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Boat after boat Highlanders and

puzzled and misled Montcalm. But in the dead of night a crowd of flat-bottomed boats swept silently with muffled oars down the deep current to the foot of the bush-clad precipice which forms the base of the Plains of Abraham-a position of eminence commanding the city of Quebec. landed its freight at the foot of the rocks. light infantry leading the perilous way, the whole army, now wasted to five thousand men, clambered up the crags to the level ground above. Montcalm, scarcely able to believe his eyes next day, rushed madly with little preparation on the British lines. In his hurry he forgot his artillery, and thus lost a decided advantage, for the British, unable to drag guns up the heights, had scarcely anything of the kind. In the battle that ensued the British musket was vic

Sept. 13,

1759

torious. Three balls struck Wolfe, the last inflicting a mortal wound. Montcalm too died on that fatal field. On the 18th Quebec capitulated; and on the 8th of September 1760 Vaudreuil, the last French governor of Canada, being hemmed in at Montreal by sixteen thousand foes, signed a document transferring Canada to Great Britain.

1760

Before the blaze of these glories had grown dim, George the Second died suddenly of heart disease. His grandson George then ascended the throne. The people rejoiced in the accession of a young prince of English birth, and speech, and associations. All looked fair and promising, when signs of coming change began to show themselves on the political horizon. It soon became evident that the Princess-Dowager of Wales and the Groom of the Stole, Lord Bute, had complete ascendency over the young king's mind. A petticoat and a jackboot symbolized this worthy pair in the rough masqueradings of the London mob, the latter forming a rude pun on Bute's name and title. John Stuart, third Earl of Bute, born in 1713, distinguished himself more in private theatricals than in any other sphere. He had many accomplishments, and a smattering of several sciences. As head tutor to the prince, he directed the machinery of Leicester House entirely to the satisfaction of the princess, who consulted him in everything.

An accommodating Secretary of State resigned in order to give Bute a seat in the Cabinet, and he began at once to sap its stability. Indeed, a split in the camp was already visible. Pitt the orator and Grenville the financier, though allied by marriage, had come to look on public questions with different eyes. As Macaulay puts it, in relation to the war, "Pitt could see nothing but the trophies; Grenville could see nothing but the bill." So Bute's influence grew daily stronger. Then arose the question of a new war. That remarkable secret treaty, the Family Compact, made between the Bourbon monarchies of France and Spain, had become known to Pitt, in its drift at least. Foreseeing an inevitable war, he boldly proposed to strike the first blow against the colonies of Spain. Bute, and of course the king, refused to follow his advice; and then (Oct. 6) Pitt resigned his seals, Temple following suit at once. The young king spoke so kindly in the closet that Pitt's eyes filled. The statesman

1761

would accept nothing for himself, but gladly received a peerage for his wife and a pension of £3,000 a year for three lives.

The people took a public opportunity of showing their feeling in the matter. Scarcely casting a look at George and his young bride as they went in state to dine at Guildhall on Lord Mayor's Day, they overwhelmed the Great Commoner with acclamations. Bute could find safety only by surrounding his coach with a crowd of prize-fighters, whose fists, however, could not save him from a storm of howls and jeers.

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CHAPTER XI.

PITT IN OPPOSITION.

The Spanish War-Treaty of Paris-The Grenville Cabinet-John WilkesStamp Act-The regency-The Rockingham Cabinet-The "Mosaic" Ministry-Great Commoner no more-Eclipse.

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S Pitt had foretold, Spain declared war in terms of the Family Compact. In the short war that followed, Britain had many brilliant successes, but they were all due 1762 to Pitt, though he had left the ministry. Everything he had proposed was undertaken and accomplished. Martinique, Havannah, Manilla fell; but the American bullion, talked of by Pitt with a view to capture, slipped through the feeble fingers of Bute safe into the coffers of Cadiz. Bute did not rest content with Pitt's removal. Newcastle also must go. Ignored and insulted, the old man was forced at last to resign. Bute remained master of the field, and the Tory flag waved high above the lowered colours of the Whigs.

1763

The treaty of Paris closed and crowned the war. Britain obtained from France an acknowledgment of her right to Canada, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and part of Louisiana. She kept also the islands of Tobago, Dominica, St. Vincent, and Grenada, the settlement of Senegal, and the island of Minorca; but gave up to her powerful neighbour Martinique, Guadaloupe, Goree, Belleisle, and other islands. From Spain she received Florida, and the settlements between it and the Mississippi; but she gave back to that power

Havannah and the Philippines. The treaty was not obtained without a struggle. Bute secured the sanction of Parliament, chiefly by bribery on a scale at which Walpole would have blushed. Pitt, though suffering from gout, spoke vigorously for more than three hours against the peace. In spite of his heroic disregard of self, the treaty was approved. Then came an absurd Budget, in which a proposal to tax cider was laid before the House. It provoked a storm of opposition, especi ally in the apple counties. In speaking against the expense of the war and the need of raising a tax, George Grenville cried, "Where will gentlemen have a tax laid tell me where ! " Pitt answered with a snatch of song. Chanting out, "Gentle shepherd, tell me where!" he made a low bow, and hobbled off with the victory.

At last Bute took fright at his own unpopularity, and resigned. George Grenville then (April 8) became Prime Minister, and plunged at once into the prosecution of John Wilkes, member for the borough of Aylesbury. Having 1763 started a paper called The North Briton in opposition to Lord Bute's organ The Briton, Wilkes persistently reviled the Scottish nation; but he took a more daring flight in No. 45, in which he charged the king with having told a lie while speaking from the throne at the prorogation of Parliament. A general warrant, i.e., a warrant naming nobody, was issued against the authors, printers, and publishers of this libel, and in virtue of this warrant Wilkes was arrested and sent to the Tower. His papers, too, were seized. When a writ of Habeas Corpus led to his appearance at the bar of the Common Pleas, Chief-Justice Pratt declared him free, because a member of Parliament could be arrested only for treason, felony, or a breach of the peace. An action for libel, founded on No. 45, was then begun against him, and he was deprived of his colonel's commission in the Bucks Militia. When Parliament met (Nov. 15), a licentious poem by Wilkes, of which a few copies

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