Page:Public School History of England and Canada (1892).djvu/156

 not like the Whigs and Pitt, and to get rid of them he used his influence to bring the war to a close. Pitt was opposed to peace, for he knew Spain had secretly promised to aid France; but George managed to get Parliament on his side, and Pitt resigned. Newcastle, too, was driven by slights and insults from office, and Lord Bute, the king’s tutor, took his place as Prime Minister. Nevertheless the war with Spain took place, as Pitt had foreseen, and lasted a year. England now refused to help Frederick the Great further, and he made a peace with his enemies, by which he kept Silesia. A general peace was signed at Paris, in 1763, between France, England, Spain and Portugal, and the “Seven Years’ War” came to an end. England kept Canada and Florida; Minorca was restored by France; while, in India, English influence and power was henceforth fully recognized.

 

1. George III.—George III. began his reign with the resolve to allow the king’s ministers to rule no longer for the king, as was the custom in the days of George I. and II. His mother had early and constantly taught him to ‘‘Be a King;” and his tutor, Lord Bute, had strengthened the impressions his mother’s teachings had made on his naturally narrow mind and stubborn disposition. Few English kings were so unfit to rule as George III., and few did so much injury to England at home and abroad. Yet he came to the throne with many things in his favour. He had been born and educated in England, and so was the first English king who reigned since the Revolution of 1688. It pleased the people to have once more an Englishman on the throne, and it pleased the Scotch when he said he was not merely an Englishman, but was also a ‘‘Briton.” With these advantages on his side he was at first popular, and so he might have remained had he not used his position to recover the authority lost by his predecessors—George I. and George II. Instead of ruling by the advice of his ministers he sought to make them