[205] _Correspondence of George III with Lord North._
[206] Russell: _Life and Times of C. J. Fox_.
In opposition Fox proved himself a doughty opponent of his late leader's American policy, and his vigorous speeches on the subject earned him the undying enmity of the King. "The war of the Americans is a war of passion," he declared on November 26, 1778, in an endeavour to force the ministry into a pacific path; "it is of such a nature as to be supported by the most powerful virtues, love of liberty and of country, and at the same time by those passions in the human heart which give courage, strength, and perseverance to man; the spirit of revenge for the injury you have done them, of retaliation for the hardships inflicted on them, and of opposition to the august powers you would have exercised over them; everything combines to animate them to this war, and such a war is without end; for whatever obstinacy enthusiasm ever inspired man with, you will now have to contend with in America, no matter what gives birth to that enthusiasm, whether the name of religion or of liberty, the effects are the same; it inspires a spirit that is unconquerable and solicits us to undergo difficulties and dangers; and as long as there is a man in America, so long will you have him against you in the field." And in the following year he compared George III with Henry VI. "Both owed the crown to revolutions, both were pious princes, and both lost the acquisitions of their predecessors." George III could not differentiate between doctrine and action, and, because Fox supported the rights of the Americans, looked upon him henceforth as a rebel. Later, when of all the colonies only Boston remained in the hands of the English, and Wedderburn with foolhardy audacity ventured in the House of Commons to compare North as a war minister with Chatham, Fox created a sensation by declaring that "not Lord Chatham, nor Alexander the Great, nor Cæsar ever conquered so much territory in the course of all their wars, as Lord North had lost in one campaign!"
[Illustration: _From a caricature published March 11th, 1784_
Fox's most grievous exhibition in the eyes of the sovereign was, however, his speech on the first day of the autumn session of 1781 in the debate on the Address to the Crown. "Those who are ignorant of the character of the Prince whose Speech we have just heard might be induced to consider him as an unfeeling despot, exulting in the horrid sacrifice of the liberty and lives of his people," he said.[207] The Speech itself, divested of the disguise of royal forms, can only mean, "Our losses in America have been most calamitous. The blood of my subjects has flowed in copious streams, throughout every part of that continent. The treasures of Great Britain have been wantonly lavished; while the load of taxes imposed on an overburdened country is becoming intolerable. Yet I will continue to tax you to the last shilling. When, by Lord Cornwallis's surrender they are for ever extinct, and a further continuance of hostilities can only accelerate the ruin of the British Empire, I prohibit you from thinking of peace. My rage for conquest is unquenched and my revenge unsated: nor can anything except the total subjugation of my revolted American subjects, allay my animosity."