ontrast is afforded by the arrangement of the civil list. George
was the first sovereign who entirely surrendered his interest in the
hereditary revenues of the crown in England, and placed them at the
disposal of parliament. In return parliament voted him a civil list, or
fixed revenue, "for the support of his household and the dignity of the
crown". The sum voted was L800,000 a year, which was at first charged
with some pensions to members of the royal family. By this arrangement
the control of parliament over the king's expenditure was asserted at a
time when the king was relying on his prerogative to enable him to
become independent of ministerial control. Besides this income George
had the hereditary revenues from Scotland, a civil list in Ireland, the
duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster, and certain admiralty and other dues,
the whole amounting to "certainly not much short of a million
annually".[17] If the value of money at the time is considered, it may
be allowed that the crown was amply provided for, and that so thrifty a
king as George would always have found his revenues sufficient for his
needs, if he had not spent large sums in supplying pensions and places
of profit for his political adherents, and in other methods of
corruption. The good impression made by the young king was heightened by
a speech from the throne on March 3, 1761, recommending that in order to
complete the independence of judges, their commission should not for the
future be terminated by the demise of the crown, and that sufficient
salaries should be assigned to them. An act to that effect was
accordingly passed. On the 19th the king closed the session, and
parliament was dissolved shortly afterwards.

The war was going on gloriously under Pitt's direction. Our ally,
Frederick of Prussia, was, indeed, in distress in spite of his
hard-earned victory at Torgau, for his resources were exhausted, and
half his dominions were occupied by his enemies. During 1761 Prince
Henry made no progress in Saxony. Frederick himself lost Schweidnitz,
and, with it, half Silesia, while the fall of Colberg left the Russians
free either to besiege Stettin in the following spring, or to seize on
Brandenburg. In Western Germany, however, where a British army was
serving under Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick in the defence of Hanover
against the French, a signal success was gained. Early in the year the
allies entered Hesse, and forced the French to retreat almost to