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Rh had told him they could not go on; that the war could not be supported without heavy taxes on the necessaries of life; and that people of all classes were so little inclined to submit to new burdens, or indeed government of any sort, that a peace was absolutely necessary. As Lord North had thereby not only agreed to, but recommended a change of Administration, he had not expected opposition from him. He had also, he added, been to Lord North after his resignation, and received from him an explicit assurance of his and his friends' support of the measures of Administration, qualified by no other exception than that of any attempt to change the Constitution. Lord North agreeing that peace could not be avoided, expressed his dissatisfaction with the boundary line; "upon which," said the King, "I reminded him of a transaction between him, Lord Dunmore, Lord Hillsborough, and Lord Carlisle, with David Barclay, in which they were told the Americans would insist on that line; and I asked him whether he thought it possible after their subsequent successes, and what had passed in December, to prevail with them to recede from what they had so strenuously insisted on so long before?" Then he mentioned the Loyalists. "Could he think that I meant to abandon men who had suffered by their attachment to the Constitution?" "Did he think it wise to continue a war for this purpose; now at any rate?" He answered by an estimate of the expenses necessary to continue the war.

Since then, so the King went on to Lord Ashburton, he had nothing to do with Lord North, but he had sent for and seen the Chancellor, who though he agreed in the propriety of resisting the combination, had nothing instead to suggest, and told him he had had a conversation with Lord Mansfield, who thought that all soberminded people would set their faces against it. Upon which the Chancellor asked, "where the sober-minded people were to be found": and added, "sober-minded people before they set themselves to crush one Administration should have another to put in its place." He