John Morley: “The proposition,” he said, “is not only untrue but ridiculous.”

Could ministers justify abandonment, without far stronger evidence than they then possessed that they could not govern the Transvaal peaceably?

My desire is thoroughly to shake up all the materials of the question.

What I endeavoured to show was that King George III., without changing his opinion of the justice of his war against the colonies, was obliged to give it up on account of a change of public opinion, and was not open to blame for so doing.

But we have no right to cast on him any responsibility beyond what is strictly military.