Frederick North, Lord North

"Am I to hear myself charged as the author of our present misfortunes? and— [Many gentlemen cried across the house, “You are, you are.”]"

"Oh, God! it is all over!"

"If you mean there should not be a Government by departments, Isigma with you; I think it a very bad system. There should be one man, or a Cabinet to govern the whole, and direct every measure. Government by departments was not brought in by me. I found it so, and had not vigor and resolution to put an end to it. The King ought to be treated with all sort of respect and attention, but the appearance of power is all that a king of this country can have."

"I was not, when I was honoured with office, a Minister of chance, or a creature of whom Parliament had no experience. I was found among you when I was so honoured. I had been long known to you. In consequence, I obtained your support; when that support was withdrawn, I ceased to be a Minister. I was the creature of Parliament in my rise; when I fell I was its victim. I came among you without connection. It was here I was first known: you raised me up; you pulled me down."

"Did freedom depend upon every individual subject being represented in that House? Certainly not; for that House, constituted as it was, represented the whole kingdom. Freedom depended on a very different circumstance. He was free, because he lived in a country governed by equal laws. Where the highest and the lowest were governed by the same laws, where there was no distinction of persons, there freedom might be said to exist as purely and as perfectly as in the nature of things it could exist."

"Lord North is a good man, unlike the others. He is a good man."

"H[is] M[ajesty] continued this Evening to speak very kindly of Lord North, & said He was the Man He loved best in the World."