t of the party held aloof from the
popular agitation, and drew more and more away from Chatham as he
favoured it. The Parliament remained steady to the king, and the king
clung more and more to the ministry. The ministry was in fact a mere
cloak for the direction of public affairs by George himself. "Not only
did he direct the minister," a careful observer tells us, "in all
important matters of foreign and domestic policy, but he instructed him
as to the management of debates in Parliament, suggested what motions
should be made or opposed, and how measures should be carried. He
reserved for himself all the patronage, he arranged the whole cast of
administration, settled the relative places and pretensions of ministers
of State, law officers, and members of the household, nominated and
promoted the English and Scotch judges, appointed and translated bishops
and deans, and dispensed other preferments in the Church. He disposed of
military governments, regiments, and commissions; and himself ordered
the marching of troops. He gave and refused titles, honours, and
pensions." All this immense patronage was persistently used for the
creation and maintenance in both Houses of Parliament of a majority
directed by the king himself; and its weight was seen in the steady
action of such a majority. It was seen yet more in the subjection to
which the ministry that bore North's name was reduced. George was in
fact the minister through the years of its existence; and the shame of
the darkest hour of English history lies wholly at his door.

[Sidenote: The Boston tea-riots.]

His fixed purpose was to seize on the first opportunity of undoing the
"fatal compliance of 1766." A trivial riot gave him at last the handle
he wanted. In December 1773 the arrival of some English ships laden with
tea kindled fresh irritation in Boston, where the non-importation
agreement was strictly enforced; and a mob in the disguise of Indians
boarded the vessels and flung their contents into the sea. The outrage
was deplored alike by the friends of America in England and by its own
leading statesmen; and both Washington and Chatham were prepared to
support the Government in its looked-for demand of redress. But the
thought of the king was not of redress but of repression, and he set
roughly aside the more conciliatory proposals of Lord North and his
fellow-ministers. They had already rejected as "frivolous and vexatious"
a petition of the Assembly of Massac