Note 910 — Chapter VII · (continued 2)

It was believed at the time, and it is not improbable, that the king himself suggested the taxation of America, to which Grenville at first objected. Compare Wraxall's Mem. of his own Time, vol. ii. pp. 111, 112, with Nicholl's Recollections, vol. i. pp. 205, 386. This may have been merely a rumour; but it is quite consistent with everything we know of the character of George III., and there can, at all events, be no doubt as to his feelings respecting the general question. It is certain that he over-persuaded Lord North to engage in the contest with America, and induced that minister to go to war, and to continue it even after success had become hopeless. See Bancroft's American Revolution, vol. iii. pp. 307, 308; Russell's Mem. of Fox, vol. i. pp. 247, 254; and the Bedford Correspond. vol. iii. p. li. See also, in regard to the repeal of the Stamp Act, the Grenville Papers, vol. iii. p. 373; a curious passage, with which Lord Mahon, the last edition of whose history was published in the same year (1853), appears to have been unacquainted. Mahon's Hist. of England, vol. v. p. 139. In America the sentiments of the king were well known. In 1775, Jefferson writes from Philadelphia: ‘We are told, and everything proves it true, that he is the bitterest enemy we have.’ Jefferson's Correspond. vol. i. p. 153. And in 1782 Franklin writes to Livingston, ‘The king hates us most cordially.’ Life of Franklin, vol. ii. p. 126.