any
people ascribed to their assistance. A few days before Lord North's
resignation, George Onslow, in an able defence of the prime minister,
exclaimed, "Why have we failed so miserably in this war against America,
if not from the support and countenance given to rebellion in this very
House?"

[Sidenote: It weakened the Whigs in England.]

[Sidenote: Character of Lord Shelburne.]

Now the violence of party leaders like Burke and Fox owed much of its
strength, no doubt, to mere rancorousness of party spirit. But, after
making due allowance for this, we must admit that it was essentially
based upon the intensity of their conviction that the cause of English
liberty was inseparably bound up with the defeat of the king's attempt
upon the liberties of America. Looking beyond the quarrels of the
moment, they preferred to have freedom guaranteed, even at the cost of
temporary defeat and partial loss of empire. Time has shown that they
were right in this, but the majority of the people could hardly be
expected to comprehend their attitude. It seemed to many that the great
Whig leaders were forgetting their true character as English statesmen,
and there is no doubt that for many years this was the chief source of
the weakness of the Whig party. Sir Gilbert Elliot said, with truth,
that if the Whigs had not thus to a considerable extent arrayed the
national feeling against themselves, Lord North's ministry would have
fallen some years sooner than it did. The king thoroughly understood the
advantage which accrued to him from this state of things; and with that
short-sighted shrewdness of the mere political wire-puller, in which few
modern politicians have excelled him, he had from the outset preferred
to fight his battle on constitutional questions in America rather than
in England, in order that the national feeling of Englishmen might be
arrayed on his side. He was at length thoroughly beaten on his own
ground, and as the fatal day approached he raved and stormed as he had
not stormed since the spring of 1778, when he had been asked to entrust
the government to Lord Chatham. Like the child who refuses to play when
he sees the game going against him, George threatened to abdicate the
throne and go over to Hanover, leaving his son to get along with the
Whig statesmen. But presently he took heart again, and began to resort
to the same kind of political management which had served him so well in
the earlier years of his reign. A