The people of England were very glad when George the Third became king after his grandfather. You read in the last chapter that his father, Frederick, Prince of Wales, died in the life-time of George the Second.
George the Third was born in England, and brought up like an English gentleman. I think he was one of the best men that ever was a king; but I do not think that everything he did was wise or right. He reigned longer than any king ever reigned in England, and unhappily before he died he became blind, and he lost his senses.
He married a German princess named Charlotte, and they had a great many sons and daughters, and one of their grandchildren is our good Queen Victoria.
You must not expect me to tell you everything that happened in this long reign, which lasted sixty years, but you shall read of one or two things of most consequence, and that you can understand best.
When George had been king a little more than two years he made peace with all the world, but his reign was very far from being a peaceable one.
There were two wars in particular of great consequence; the first was the American war, and the second the French war. I will tell you a little about each of them.
You will remember that in Raleigh’s time the English built some towns in North America. Afterwards, during the civil wars in the time of Charles the First, many more English went there and took their families there to live, and by degrees they had taken possession of a very large country, and had got towns and villages and fields. These English states in America were called Colonies; but they were still governed by the King and Parliament of England. The English wanted the Americans to pay taxes. But the Americans said that, by Magna Charta and our old laws, no Englishman might be taxed without their own consent given in parliament. Now the American Colonies had no members in the British parliament; so they said the Parliament had no right to tax them. Then the king called them rebels, and threatened to punish them; and so, after many disputes, war broke out between the Americans and the King of England’s soldiers who were in America to guard the towns and collect the taxes. Then the Americans said they would have a government of their own. This war was thought little of at first, but it soon grew to be one of the greatest wars England had ever had. The French and Spaniards, who had not forgotten how the English had beaten them by sea and land in the last wars, joined the Americans; and although the English gained several victories by sea over the French and Spaniards, yet by land the Americans beat the English.
The chief man in America was General George Washington, one of the greatest men that ever lived. He commanded the American army, and as he and his soldiers were fighting in their own land for their own freedom, and for their own wives and children, it was not wonderful that at last they beat out the English soldiers, who did not like to be sent so far from home to fight against men who spoke the same language with themselves.
At last, when the King of England found the people were tired of this long war, he agreed to make peace with America, and since that time the United States of America have had a government of their own, and have become a great and powerful nation. They have a President instead of a king, and they call their parliament a Congress. You will understand these things in a few years.
The French war lasted even longer than the American war. This was the cause: for a long time the French kings had governed France very badly, and the French nobles oppressed the poor people, and the clergymen did not do their duty rightly, but left the people ignorant. At last the people could bear these bad things no longer, and King Louis the Sixteenth, who was a good king, would have made them better if he could. But the princes and nobles would not let him. Then a number of bad people collected in Paris, and they put the king and queen and all their family in prison, and they cut off the heads of the king and queen and the king’s sister, and of a great many lords and ladies, and after that of every clergyman they could find, and then of everybody who tried to save the life of another; in short, I believe the French people did more wicked things in about three years than any other nation had ever done in a hundred. The name of the most wicked of all was Robespierre. He was killed at last by some of those he meant to kill.
England and several other countries then went to war with the French because they had sent armies to attack the neighbouring countries, and had conquered many of them, and that war lasted about twenty-four years.
France would have been mastered, I think, if it had not been for a brave and clever but wicked man, called Napoleon Buonaparte, who, from being a simple lieutenant, rose to be Emperor of the French. He chose clever men for judges and generals. He conquered many countries, and used to threaten to come and conquer England. But we had brave sailors, and clever captains and admirals, who never let any of his ships come near us. Lord Howe won the first sea victory in the war; then we had Lord St. Vincent, Admirals Duncan, Hood, Collingwood, Cornwallis, Cochrane, Pellew, and many more, who gained battles at sea, besides more captains than I can tell you, who took parts of fleets or single ships. But the man that will be remembered for ever as the greatest English sailor was Admiral Lord Nelson. He gained three great victories,—at Aboukir in Egypt, at Copenhagen, and at Trafalgar near the coast of Spain. In that battle he was killed, but he knew his own fleet had conquered before he died. When he went into battle, the words he gave, to tell all the ships when to begin to fight, were, England expects every man will do his duty.
These words must never be forgotten by any Englishman.
Farmhouse of Hougoumont on the Field of Waterloo.
There were no more great sea-fights after Trafalgar, but many on land, where we had good generals and brave soldiers. The wise and good General Abercromby was killed just as he gained a victory in Egypt. His friend, the good and brave General Moore, was killed at Corunna in Spain, and many other brave officers and men died for the sake of England, but many lived to fight and to conquer. The greatest general in our time was the Duke of Wellington, who put an end to the sad long war by his great victory over the French, commanded by Napoleon himself, at Waterloo. I cannot tell you in this little book how many other battles he won, or how skilfully he fought them, or how well he knew how to choose the officers to help him. But he will have always a name as great as Nelson, by whose side he was buried in St. Paul’s.
After the battle of Waterloo, Napoleon Buonaparte was kept a prisoner in the island of St. Helena till he died, and the brother of Louis the Sixteenth was King of France, under the title of Louis the Eighteenth.
Our good king, George the Third, died soon after. I have told you what kind of a man he was at the beginning of this chapter.
In his reign more things, useful to all men, were found out than in hundreds of years before. New countries were visited, new plants and new animals were brought to England. All the sciences received great encouragement. The arts that are needful in common life were improved. Steam engines were first made useful. The beautiful light given by gas was found out, and all sorts of machines to assist men in their labour were invented. Those arts called the fine arts, I mean such as sculpture, painting, and music, were encouraged by George the Third. But what is of more consequence, the science of medicine and the art of surgery were so improved in his time, that the sufferings of mankind from pain and sickness are much lessened.[4]