King George II.

DURING the first fifteen years of the reign of George II. the peaceful policy of Walpole was followed out, and the growing prosperity of Britain bore witness to the ability of the statesman at the helm. The close of the reign was illuminated by the warlike triumphs of William Pitt, the "Great Commoner," who was in the very zenith of success and populaity during its last years. Since the reign of Elizabeth, no period had been so marked by triumphs on sea and land, as the glorious time from 1757 to 1760.

King George II. had neatly completed his 43rd year when the sudden death of his father called him to the throne. Walpole at once set off for Richmond to convey the intelligence. Walpole had made an enemy, during the last reign, of the Prince of Wales and of the Princess of Wales, by some incautious expressions; and George had declared that he would never employ his services. But, with admirable tact, Walpole conveyed to the new queen that be would obtain a jointure for her of £100,000 a year, and an augmentation of £130,000 for the king's civil list; whereupon the same ministry remained in office ; and in the new parliament Measures, that met soon afterwards he secured a good majority, that enabled him to keep his promise.

Walpole's policy had been a peaceful one. In France, Cardinal Floury practised the same policy; so that for some years peace was maintained in Europe generally. But Walpole was confronted by an opposition which became stronger from the accession to it of men of ability, whom Walpole should have enlisted on his side. The Opposition consisted of the Tories, chiefly country squires and members of the famous October Club the discontented Whigs, with Pulteney, Sandys, Littleton, the Grenvilles, Sir John Barnard, and the fiery and eloquent William Pitt some fifty or sixty Jacobites, sufficient to turn the scale when a measure was hotly contested. Walpole reduced bribery and corruption to an organized system. Votes were unblushingly sold; and large sums of money paid for parliamentary support. Another form of bribery was by the bestowal of pensions. In 1730 a bill was brought in, by which every rnember of parliament who accepted a pension was to be bound to notify the fact to the house ; but this bill was thrown out in the House of Lords.

A measure, as hold as it was original, the Excise Bill, was proposed by Walpole, in 1733, for simplifying the collection of the revenue, discouraging smuggling, and increasing the commerce of the country. The experiment was to be tried first with tobacco. But Pulteney and Bolingbroke wrote vehemently against the scheme. Riotous proceedings took place. Walpole acted with characteristic decision, abandoning the bill, and promptly turning out those of his partisans who had crossed him in the matter. The dismissed officials joined the ranks of the so-called "patriot" party, and tried to undermine Walpole's power. This attempt failed, and the same fate befell the often renewed attempts to get rid of septennial parliaments. In the general election of 1735, the minister again obtained a large majority.

In the year 1736 Captain John Porteous, a man of indifferent character, commanded the town guard in Edinburgh, at the execution of Wilson, a smuggler. After the culprit was dead, there was some disorder, and stones were thrown at the city guard. Porteous ordered his men to fire. Five persons were killed, and many wounded; among them being some spectators who were looking on from windows and balconies. Porteous was tried for murder, and condemned to death; but a reprieve was sent by the Queen Caroline, acting as regent for her husband, King George, who was absent in Germany. The lower classes in Edinburgh determined to execute what in more modern days has been designated as lynch law. A number of men with blackened faces broke into the Tolbooth prison, where Porteous was confined, dragged him to the Grassmarket, and publicly hanged him from a dyer's pole. The queen was highly indignant at this act; but none of the perpetrators of the outrage were discovered.

The relations between George II. and his eldest son Prince Frederick of Wales were not more cordial than those of George 1. had been with himself. The quarrel was embittered by the opposition offered by the king and the minister to a proposal to increase the Prince of Wales's income from £60,000 to £100,000 a year. Thus the prince's court became a kind of cave of Adullam, a gathering place for the discontented, and for those who expected promotion when the heir to the throne should enter into possession of his inheritance. The death of Qucen Caroline, in 1736, was a heavy blow to George II,, by depriving him of an astute adviser and an untiring fellow worker in all that concerned the State.

The opposition from the patriot Whigs became stronger and stronger; William Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham, and Henry Fox, afterwards Lord Holland were the foremost men of this section of the parliament. By his commanding figure, his splendid eloquence, his dauntless and impassioned manner, Pitt had forced hinself into a foremost position in the House of Commons. Walpole's habit of concentrating all power in his own person formed a fertile subject of the tirades of Pitt, who also violently objected to what he called the Hanoverian" policy of Carteret, that furnished English troops and English money to fight . out foreign quarrels in Germany. The patriot Whigs took the occasion of an excited state of public feeling in 1738, to compass the downfall of the Walpole ministry. There had been frequent complaints of injustice and hardship inflicted by the Spaniards in the West Indies upon British traders, and especially of the enforcing of the right of searching foreign vessels for contraband goods. The Opposition and the public clamoured for war; and in an evil hour Walpole yielded to the outcry. War was accordingly declared in 1739. Admiral Vernon, who had the courage of a lion, but more audacity than skill, after taking Portobello, on the Isthmus of Darien, failed entirely to reduce Carthagena. in March, 1741. This failure was counterbalanced by Commodore Anson, during his memorable voyage round the world with a squadron: he inflicted great damage on the Spaniards in the Pacific. The achievement was crowned by the capture of a rich Spanish galleon freighted with silver, But long before Anson's triumphant return to England in 1744, Walpole had been overthrown, in spite of the concessions he had unwisely made, When a new parliament met in 1742, the verdicts in petitions on contested elections went against FaUofWal- him in so many instances that he declared he would sit in the House of Commons no more. He was elevated to the peerage with the title of Earl of Orford, and retired to his country seat of Houghton. Carteret, Earl of Granville, with Pulteney, who was made Earl of Bath, attempted to form a government. Lord Wilmington then held power for a short time; and in 1744 a new administration came into office distinguished by the name of the Broad Bottom ministry, as it was formed upon the principle of admitting men of talent belonging to the various parties. Henry Pelham became prime minister, and his brother, the Duke of Newcastle, exerted great influence by the number of votes his great territorial possessions and the adhesion of the great Whig houses enabled him to command. Newcastle, after his brother's death in 1754, assumed the chief direction of affairs. He was the laughing-stock of his colleagues for his blunders and absurdities. But his shrewdness, perseverance, and ambition enabled him to outwit and circumvent all rivals and opponents. The ministry was strengthened in 1744 by the appointment of the Earl of Chesterfield as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

Meanwhile a great change had come over the politics of continental Europe. The Emperor Charles VI. died in 1740. For many years he had turned his attention, as he had no male heir, to the task of procuring by the Pragmatic Sanction the recognition of his daughter, the Archduchess Maria Theresa, as the successor to the vast dominions of the Austrian House. The assent of the various powers had been obtained to this document Among others, Frederick William I. of Prussia had most reluctantly given his consent He died, like Charles VI., in 1740; and his son and successor, Frederick the Great, immediately laid claim to the province of Silesia, and invaded it with a large army, at a time when the Austrian government had no adequate force ready to encounter him. In 1741, Frederick gained the battle of Molwitz. Bavaria and Saxony now came forward, each claiming a part of the Austrian heritage ; and France joined against Austria in this war of the Pragmatic Sanction. George II. espoused the cause of Maria Theresa, and sent an army to maintain her cause in Flanders, besides voting large subsidies. But Frederick gained a second battle at Chotusitz ; and Maria Theresa, at Presburg, invoked the protection of the Hungarian magnates and deputies. They declared they would die for their monarch, Meanwhile Charles, Elector of Bavaria, became Emperor of Germany, with the title of Charles VII. At the urgent advice of her ally, George II., Maria Theresa ceded Silesia to Frederick II. This enabled her to turn her arms with triumphant effect against her other enemies. Charles, the new emperor, was driven from Austria and Bohemia, and being deserted by his allies and defeated by his enemies, died shortly afterwards of disappointment and chagrin. The French were compelled to retreat out of Bohemia. In 1743, an English and German army, under the command of the king in person. fought the battle of Dettingen. The French were defeated with a loss of nearly 6,000 men in killed, wounded, and prisoners. War was declared between France and England, in 1744, the French army being commanded by the famous Marshal Saxe. The army of the English and their allies in Flanders marched, under the Duke of Cumberland, to the relief of Tournay, and on May 11th, 1745, having met the French, fought the famous battle of Fontenoy. The famous English Guards, after conquering various important postions, found themselves encountered, without support, by the French household regiments, and all the reserves of Marshal Saxe, supported by a strong force of artillery. After suffering an immense slaughter, the brave household regiments retreated slowly, with their faces to the foe, and presently rallied at the town of Ath. The English and Hanoverians in this action lost about 6,000 men, while the French loss is said to have been under-estimated at 7,000. The immediate consequence of the disaster of Fentenoy was the occupation of Tournay, Ghent, Bruges, Ostend, and other places in Flanders by the French. In the same year we find Frederick the Great again in the field against Austria, fighting and gaining the famous battle of Hohenfriedberg. Francis of Lorraine, the husband of Maria Theresa, was raised to the imperial throne, and the Queen of Hungary thus became the Empress-Queen. In the same year Frederick gained another victory over the Austrians at Soor.

James Francis, the son of James II., was now fifty-seven years of age, and even in his youth had never shown any signs of energy or courage but his son, Charles Edward, had long wished to renew the attempt which had ended so disastrously for his father Charles m 1715. With an energy somewhat rare in his family, he resolved to strike a blow for himself; and the French government, though disinclined to incur any further risk or expense, had no objection to the prince's diverting the attention of the foe by an invasion of Scotland on his own account. The prince raised all the money he could possibly collect, even pawning his jewels and borrowing from his friends, and procured arms and ammunition, which he sent on board an old warship of 65 guns - the Elizabeth - for removal to Scotland. He himself embarked at Belle-isle for Scotland, On a swift 18 gun brig, the Doutelle, on the 2nd of July, 1745. The Elitabeth was obliged by a British ship of war, the Lion, to return to France but the Doutelle landed Charles at the Western Islands, and from thence carried him over to Moidart in Inverness. At first the chiefs to whom he applied were disinclined to aid in what they rightly considered a desperate enterprise. But two chiefs of the Macdonalds caught the young clansman's enthusiasm, and declared for the prince. Presently the "seven men of Moidart," as the followers of Charles Edward at his first landing were called, found their numbers rapidly increasing. Among those who were induced to join the enterprise was Cameron of Lochiel.

The example of Lochiel was speedily followed by other chiefs, and the prince's forces soon amounted to some fifteen or sixteen hundred men. Sir John Cope, who commanded the king's troops in Scotland, drew off his men towards Inverness. The prince and his followers proceeded to Blair Athol. The wily old Lord Lovat, the chief of the Frasers, still held back, in spite of the title Simon, Lord "Duke of Fraser," by which the prince commanded his attendance. On the 11th of September, Charles Edward hastened forward to Dunblane and the Firth of Forth. His object was to get to Edinburgh before Sir John Cope. The prince and his Highlanders took possession of Edinburgh, Charles Edward establishing himself in Holyrood Palace. At this time his force amounted to 2,000 men.

Cope, meanwhile, had reached Durtbar. Charles Edward collected supplies and weapons in Edinburgh, and marched forth to meet him. The two forces encountered each other at Prestonpans, not far from the capital. Cope had taken up a strong position, with a morass between him and the insurgents army but the clansmen discovered a way through the swamp in the night time, and on the morning of the 21st of September, encountered the army of Cope. The Highlanders advanced with fierce shouts against the cavalry, who fled, though Colonel Gardiner in vain tried to rally them; whereupon the infantry lost heart, surrendered at discretion, and called for quarter. Never was battle more promptly or more completely decided. The one brave stand of the day was made by Colonel Gardiner. He was slain, with many wounds, near his own park wall. Cope's military chest, containing £1,500, was among the booty made by the victorious army. Charles Edward returned in triumph with his Highlanders to Edinburgh But the Lowlands remained quiet; there was no movement among the Jacobites in England ; in general, the loyalty of the country was unshaken and the government from its first consternation, was taking ; seriousus measures for putting down the rebellion.

It was under such circumstances that the Chavalier marched southward into England at the head of some five thousand men. Carlisle surrendered, the garrison marching out and engaging not to serve against the prince for a year. The invaders marched to Manchester. Preston, and Wigan . Here some recruits were obtained for the invading army. Affairs were now assuming a very gloomy appearance. General Wade was marching on the rear of the invading army. The Duke of Cumberland, with eight thousand men, was encamped at Lichfield. Liverpool and Chester were taking active measures against the Highlanders; and near London itself a large army was encamped at Finchley. At last, on the 4th of December, 1745, at Derby, was held that famous council of chiefs, in which it was resolved to retreat northwards. On the 19th of the month, Charles Edward was back at Carlisle, whence he hastened to Glasgow. Thereupon he laid siege to Stirling Castle, At Falkirk, on the 17th January, 1746, Charles Edward obtained a last success against the troops of General Hawley. The advance of the Duke of Cumberland with his army compelled the rebels to raise the siege of Stirling. On the 8th of April, the final encounter took place on Culloden [or Drummossiei ] Moor, near Inverness. At about midday the battle commenced with an artillery fire, in which the English artillery did great execution upon the Highland lines; while the battery of the Highland army could effect nothing. The Highlanders then endeavoured to carry the day by their accustomed practice of a bold and rapid advance, rushing to the charge, shouting their war-cries, and flinging away their muskets after once discharging then, trusting to the claymore to finish the business. But their opponents had become accustomed to this manoeuvre They were received with such a withering discharge of musketry by the second line, that four to five hundred fell at once. Several times they charged desperately, but lost heart at length, when they saw the enemy advancing, cavalry and infantry, upon their wofully diminished numbers. They began to go off the field in patties, and this was the preface to a general rout. Charles Edward himself had been, with the rear or reserve line, and it is stated that Lord Elcho urged him to lead a desperate charge, to retrieve the honour and fortune of the day that the Chevalier turned pale and refused, and that Lord Elcho rode off with a curse, in anger, and swore he would never see or serve him again.
The troopers of Cumberland pursued the flying foe, cutting them down without mercy, and giving no quarter. The slaughter during the retreat is estimated at about 2,000 men. The victors lost only some three hundred, including killed, wounded, and missing. The prince, after escaping from the field, rode to the mansion of old Simon Laser, Lord Lovat, who was for continuing a kind of desultory Highland warfare, that might present King George's troops from ravaging the clansmen's country ; but Charles Edward had lost all heart, and soon afterwards became a solitary fugitive, hiding in rocks and caves, and waiting for an opportunity of escaping abroad. Then began that ruthless devastation of the Highlands that cast a deep and lasting slur on the memory of the victor of Culloden. The duke's soldiers ranged through the Highland country, plundering the unhappy inhabitants of their property. The army, as it moved forward, was often followed by crowds of famished men, women, and children, begging for the blood and offal of the cattle that had been taken from them and slaughtered by the invading host. The greatest cruelties were practised, neither sex nor age being spared. The Duke of Cumberland was rewarded by a grant of £25,000 a year for his achievements but posterity fixed on him the name of the " Butcher," which clung to him permanently. The unhappy prince was meanwhile wandering, a bunted fugitive, among the Western Islands, a reward of £30,000 having been set on his head by the government. .He would hardly have succeeded in making his escape, but for the generous assistance he received from the chief Macdonald of Clanronald, and especially from a young lady, Flora Macdonald, a near relative of Clanronald's, who devoted herself entirely to his service. The search for him among the islands was very sharp and persevering. At length, in September, intelligence was given that some French ships had put into a neighbouring harbour; on one of these Charles Edward secretly embarked, and made his way to Paris.

The number of prisoners put to death for their part in this rebellion was much greater than that of the victims of the outbreak of 1775. Nearly a hundred heads were set up on gateways and castles in the North, and in England above fifty executions took place. Charles Radcliffe, brother of the unfortunate Earl of Derwentwater, had in 1716, escaped from prison, but now he was captured for the second time, and executed on the old sentence. Colonel Townley, of the Manchester regiment, was put to death, with eight of his officers and men, on Kennington Common. The most important prisoners were the Lords Cromartie, Balmerino, and Kilmarnock Cromartie obtained a pardon through the intercession of powerful friends. Kilmarnock and Balmerino were brought out for execution on Tower Hill. The former behaved with decent dignity, though he seemed somewhat discomposed and terrified. Balmerino, a stout old soldier, came cheerfully to his death as to a banquet. In the spring of 1747, the aged but by no means venerable Simon, Lord Lovat, was brought to trial. He made up the measure of his crimes and iniquities by the endeavour to extricate himself by sacrificing his eldest son. "Farewell, my lords; we shall never meet again in the same place !" was his sarcastic adieu to his judges, when sentence of death had been passed upon him. He was executed on Tower Hill, on the 9th of April, 1747, - the last man who fell under the headsman's axe in England.

The utter failure of the outbreak of 1745 showed that Jacobitism was a sentiment only, and not a moving principle, in those who professed it. James Francis, the " Old Chevalier," died in 1765 aged seventy-seven years. Charles Edward degenerated greatly in the later years of his life, and gave way to intemperance to such an extent, that a writer of the time declared "no street-porter was equal to him." He died at Rome on January 30th, 1788. His only brother, Henry Benedict, Cardinal of York, lived at Rome, lost his fortune, and was at last glad to accept a pension from George III. He died at Rome in 1809. In the Highlands, the patriarchal and despotic power of the chiefs ceased altogether. The making of military roads brought the whole country within the scope and authority of ordinary law and the bravery and fidelity of the Highland soldiers were soon as conspicuously displayed in the service of the Hanoverian dynasty as it had been shown against them.

In 1747 several successes were gained by the British arms at sea Admirals Anson and Warren defeated the French admiral De la Jonquiere; and Admiral Hawke captured six ships of Admiral de I'Etendeur. On the other hand, the Duke of Cumberland, the king's favourite son, was utterly unfitted to cope with the genius and resources of Marshal Saxe. The peace was built up on a foundation of general restitution of conquests, and a reconstruction of the position as it had been before the war. The only gainer was Frederick of Prussia, who kept Silesia, to the secret anger and vexation of the Empress-queen Maria Theresa. One stipulation made by England was that Louis XV. should no longer give the support of his influence to Charles Edward. That unhappy prince was hurried away to the strong fortress of Vincennes. Afterwards he was conveyed to the frontier of Savoy, and then set free, with a prohibition to enter France.

The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was little better than a truce and in North America and India, even the outward appearance of friendship was not maintained. In 1751, the Prince Frederick of Wales, between whom and the king there had been estrangement for years, died somewhat suddenly; and his young son George, a boy of twelve years, became heir-apparent to the throne. in 1754, Henry Pelham died. The deceased statesman's power and office descended to his brother, the Duke of Newcastle, who disregarded the claims of Henry Fox and William Pitt, the most talented men in the House of Commons, and endeavoured to rule the country with the help of mediocre men He was reluctantly compelled to admit first Fox, and afterwards Pitt, to a substantial share of power in the cabinet. In America, as in India, the French were the rivals of the English in colonization, and tried to hem them in by building a series of forts from the great lakes to the mouth of the Mississippi, thus connecting their own province of Canada with Louisiana. Hostilities accordingly commenced. The French enlisted some tribes of the Indians of North America on their side of the struggle, while others of the Red Men fought for the English. General Braddock, who was sent out in command of the English forces, on the 9th of July, suddenly fell into an ambuscade prepared for him in the forests by the Indians. His men were unable to deploy, and were compelled to turn and fly, Braddock himself receiving a wound, of which he died a few days after. In the next year, Fort Oswego, on the Ontario Lake, fell into the hands of the French.

In 1755 the war with France had fairly commenced. Boscawen was sent towards the Gulf of St. Lawrence with a fleet intended to intercept a French naval force despatched to strengthen the French Canadians. Though the French fleet passed him in a fog, two ships of the line were captured. Howe, Hawke, and Byng were presently sent out to encounter the French fleet on its return from Canada but they failed to fall in with the enemy. The next year was memorable or the breaking out of the great Seven Years' War. Maria Theresa was determined to recover Silesia, by bringing against Frederick the Great a coalition that should reduce Prussia to the dimensions of the Marquisate of Brandenburg. Russia, Sweden, Saxony, the Germanic body, and France, were to join the empress-queen in accomplishing the dismemberment of the Prussian monarchy. Frederick had, however, received accurate intelligence of the blow intended to destroy him, and he had negotiated an alliance with England destined to be productive of very important results to both nations. His enemies had purposed falling upon him suddenly and taking him by surprise. He anticipated this by suddenly demanding from the Austrian court a plain and intelligible answer as to its intentions. This was refused, and lie thereupon suddenly, in August, 1756. invaded Saxony and took Dresden. But, before this, very grave events had happened with regard to England. The French had prepared a large armament against Minorea. Admiral Byng was somewhat tardily despatched to its defence, The fleet despatched from France, under La Gallisoniere, was far stronger than Byng's armament The English admiral, on his arrival at Minorca, found the gallant General Blakeney still defending Fort St. Philip, which was hotly besieged by the enemy. On May 19th, the French fleet hove in sight ; but Byng maintained his position. The next day the French fleet reappeared. West the second in command, bore down upon the French gallantly and obtained an advantage over them; but Byng was pedantically bent upon maintaining his line of battle unbroken, and thus failed to support his gallant subordinate. La Gallisoniere was enabled to slip away to Toulon, and boast of the "victory" he bad gained over the English fleet.

Byng's best course would now have been to support Blakeney with all his strength ; but he decided to return to Gibraltar to refit. The news of the disastrous failure to relieve Minorca was received in England through a boastful letter of La Gallisoniere. The public indignation was great, and the ministry at once sent Admirals Saunders and Hawke to supersede Byng, who wrote a despatch to the admiralty, in which he attributed the failure to the inadequate equipment of his fleet. Orders were despatched to Hawke to send him home under arrest Byng was closely confined in an apartment in Greenwich Hospital. Newcastle was anxious to shift the danger from his own shoulders. He looked eagerly about for allies, but could find none. Fox resigned his office, and Murray, the attorney-general, followed his example. At length Newcastle resigned his position. Pitt now came into power. He was personally obnoxious to the king; but he was wonderfully popular with the nation, and the public feeling was too strong to be trifled with. He became secretary of state, the Duke of Devonshire taking the treasury. First lord of the admiralty, and places were also found for Lord Temple and James and George Grenville. Thus, in November, 1756, the new ministry was formed. Byng was brought to trial, and condemned to death on the article of war which denounces that punishment on all officers who fail to do their utmost to injure the enemy. Great efforts were made to induce the king to exert his prerogative of mercy, Pitt urging that the House of Commons inclined towards a lenient course.

The unfortunate admiral requested and obtained the favour of being shot on the quarter-deck of his own ship, the Monarch, and met his fate with unflinching courage.

If he disliked Pitt, George II. absolutely abhorred Temple, whom he accused of gross insolence. Consequently, when the popular excitement had subsided, Pitt and Temple were dismissed, and efforts were made to form a new ministry, strengthened by the eloquence and energy of Henry Fox. But while Pitt was the idol of the people out of doors, Fox was intensely unpopular. It was found that the Duke of Newcastle would be unable to stand without Pitt; while Pitt, on the other hand, had failed for want of the kind of influence the duke possessed. Accordingly Pitt coalesced with Newcastle. He accepted the office of secretary of war with the leadership of the House of Commons. Newcastle became once more first lord of the treasury, and Fox was made paymaster of the forces. Lord Granville became president of the council, while the privy seal was given to Lord Temple.

Pitt turned his chief attention to the great contest that was going on between Prussia and Austria, and in which England was involved as the ally of Prussia. The memorable year 1757 was at first unfavourable. An expedition against Rochefort was repulsed; and the Duke of Cumberland, at the head of 40,000 German troops, gave battle to the French under Marshal d'Estrees, at Hastenbeck, and, being beaten by them, signed the capitulation of Kloster-Seven, his army being put under obligation not to serve again during the war. The king refused to ratify the agreement, alleging that his son had exceeded his commission. At the same time the Marquis do Montcalm, who governed Canada, took Fort William-Henry on Lake George.
But by the end of the year a vast change had taken place. Frederick the Great, after gaining a battle, had been beaten on the 18th of June, by Marshal Daun, at Kollin. His enemies, Austrians, Swedes, and French, attempted to hem him in. He turned his arms against the French, and on the 5th or November gained the celebrated battle of Rossbach. Thereupon, with wonderful promptitude, he marched eastward, and on the 5th of December, Frederick defeated a great army at Leuthen, near Breslau. The name of the conqueror of Rossbach and Leuthen was in every mouth. Pitt arranged for a subsidy of almost a million annually for the Prussian king, and a large force of English troops now took part in the war, under Ferdinand of Brunswick. In 1758 and until the end of the reign, occurred a series of triumphs for the British arms. The French settlements at Goree and Senegal in Africa, Cape Breton on the American coast, and St. John's were taken, though the opponents of Pitt in parliament secretly murmured at the expense of his triumphs. In 1759, however, such triumphs were gained, that the voice of dissent and remonstrance were drowned in jubilation. Pitt had formed a bold scheme to be executed in America - nothing less than the reduction of Canada; and to General James Wolfe the execution of the plan was entrusted, through the influence of Pitt and Temple. The plan involved the cooperation of three commanders - Wolfe, Amherst, and Prideaux. The first was to advance and capture Quebec; the second to occupy Crown Point, and take Ticonderago, and then descend the St. Lawrence, to join Wolfe in front of the capital city; and the third to operate by way of Niagara, Lake Ontario, and Montreal, and then to join Amherst and Wolfe at Quebec. Montcalm, a brave French office; was in command at Quebec.

From the beginning of July until the middle of September, Wolfe tried in vain to bring his antagonist to a general engagement. He determined to scale the plateau on which Quebec was built, at a place called the Heights of Abraham, in the rear of the city. On the night of the 12th of September the troops were silently landed at a point that had been fixed upon, and climbed up the heights till they gained the level ground at the top. The French general could hardly believe his eyes when the dawn of the 13th of September showed him the English army at the top of the apparently inaccessible cliffs. He was obliged to issue forth from his intrenchments. For half an hour the fight was maintained with rent spirit on both side., Wolfe was with the front ranks, encouraging his men, when a musket bullet struck him in the wrist. He wrapped his handkerchief round the wound, and maintained his post. Soon afterwards a second bullet struck him in the body, but still he continued to cheer on his brave soldiers, until he received a third ball full in the breast, and fell to the ground. A wounded man near him exclaimed, " They run ! " "Who run !" he eagerly inquired. "The French !" was the reply. " Then" said the hero, " I die content;" and shortly afterwards he expired. Never did a soldier meet a more glorious death. Quebec surrendered a few days afterwards, on the 18th of the month. The brave Montcalm had been mortally wounded. By the following year the whole of Canada was in the hands of the English.
On the 18th of August, 1759, the brave Admiral Boscawen encountered the French fleet, under Admiral de la Clue, off Cape Lagos, on the Portuguese coast, and gained a signal victory. A still more noble triumph was gained by Admiral Hawke, who for a long time blockaded the port of Brest. Early in November he was obliged to run to Torbay to refit. Monsieur de Conflans came out of Brest with his fleet. Hawke immediately went in pursuit of him, and found the French fleet in Quiberon Bay, on the 20th of November. The situation was one of great peril. The wind was blowing dead on shore, and the coast was covered with rocks and sandbanks. But Hawke attacked, in the face of all difficulties, destroying eight of the enemy's ships, and forcing the rest to fly.

On the continent of Europe also, the glorious year 1759 brought good fortune and victory to the British armies. Already, in June of the previous year, Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick had driven a French army out of Germany. An English army of about 12,000 men was despatched to help the Prince. On the 31st of July, 1759, Prince Ferdinand, at Minden, in Hanover, was attacked by the French, whom he put to the rout after a sharp contest. But the share of the English in this achievement was lessened by the misconduct of Lord George Sackville, who disregarded the repeated commands of Ferdinand of Brunswick to charge with his cavalry. The English infantry acted gloriously in the battle, for a time sustaining the whole weight of the French attack. Frederick the Great himself was of singularly unfortunate in the campaign of 1759. But in1760, Frederick inflicted a great defeat on his enemies at Liegnitz, and Prince Ferdinand, with 20,000 British troops, gained a great victory over the French at Warburg.

In India also, the close of the reign of George II was marked by a splendid series of triumphs. Until the middle of the eighteenth century, the position of the English in India was merely that of traders, possessing some factories; for, besides an English, there was a French, a Dutch, and a Portuguese East India Company. Dupleix, governor of Pondicherry, endeavored to establish a French domination in India by taking the part of Mirzapha Khan, an aspirant to the throne of the Deccan he was foiled by the genius of young Robert Clive, who, originally sent out to India as a writer in the Company's service, commenced a series of marvellous exploits by the heroic defence of Arcot, the capital of the Carnatic. After assuring the supremacy of the English on the coast of Coromandel, Clive returned to England, from whence he was afterwards sent out with the military rank of Colonel, as governor of Fort St. David, a castle subordinate to Fort St. George, at Madras. Surajah Dowlah, Nabob of Bengal, Orissa, and Bahar, a cruel and worthless youth, had thought fit, on the flimsiest pretext, to march against Calcutta from Moorshedabad, his capital, The place fell into his hands, together with 146 English prisoners. The prisoners were confined, during one of the hottest nights of an Indian summer, in the Black Hole, the prison room of the garrison; 123 of the captives perished by suffocation before the morning. Clive was at once despatched from Madras, with an army and a fleet, to avenge this atrocity. He quickly took Hoogly, and by February, 1757, compelled Surajah Dowlah to sign articles promising restitution. But as the worthless Nabob would keep no stipulations, an agreement was secretly entered into with Meer Jaffier, the commander of Surajah Dowlah's army, for the dethronement of that cruel prince, and the raising of Meer Jaffier in his stead to the throne of Bengal. With three thousand men Clive encountered the huge army of the Nabob on the plains of Plassey, not far from Moorshedabad, and gained the splendid victory that opened to the English the sovereignty of India. Meer Jaffier was placed on the throne. Clive returned to England to be rewarded with distinguished honours, being raised to the Irish peerage under the title of Baron Clive of Plassey. England was in a condition of triumph and prosperity such as she had not enjoyed since the days of the Commonwealth.

In all parts of the world the affairs of the nation prospered, and the British flag was feared and respected - even the strife of religious parties at home seemed for the time quelled, and Ireland was quiet when suddenly the reign of George II. came to an end. On the 25th of October 1760, the king died from rupture of the heart like his father, he laboured under the disadvantage of being looked upon as a foreigner. His personal courage undoubted, and he had a high appreciation of that quality in others; he also possessed some military talent, and took a keen interest in warfare. Among his vices, avarice was the most prominent . Though subject, like most of his family, to violent outbursts of anger, he was in general amenable to the dictates of right and justice. For art and literature he had no love whatever In matters of government he was much influenced by his wife, Caroline of Anspach, whom he always consulted, and to whom he delegated considerable power in state affairs, It is to the king's credit that he kept strictly within his rights in matters of government, and made no attempt to encroach on the constitutional privileges of his people