previous next
[413] promised friendly relations with Spain, the king
chap. XVIII.} 1761.
directed, that, through Fuentes, the Spanish ambassador at London, the French court should be invited to renew its last propositions. ‘It is only with a second Pitt,’ said Choiseul, ‘that I should dare to treat on such offers. War is the only part to be chosen. Firmness and patience will not build ships for us; but they will give us a triumph over our enemies.’ As the weeks rolled on, and the Spanish treasure ships arrived, Spain used bolder language, and before the year was over, a rupture with that power was unavoidable.

Yet peace was still sought with perseverance; for it was the abiding purpose of the young sovereign to assert and maintain the royal authority in Great Britain, in Ireland, and in America. ‘I was bred and will die a monarchy man,’ said Melcombe, who was to Bute what Bute was to George the Third; ‘men of the city are not to demand reasons of measures; they must and they easily may be taught better manners.’ ‘He is the best and most amiable master that ever lived since the days of Titus,’ said Barrington of the king, to whom he devoted himself entirely; having no political connection with any man, joining those who declared that it was for the king alone to consider whom he should raise to his council, or whom he should exclude for ever from his closet: God had adorned him with the prerogative, and left to his servants the glory of obedience. ‘Cost what it may,’ wrote Halifax, the Lord Lieutenant, from Ireland, ‘my good royal master's authority shall never suffer in my hands;’ and the measures for reducing the colonies also to obedience were in like manner vigorously prosecuted.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Sort places alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a place to search for it in this document.
England (United Kingdom) (1)

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide People (automatically extracted)
Sort people alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a person to search for him/her in this document.
Ireland (2)
Bute (2)
Titus (1)
William Pitt (1)
Choiseul (1)
Barrington (1)
hide Dates (automatically extracted)
Sort dates alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a date to search for it in this document.
1761 AD (1)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: