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“To know this is the true essential business of a king”: The Prince of Wales and the Study of Public Finance, 1755–1760*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

John L. Bullion
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Extract

By the middle of the eighteenth century, the growth of the national debt, the burden of the taxes necessary to support it, and the effect of this system of public finance on the politics, economy, and society of Britain, deeply concerned politicians in opposition. Their frequent expressions of concern were sufficiently persuasive to induce similar apprehensions on occasion in politicians at court. In 1753, when the national debt was a little over £74,000,000, earl Waldegrave, a personal favorite of George II, felt compelled to tell the House of Lords about a “consideration of very great importance, … the state of our national debt [and] the heavy taxes which are the consequences of this debt.” The situation required, he went on, “prudent measures of government, with that strict national economy which must be our only remedy.” Waldegrave did not go so far as to believe the nation was on the verge of collapse. As he pointed out, “a country and a government like ours has so many and so great resources, that we may bear a great deal and still be in a flourishing condition.” “Yet as long as this evil does subsist,” he warned the House, “we can never expect fully to exert our proper strength.” He concluded, “Till this burden is removed it will remain a check to our trade, will be still heavier on the landed interest, must lessen our credit and influence abroad, and will be a cause of discontent if not of disaffection at home.”

Type
The 1985 Denis Bethell Prize Essay of the Charles Homer Haskins Society
Information
Albion , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , Fall 1986 , pp. 429 - 454
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1986

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Footnotes

*

I would like to acknowledge the gracious permission of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to publish material from the Royal Archives, and to thank the Marquess of Bute, for permission to quote from the Bute papers; the Marquess of Tavistock and the Trustees of the Bedford Estates, for permission to quote from the Bedford Manuscripts; F. H. M. FitzRoy Newdegate, Esq. for his kind permission to quote from the Newdegate Manuscripts; the Curators of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, for permission to quote from MSS. North; and the Trustees of the British Library, for permission to quote from Manuscripts at the British Library. I would also like to thank the Research Council of the Graduate School, University of Missouri-Columbia, for a grant that greatly facilitated the completion of this essay.

References

1 For brief descriptions of the opposition's arguments against the national debt and the financial system servicing it, see Krammick, Isaac, Bolingbroke and his Circle: The Politics of Nostalgia in the Age of Walpole (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), pp. 43–55Google Scholar; Browning, Reed, Political and Constitutional Ideas of the Court Whigs (Baton Rouge, 1982), pp. 187–188Google Scholar; and Colley, Linda, In Defiance of Oligachy: The Tory Party, 1714-1760 (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 157–161CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For convenient sources for opposition statements in Parliament on the debt and taxation see Sir John Barnard's motion to reduce the interest on the national debt, March 14, 1737, and his motion for “taking off the taxes that oppress the poor and the manufacturers,” [April 1737], in Hansard, T. C., ed., The Parliamentary History of England, from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803, Ser. 1, 41 vols. (London, 1806–1820), 10: 71–187Google Scholar; and the summary of the opposition's arguments against the bill for naturalizing foreign Protestants, February 4, 1748, in ibid., 14: 141-148. Frederick, Prince of Wales, was virtually the head of the opposition from 1746 until his death in 1751, and his “Instructions for my son George, drawn by myself, for his good, that of my family, and for that of his people, according to the ideas of my grandfather, and best friend, George I,” January 13, 1748/9, include typical opposition prescriptions for dealing with problems of public finance. “Instructions for my son George” has been published in SirYoung, George, Poor Fred: The People's Prince (Oxford, 1937), pp. 172–175Google Scholar.

2 Earl Waldegrave, draft of a speech on the education of the Prince of Wales, [early 1753], B.L., Add. MSS. 51380, f. 121. I have changed spelling and punctuation in all the quotations in this essay to conform to modern English usages, except in the case of italicized words, which appeared in the original. The principal of the national debt on January 20, 1752 was £74,309,562. Journals of the House of Commons, 26: 387–388Google Scholar.

3 Waldegrave, Earl, Memoirs from 1754 to 1758 by James, Earl Waldegrave, Knight of the Garter, One of His Majesty's Privy Council in the Reign of George II and Governor of the Prince of Wiles, Afterwards George III (London, 1821) pp. 63–64Google Scholar. Even if Waldegrave neglected to discuss the national debt, the prince doubtless was aware of it. If the prince's mother read to him the instructions left by her late husband as she was supposed to, the prince learned that his father advised him to “employ all your hands, all your power to live with economy, and try never to spend more in the year than [the money raised by] the malt [tax] and [a] two shillings in the [pound] land tax.” If he could do so, “you will be able to reduce the national debt, which if not done, will surely one time or the other, create such a disaffection and despair, that I dread the consequences for you.” George was also told “the sooner you have an opportunity to lower the interest [on the national debt], for God's sake, do it.” Frederick further advised George to ask the monied interest firmly for “their assistance and support, to ease the land[ed interest] of the vast burden it is loaded with, which can only be done, by reducing the national interest.” Finally, he advised his son that “a good deal of the national debt must be paid off, before England enters into a war.” Frederick, Prince, “Instructions for my son George,” January 13, 1728/1729, in Young, , Poor Fred, p. 173Google Scholar. Moreover, the Bishop of Norwich, the prince's preceptor before Waldegrave took control of his education, was interested in introducing the prince to fiscal and commercial issues, and probably saw to it that he began studying them during 1751-1753. For Norwich's interest in teaching the prince about these subjects, see Thicker, Josiah, Four Tracts Together with Two Sermons on Political and Commercial Subjects (London, 1774), pp. ix–xiGoogle Scholar, quoted in Clark, Walter Ernest, Josiah Tucker, Economist: A Study in the History of Economics (New York, 1903), pp. 63–64Google Scholar.

4 The prince of Wales to the earl of Bute, [early June 1757?], in Sedgwick, Romney, ed., Letters from George III to Lord Bute, 1756-1766 (London, 1939) p. 6Google Scholar.

5 Bute's method of instruction is described in Brooke, John, King George III (London, 1972), pp. 107–108Google Scholar. Very little is known about the reading he assigned to the prince (ibid., p. 608). A few of the book orders for the prince have survived in the Bodleian Library, MSS. North, A. 4, ff. 82, 86, 95, 98, 126, 222, 224, 267, and 297. The prince's essays on public finance and related subjects have been preserved in the Royal Archives at Windsor, Additional Georgian Manuscripts, in RA, Add. 32/259-261, 1087-1449, 1531-1696, 1700-1728. In addition, the prince occasionally touched on matters relating to public finance in other essays (see Brooke, , George III, pp. 118-119, 121–122Google Scholar). This article will focus on the prince's essays on finance from the Glorious Revolution to his day to the exclusion of his studies of taxation in earlier periods, because he believed the origins of Britain's present difficulties began in the 1690s.

6 “On methods to be used in writing a history of revenues and taxes after the Revolution,” RA, Add. 32/1226 [hereafter cited as “On methods to be used”]. In this essay, the prince referred to “78 millions national debt.” Ibid., p. 1232. Thus the essay was written after March 6, 1758, when the total of the principal of the debt was £77,780,386, and before March 15, 1759, when the total was announced as £82,776.586. See “A state of the national debt,” March 6, 1758, Bodleian Library, MSS. North, A. 4, ff. 163-166; and March 15, 1759, Common Journals, 27: 485Google Scholar.

7 The prince of Wales to Bute, [December 1758], Sedgwick, , ed., Letters from George III to Bute, p. 19Google Scholar; see also the prince's letter to Bute, March 4, 1760, in ibid., p. 45.

8 Fitzmaurice, Lord, Life of William, Earl of Shelburne, afterwards First Marquess of Landsdowne, with Extracts for his Papers and Correspondence, 2 vols. (London, 1912), 1: 111Google Scholar.

9 “Account of sessions of Parliament and taxes raised during the reign of William and Mary up to 1694,” RA, Add. 32/1272, 1371 [hereafter cited as “Account of sessions … up to 1694”]. I think the prince wrote this essay sometime during 1759-1760 for two reasons. First, its subject suggests that it was written immediately prior to the essay that covers William's reign from 1694 to his death. Second, on March 5, 1759, the prince received several unspecified volumes on modern English history. See “Book order for the prince of Wales,” March 5, 1759, Bodleian Library, MSS. North, A. 4, f. 222. The prince's reading for this essay included history from the Whigs' point of view in Bishop Burnet's History of My Own Times, and from the Tory perspective in the works of Viscount Bolingbroke and Jonathan Swift. Ibid., RA, Add. 32/1233-1270. In an earlier essay, “History of taxes and impositions from the Norman invasion to the Revolution,” RA, Add. 32/1102-1109 he had practiced analyzing “the passions and prejudices of the several historians” of English antiquity. In the case of the reign of William and Mary, the prince clearly found the passions and prejudices of Bolingbroke and Swift to be more persuasive.

10 “Account of sessions … up to 1694,” RA, Add. 32/1367-1368.

11 Ibid., RA, Add. 32/1381.

12 Ibid., RA, Add. 32/1384.

13 “On methods to be used,” RA, Add. 32/1230. The consensus of modern scholarship is that the prince's views are incorrect, because during the 1690s “it proved impossible to pay for the war from current income, and a vast machinery of public credit was hastily erected to serve the requirements of the state.” See Beckett, J. V., “Land Tax or Excise: the levying of taxation in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England,” English Historical Review 100 (1985): 307Google Scholar; and Dickson, P. G. M., The Financial Revolution in England: A Study in the Development of Public Credit, 1688-1756 (London, 1967), pp. 9-12, 46–75Google Scholar.

14 “Abstract of debts and taxes from the Revolution,” RA, Add. 32/1164.

15 “Account of sessions … up to 1694,” RA, Add. 32/1402. For the expression of similar views by members of the parliamentary opposition, see “Debate in the Commons on the Lottery,” [March-April 1755], in Hansard, , ed., Parliamentary History, 15: 513–517Google Scholar.

16 “On methods to be used,” RA, Add. 32/1231-1232. See also “Extract from an essay on the sinking fund, asserting the right of the public to the fund,” RA, Add. 32/1692-1696. The prince's descriptions of the sinking fund, its original purpose, and the uses to which it was ultimately put are, though brief and tinctured with his conviction that it was being mis-used, historically accurate. For a modern discussion, see Dickson, , The Financial Revolution in England, pp. 82-89, 204–212Google Scholar.

17 “On methods to be used,” RA, Add. 32/1230-1231.

18 The quotations are from “A history of the revenue from the Revolution to the present time,” RA, Add. 32/1198-1199. The titles indicate that the prince wrote this essay after he wrote “On methods to be used.” It would seem logical to study methodology and sources first, and then write the history. There are also many similarities in the texts of the two essays. Compare, for example, RA, Add. 32/1198-1199 with RA, Add. 32/1220. Thus “A history of the revenue from the Revolution to the present time” was probably composed sometime between March 6, 1758 and March 15, 1759.

19 For the prince's knowledge of Bumet, see “Account of sessions … up to 1694,” RA, Add. 32/1233-1270. The prince also had in his library another Whig history of the times, White Kennet's History of Britain. “Book order for the prince of Wales,” December 10, 1757, Bodleian Library, MSS. North, A. 4, f. 126.

20 See, for example, The Daily Journal; or, the Gentleman's and Tradesman's complete annual account book for the pocket, or desk. For the year of our Lord 1761 (London, 1760), pp. 1–5Google Scholar.

21 See Sir Roger Newdigate, undated note on political parties, Warwickshire County Record Office, Newdegate MSS., B. 2539/1.

22 Brewer, John, Party Ideology and Popular Politics at the Accession of George III (Cambridge, 1976), p. 135CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 For the debt in 1758, see “a state of the national debt,” March 6, 1758, Bodleian Library, MSS. North, A. 4, ff. 163-166; in 1759, March 15, 1759, Commons Journals, 27: 485Google Scholar; in 1760, Annual Register 3 (1760): 196–197Google Scholar; and in 1761, February 2, 1761, Commons Journals, 28: 1052Google Scholar.

24 “Account of sessions of Parliament and taxes granted from 1694 to the death of William III,” [1760], RA, Add. 32/1448 [hereafter cited as “Account of sessions … to the death of William III]. This essay was probably written in 1760 before George became king. The prince's optimism that Britain could safely raise the national debt to £130 or £140,000,000 contrasted starkly not only with the opinion of Walpole, but also with the apprehensions of the present First Lord of the Treasury, the duke of Newcastle. In October 1760, Newcastle fretted that it would be scarcely practical to raise the debt to £110,000,000. Newcastle, , “State of expenses for 1760, with requirements for new taxes,” October 4, 1760Google Scholar, B.L., Add. MSS. 33040, ff. 63-69. In King George III, pp. 118-119, John Brooke argued that the prince's expressions of concern in his essays about the national debt and the weight of taxes in fact reflected “Bute's jealousy of Pitt's success in waging war.” “With monotonous regularity,” he continued, “the prince dwelt on the increase of the national debt, with the implication that this more than offset all the victories which had been gained.” Evidently Brooke was unaware of the appreciation of “this mighty engine” of public credit that the prince wrote in 1760. Brooke's argument is questionable for other reasons as well. The prince expressed his concern about public finance in a letter he wrote in June 1757 and in essays he wrote between March 1758 and March 1759. Thus he had held these views for some time before the great victories of the annus mirabilis, 1759. See the prince to Bute, [early June 1757?] in Sedgwick, , ed., Letters from George III to Bute, p. 6Google Scholar; “On methods to be used,” and “A history of the revenue from the Revolution to the present time,” RA, Add. 32/1194-1232.

25 Even Frederick, who advised his son that “a good deal of the national debt must be paid off, before England enters into a war,” in his next words qualified that advice by adding, “at the same time never give up your honor nor that of the nation.” His son also recognized that there were times when it was unwise to follow too slavishly the best fiscal advice. Frederick, Prince, “Instructions to my son George,” January 13, 1748–1749Google Scholar, in Young, , Poor Fred, p. 173Google Scholar.

26 Anon., “the education of the prince,” [after January 5, 1759], Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute, Scotland, Bute Papers in the possession of the Marquess of Bute, Box VII, pp. 10-16. McKelvey, James Lee erred when he argued in George III and Lord Bute: The Leicester House Years (Durham, N.C., 1973), p. 85nGoogle Scholar, that this essay was written in either 1755 or early 1756. The anonymous author referred to a national debt of “more than four-score millions!” In January 1759, the debt was £82,776,589. Moreover, since the essay was written in 1759, it could not have been “in effect a prospectus for the instruction of the prince,” as McKelvey asserted.

27 “On Industry in Great Britain,” RA, Add. 32/259-261. An exact date cannot be determined for this essay, but some clues are provided by the prince's reference to Malachy Postlethwayt's argument that the high taxes necessitated by the national debt was the principal reason why labor was more expensive in Britain than in Europe. Postlethwayt first made the argument explicitly in his article on “Labor” in Postlethwayt, , The Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce, 2 vols. (London, 1751, 1755), 2: 1–6Google Scholar. Since volume two of the Dictionary was published in 1755, the prince might have written the essay as early as that year. But Postlethwayt made the same argument in his works Britain's Commercial Interest explained and improved …, 2 vols. (London, 1757), 1: 43–51Google Scholar; and Great Britain's True System … (London, 1757), pp. 143–185Google Scholar. I believe that George had read Britain's Commercial Interest before he wrote his essay, because there are similarities in argument and phrasing between his essay and that work (compare Britain's Commercial Interest 1: 11, 14Google Scholar with RA, Add. 32/261). I also think it was written before 1759-1760, because the prince's growing concern to be a popular king makes it doubtful he would have espoused even privately in 1759 or 1760 the unpopular opinions and plans that he enthusiastically embraced in “On Industry in Great Britain.”

28 “On Industry in Great Britain,” RA, Add. 32/259. All quotations in this and the next two paragraphs are from this essay.

29 Arguments in support of the bill for naturalizing foreign Protestants, February 4, 1748, Hansard, , ed., Parliamentary History, 14: 139Google Scholar. A Tory opponent of this bill characterized this argument in favor of naturalization thusly: “Our laborers and mechanics, ‘tis said … live too high and extravagantly … [while foreigners live] upon herbs and roots and drink water.” Quoted in Colley, , In Defiance of Oligarchy, p. 156Google Scholar.

30 See Tucker, , Four Tracts, pp. ix–xiGoogle Scholar, quoted in Clark, , Josiah Tucker, p. 63Google Scholar. For summaries of Tucker's ideas, see Clark's monograph; Schuyler's, Robert Livingston introduction to Josiah Tucker: A Selection from His Economic and Political Writings (New York, 1931), pp. 3–49Google Scholar; and Shenton, W. George, Dean Tucker and Eighteenth-Century Economic and Political Thought (New York, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For some of Tucker's writings concerning naturalization, see A Brief Essay on the Advantages and Disadvantages which Respectively Attend France and Great Britain With Regard to Trade (London, first edition, 1749Google Scholar; second edition, 1750; third edition, with a new appendix, 1753; fourth edition, printed in Glasgow, 1754); Reflections on the Expediency of a Law For the Naturalization of Foreign Protestants in Two Parts; Part I… (London, 1751)Google Scholar; Reflections on the Expediency of a Law For the Naturalization of Foreign Protestants in Two Parts: Part II… (London, 1751)Google Scholar; A Letter to a Friend Concerning Naturalizations … (London, first and second editions, 1753)Google Scholar; and A Second Letter to a Friend Concerning Naturalizations … (London, 1753)Google Scholar.

31 Waldegrave, , Memoirs, p. 8Google Scholar.

32 Tucker, , Four Tracts, pp. ix–xiGoogle Scholar, in Clark, , Josiah Tucker, pp. 63–64Google Scholar. Tucker had first-hand experience of the unpopularity of his ideas. He wrote his pamphlets on naturalization while serving as rector of All Saints' Church in Bristol, and in 1751 a mob, displeased with the tenor and thrust of his arguments, dressed an effigy in full canonicals and burned it. Ibid., p. 29.

33 The quotation is from “On Industry in Great Britain,” [1757-1758?], RA, Add. 32/259. For information on the successful opposition to naturalization, and arguments against it, see Colley, , In Defiance of Oligarchy, pp. 155–156Google Scholar; Perry, Thomas W., Public Opinion, Propaganda, and Politics in Eighteenth-Century England: A Study of the Jew Bill of 1753 (Cambridge, Mass., 1962), p. 178Google Scholar; and “arguments made use of against naturalization,” February 4, 1748, Hansard, , ed., Parliamentary History, 14: 142–143Google Scholar.

34 The prince to Bute, September 25, 1758, in Sedgwick, , ed., Letters from George III to Bute, p. 13Google Scholar.

35 “Account of sessions … up to 1694,” RA, Add. 32/1409.

36 “On Industry in Great Britain,” RA, Add. 32/260.

37 For examples of other men's emphasis on the damage done to the landed interest, see the opinions of Waldegrave and Newdigate, which are cited in notes 2 and 21 above.

38 “Account of sessions … up to 1694,” RA, Add. 32/1272.

39 “Account of sessions … to the death of William III,” RA, Add. 32/1449. How “oppressive” these new taxes were on trade and industry is a matter of controversy among modern scholars. For a discussion of the difficulties of determining the economic effects of taxation in eighteenth-century Britain, see Hausman, William J. and Neufeld, John L., “Excise Anatomized: the Political Economy of Walpole's 1733 Tax Scheme,” The Journal of European Economic History 10 (1981): 131-132, 141–143Google Scholar.

40 “Account of sessions … up to 1694,” RA, Add. 32/1403.

41 “On methods to be used,” RA, Add. 32/1228. The prince defined taxes on necessaries as taxes on “candles, soap, malt liquor (at the brewery), leather and skins at the tanner.” In “On Industry in Great Britain,” RA, Add. 32/259, he defined strong beer as a luxury, not a necessity.

42 See Kennedy, William, English Taxation, 1640-1799: An Essay on Policy and Opinion (London, 1913), pp. 104–123Google Scholar. As Kennedy pointed out, the notion that the government should avoid taxing the poor's necessities became “a first principle of tax policy” during this period (p. 123).

43 “On methods to be used,” RA, Add. 32/1232.

44 “Production of civil list revenues, down to October 10, 1760,” Bodleian Library, MSS. North, A. 4, f. 307. For the yearly average for the last decade, see Reitan, E. A., “The Civil List, 1761-77: Problems of Finance and Administration,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 47 (1974): 187Google Scholar.

45 The prince's father committed himself publicly in 1747 to a civil list fixed at £800,000 a year in an effort to make himself more popular. Presumably this precedent, and a similar desire for popularity, inspired the prince's and Bute's decision about the civil list. See Reitan, E. A., “The Civil List in Eighteenth-Century British Politics: Parliamentary Supremacy verses the Independence of the Crown,” The Historical Journal 10 (1966): 322Google Scholar. Reitan has also discussed the commitment of George III and his Lord Steward, earl Talbot, to economy in the affairs of his household (“The Civil List, 1761-77,” pp. 190-191). For George III's personal involvement in settling the wages and privileges of the royal laundresses and thus preserving his “plan of economy,” see George III to Bute, [January 1761], Mount Stuart, Bute Papers, Correspondence with George III, nos. 122/2-3 and 123/1-3.

46 “A history of the revenue from the Revolution to the present time,” RA, Add. 32/1201.

47 “Account of sessions … up to 1694,” RA, Add. 32/1398.

48 “On methods to be used,” RA, Add. 32/1227-1228.

49 Ibid., RA, Add. 32/1228. The prince's emphasis on raising money by extending excise duties tends to confirm Beckett's point that politicians during the eighteenth century regarded excise taxes as the principal means of increasing the government's revenues (“Land Tax or Excise,” p. 286).

50 “On methods to be used,” RA, Add. 32/1225.

51 “Account of sessions … up to 1694,” RA, Add. 32/1398.

52 Ibid., RA, Add. 32/1402.

53 “On Industry in Great Britain,” RA, Add. 32/259; and “On Methods to be used,” RA, Add. 32/1227-1228.

54 The prince to Bute, August 5, 1759, in Sedgwick, , ed., Letters from George III to Bute, p. 28Google Scholar.

55 Bute to George Grenville, October 13, 1761, in Schweizer, K. W., “A lost letter of John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, to George Grenville, 13 October 1761,” The Historical Journal 17 (1974): 439CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Bute went on to tell Grenville that now “the scene [is] changed; a determined young prince holds the sceptre … [and his] virtues and his way of thinking excludes the possibility of getting at him by these methods formerly practiced.”

56 The prince to Bute, [early June 1757?], in Sedgwick, , ed., Letters from George III to Bute, p. 6Google Scholar.

57 The prince to Bute, two letters [September 25, 1758] and [September 1758?], ibid., pp. 14-15.

58 Bute to the prince, September 7, 1759, ibid., p. 31n.

59 The prince to Bute, [winter 1759-1760], ibid., p. 39. The “passion” uppermost in the prince's mind at that moment was his infatuation with 1-ady Sarah Lennox. Bute had just advised him not to marry an English woman, and the prince resolved to follow that advice.

60 Anon., “the education of the prince,” [after January 5, 1759], p. 17, Mount Stuart, Bute papers, Box VII. The prince's father had offered him similar advice: “Convince this nation that you are not only an Englishman born and bred, but that you are also this by inclination.” Frederick, Prince, “Instructions for my son George,” January 13, 1748/1749, in Young, , Poor Fred, p. 174Google Scholar.

61 Quoted in Brooke, , King George III, pp. 121–122Google Scholar. For a more general statement by the prince on what a virtuous king could accomplish even “in the worst corrupted times, in storms of inward faction and the most threatening circumstances without,” see “Essay on King Alfred,” quoted in SirNamier, Lewis, England in the Age of the American Revolution, 2nd ed., (London, 1961), p. 93Google Scholar. Bute noted to a friend in 1756 how unprecedented in history it was for a prince to be so committed to liberty and so averse “to vice, corruption, and arbitrary power” to bring liberty to “a prostituted people,” and then promised when George came to the throne, “the experiment will for the first [time] be tried.” Bute to Gilbert Elliot, August 16, 1756, quoted in McKelvey, , George III and Lord Bute, pp. 42–43Google Scholar.

62 For Newcastle's doubts, see the duke of Devonshire, , “Memoranda on state of affairs, 1759-1762,” October 27, 1760, in Brown, Peter D. and Schweizer, Karl W., eds., The Devonshire Diary: William Cavendish, Fourth Duke of Devonshire: Memoranda on State of Affairs, 1759-1762, Camden Miscellany, vol. XXVII, Camden, 4th Ser. (London, 1982), pp. 42–43Google Scholar.

63 George III to Bute, [mid-November 1760], in Sedgwick, , ed., Letters from George III to Bute, pp. 49–50Google Scholar.

64 Devonshire, , “Memoranda on state of affairs, 1759-1762,” October 27, 1760Google Scholar, in Brown, and Schweizer, , eds., Devonshire Diary, p. 43Google Scholar.

65 For a description of the controversy on October 25, 1760 over the king's speech to the Privy Council, see Brooke, , King George III, pp. 135–138Google Scholar. As he later reminded Bute, George III was “very averse to the altering [of] my declaration,” and did so only because Bute insisted on it. George III to Bute, [mid-November, 1760], in Sedgwick, , ed., Letters from George III to Bute, p. 49Google Scholar. For the effect of this and other episodes of friction between Bute and the king on one hand, and Pitt and Newcastle on the other, see Lawson, Philip, George Grenville: A Political Life (Oxford, 1984), pp. 115–116Google Scholar; and the earl of Egmont's diary entries for October 27 and November 6 and 16, 1760, in Newman, Aubrey N., ed., “Leicester House Politics, 1750-60, from the papers of John, second earl of Egmont,” Camden Miscellany Vol. XXII, Camden 4th Ser., 7 (London, n.d.): 214-217, 224, and 226–227Google Scholar.

66 “By the King, a Proclamation, for the encouragement of Piety and Virtue, and for preventing and punishing of Vice, Profaneness, and Immorality,” October 31, 1760, in Annual Register 3 (1761): 241–243Google Scholar. This proclamation commanded royal officials to enforce existing laws regulating the morals of the people, which probably was as far as the king and Bute felt they could go in realizing the goal of establishing “a good police by which the poor would be kept to work.”

67 For the king's command to Newcastle, see Bute to Newcastle, November 15, 1760, B.L., Add. MSS. 32914, f. 355. In contemporary accounts of the speech, “Britain” was often misprinted as “Briton.” See November 20, 1760, Commons Journals 28: 935Google Scholar.

68 “Memorandum on the speech from the king,” [November 1760], B. L., Add. MSS. 32914, f. 393.

69 November 25, 1760, Commons Journals 28: 947Google Scholar.

70 Charles Townshend to Bute, [November 25, 1760], Mount Stuart, Bute Papers, Box II, no. 259.

71 Devonshire to Newcastle, December 21, 1760, B.L., Add. MSS. 32916, ff. 232-233.

72 For an account of Grenville's remarks in the House of Commons against the tax, see Sir Roger Newdigate's notes on the Committee of [Ways and Means], December 17, 1760, Warwickshire County Record Office, Newdegate MSS., B. 2540/5. Grenville explained his opposition later by recalling he had “undertaken the defense of the laborer and manufacturer, by [my] opposition to the tax on strong beer.” [Grenville, George], A reply to a letter addressed to the Right Honorable George Grenville … (London, 1763), p. 7Google Scholar. Richard Rigby emphasized in his account a different aspect of Grenville's remarks, his anger at not being consulted by Newcastle during deliberations on the tax. According to Rigby, Grenville “made a speech in which he animadverted upon the new tax, or rather upon those who framed it not having previously acquainted him with it.” Rigby to the duke of Bedford, December 18, 1760, Bedford Estates Office, London, Bedford Papers, XLII, no. 270.

73 Newcastle to Devonshire, December 19, 1760, B.L., Add. MSS. 32916, f. 209. Grenville's brothers included his brother-in-law, Pitt, who felt compelled to answer Grenville with a strong defense of the tax and the Treasury. See Newcastle to the earl of Hardwicke, December 17, 1760, B.L., Add. MSS. 35420, ff. 144-145. Philip Lawson has argued that “there is no doubt that [Grenville] consulted Bute before this move, using [Charles] Jenkinson as the intermediary.” Lawson, , George Grenville, p. 116Google Scholar. In fact, there is no direct evidence bearing on any consultation between Bute and Grenville on the tax before December 17. Lawson cited as partial proof for his assertion a letter from Jenkinson to Grenville that was published in Smith, W. L., ed., The Grenville Papers: Being the correspondence of Richard Grenville, Earl Temple, K. G., and the Right Hon. George Grenville, their friends and contemporaries, 4 vols. (London, 1852–1853), 1: 356–357Google Scholar. But Jenkinson mentioned nothing about taxation in his letter. Moreover, even if he had discussed the Treasury's plans for new taxes, he could not have passed on information or opinions about a tax on strong beer. Since Jenkinson referred to Lord George Sackville's presence at the king's levee as fresh news, he must have written the letter soon after October 30. Until around November 19 or 20, Newcastle planned to lay additional duties on malt, not strong beer. See John Roberts to Newcastle, October 26, 1760, B.L., Add. MSS. 32913, ff. 349-350; William Mellish to Newcastle, November 19, 1760, B.L., Add. MSS. 32914, f. 425; Bartholomew Burton to Newcastle, November 20, 1760, ibid., ff. 432-434; Newcastle, , “Considerations on laying an additional duty on beer,” [November 20, 1760]Google Scholar, ibid., ff. 432-434; and the earl of Mansfield to Newcastle, December 10, 1760, B.L., Add. MSS. 32915, f. 378. Lawson also relied on Newcastle's suspicions that the king and Bute approved of Grenville's behavior in the House on December 17, and hoped to make him Chancellor of the Exchequer. But Newcastle made these speculations on December 19, and, since he was not explicit on this point in his letter to Devonshire, may have been referring to an approval that was given after the event, not before. When the duke heard of Grenville's intentions before the debate he merely noted “Mr. G. Grenville will oppose the tax on the brewery, and propose that of the spirituous liquors.” Newcastle, , “Memorandum,” December 16, 1760, B.L., Add. MSS. 32999, f. 125Google Scholar. If this intensely suspicious and insecure man had heard one breath about prior consultation between Grenville and Bute, surely he would have recorded it. In sum, as yet no direct evidence dated before December 17 has been found to support Lawson's assertion.

74 Newcastle to Hardwicke, January 9, 1761, B.L., Add. MSS. 35420, ff. 158-160.

75 See Lawson, , George Grenville, pp. 117–119Google Scholar.

76 George III to Bute, [mid-November 1760], in Sedgwick, , ed., Letters from George III to Bute, p. 50Google Scholar.

77 November 16, 1760, Egmont diary, in Newman, , ed., “Leicester House Politics, 1750-60,” Camden 4th Ser., 7: 227Google Scholar.