Wednesday 22 April 2020

Special Guest Blogger: Lord Frederick North

I expect you looked at my name and thought who's he which is exactly how i like it because i was the British Prime Minister from 1770 until 1782 and during my period i was known as the Prime Minister who lost America, but as King George III seems to get blamed for that, i'm happily forgotten.
I took over as leader just as Great Britain had began to expand it's Empire, taking in vast new territories on several continents but we were having a bit of a problem with the American colonies, Boston especially where they threw our tea into the harbour so i introduced the Coercive Act that were supposed to punish the Bostonians by shutting down the Boston government and cutting off trade to cool their heels.
Instead it rather backfired and inflamed all the other colonies and war broke out and we were doing well, handing the colonist's their arses until the French, Spanish and Dutch stuck their big fat oars in and we were fighting on two fronts, at home and abroad.
I took the decision to concentrate our forces on defending the West Indies as their sugar wealth made them more valuable to Great Britain than the thirteen colonies but our lack of manpower on mainland America began to tell.
Parliament was all for fighting on in America but as the war turned against us, the support frittered away and they blamed me and forced me out of office by a motion of no confidence so i had to resign and there was even talk around bringing me to trial for how i conducted the American War so poorly.
The good news for me was that it is King George who gets the bad rep for losing America when in reality he was indifferent to whether we kept it or not, on hearing thsat it had gained it independence he said: "I have always said, as I say now, that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power' but nobody remebers that or me, just that he was a complete barnpot and was the King who lost America while i'm just the little known Tory Prime Minister sandwiched between The Duke of Grafton and the Marquess of Rockingham. Sweet!

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