the twenty-fifth day of October, 1760, his grandson, the pupil of Leicester House, then but twenty-two years of age, while riding with the Earl of Bute, was overtaken by a secret message that he was king.