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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 190: MEETING OF PARLIAMENT.
By Edward Farr
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About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

MEETING OF PARLIAMENT.

The British parliament assembled on the 18th of November. The all-engrossing topic of the king’s speech was the war with America. In it he declared the necessity of continuing the war; and hinted, that there was a probability that the land-forces must not only be kept up to their full establishment, but even augmented by new contracts. Of the disposition of foreign powers, his majesty now spoke in a doubtful manner. They had given friendly assurances, he said, but as the armaments of France and Spain continued, he thought it necessary that his own naval force should be augmented. He had neither lost any of his firmness, nor abated any of his hope, as to the issue of this contest. He would always guard, he said, the honour of the British crown faithfully; and he hoped that the Americans would yet return to their allegiance; that the remembrance of their former happiness, and the sense of their present misery, under the tyranny of their leaders, would rekindle their loyalty and attachment to their mother country; and that they would enable him, with the concurrence of parliament, to accomplish peace, order, and confidence in the colonies.

GEORGE III. 1777-1778