resist the enemy. It was necessary to do something, but difficult to do much, for George III. told his advisers that "experience had convinced him that England gained nothing by granting indulgence to her dependencies."[1]
"Look upon the map," Shelburne wrote to Price, "and you'll see a little Isle called Valentia in the South Western corner of the Old World. Opposite to this I have been this fortnight, where I found the land in a state of nature, the people worse: the result of poverty, and the Popery laws, which are subversive of all morality, public or private confidence and industry. I found these poor people under a degree of oppression scarcely conceivable. The head tenants have no idea of drawing their subsistence from cultivating the ground, but from racking the poor people, which goes sometimes four or five deep, till you find the real occupier very little removed from the brute creation, in appearance, food, dress, or state of mind. They have refined to such a degree upon this system, that I found a considerable tenant letting his land in ounces,[2] a new measure containing I suppose half a rood. The clergy are the worst landlords of all, and what mortifies me, is that they shall demand tythe the very first year upon land which I give amongst the poor rent free for twenty years.
"I find all classes in this kingdom much more animated about America than in England. In every Protestant or Dissenters' house the established toast is success to the Americans. Among the Roman Catholics they not only talk but act very freely on the other side. They have in different parts entered into associations, and subscribed largely to levy men against America, avowing their dislike of a Constitution here or in America, of which they are not allowed to participate. On the other hand the Parliament pretend to no will but that of the Ministers."[3]
The King however could not silence the voice of the
