ABSTRACT
T h e years that lay between the spring of 1 7 8 0 and that of 1 7 8 4 comprise a period of great interest, partly because of the swift flow of events and partly because of the political and constitutional implications which these revealed. Within this short space of time Yorktown fell; North resigned; Rockingham, after his brief hour of triumph, died; American independence was granted; the arch enemies Fox and North formed a parliamentary coalition; and the young Pitt fought his way to political power. This rapid sequence of events tended to act as a forcing-house for future political and constitutional developments. The elections of 1 7 8 0 and 1 7 8 4 were far more influenced by political considerations than had earlier been the case. The opposing points of view of the King and the opposition over the American question were strong enough to divide the Commons into what, at a «uperficial level, almost looked like two parties. Finally the coalition of Fox and North was able for a short time to force George HI to lose the minister whom he pre ferred and accept a whole administration which he definitely dis liked. For these few years then it is possible to see something of the pattern of the future: they contain the brief and tentative success of everything that the disorganized opposition whigs had been struggling to achieve since 1 7 6 3 . Then in 1 7 8 4 the success of the King and the Treasury in the elections restored everything to its eighteenth-century norm. Once again the old formula was found to work, and a minister, in the person of the younger Pitt, who had the confidence of both King and Commons, entered upon a long period of almost unchallenged power. For years yet, George III
was "to do for his country what it had not yet the means of doing so well for itself’.1
