KING GEORGE III (GREAT BRITAIN) - MANUSCRIPT DOCUMENT SIGNED CIRCA 1763 CO-SIGNED BY: MARQUIS (JOHN J. PRATT) CAMDEN, MARQUIS RICHARD C. WELLESLEY, RICHARD HOPKINS - HFSID 82976

KING GEORGE III of the UNITED KINGDOM, CO-SIGNED BY RICHARD C. WELLESLEY, JOHN J. PRATT, AND RICHARD HOPKINS
List of expenses for Sir William Howe, the British Commander and Chief during the American Revolutionary War, approved by King George III and his Treasury commission
Manuscript document signed: "George R[ex]" meaning "King George" in brown ink. Also signed, "Mornington", "Bayham", and "R. Hopkings" in brown ink. 1 page front and verso, 10½x18. No date, estimated between 1791 and 1793, when all three politicians were Lords Commissioners of the Treasury under William Pitt the Younger. Page one, in full: "Abstract of the Charge of the foregoing Establishment./Total Char[ge]/for 365 day[s]/19th Sir William Howe's Regiment of Light Dragoons £16,531 3/36th Lieutenant General St. John's Regiment of Foot 20,108 5/Eight Regiments of Foot more 160,866 2/Total £197,505 11". Far right margin cut removing the letters indicated. Headed on verso: "A Regiment of Foot" listing the payment "for 365 days" for ten companies and "One Company for Recruiting" including the individually named ranks of officers and others such as "Surgeon" and "Twenty Drummers". KING GEORGE III of the United Kingdom (1738-1820) was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland until their union on January 1, 1802, after which was named the United Kingdom, and furthermore was Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg (part of the Holy Roman Empire), until his promotion as King of Hanover on October 12, 1814. He was the third British monarch from the House of Hanover, but unlike his Hanoverian predecessors, he was born in Britain, English was his first language, and he never visited Hanover. George's long tenure as King spanned many military conflicts in Europe and abroad in North America and India: early in his reign Great Britain defeated France in the Seven Years' War which made Britain the dominant European power in North America and India, although many of their colonies were soon lost in the American Revolutionary War. Most notably, King George III led the country against revolutionary and Napoleonic France in 1793, concluding with Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. However, George III earned his nickname "Mad King George" when later in his life he suffered from recurrent and eventually permanent mental illness (now believed to have been cause by the blood disease porphyria), and in 1810, after a final relapse, a regency under his son Prince Regent George of Wales (future King George IV) was established. His reputation as a King has never been flattering, in the United States he is often viewed as a tyrant, and in Great Britain he is often used as a scapegoat for the failure of imperialism, but really King George was just a victim of circumstances and illness in an era when the monarchy was continuing to lose political power. RICHARD WELLESLEY, Earl of MORNINGTON and the First Marquess of Wellesley (1760-1842) was the brother of Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, whose achievements included the final triumph over Napoleon at Waterloo. Richard Wellesley served as Governor General of India (1798-1805), during which he destroyed remaining French influence there and consolidated British rule. He was Foreign Secretary during the climactic phase of the Napoleonic Wars (1809-1812), signing here in that capacity; and would later serve as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1821-1828, 1833-1834). JOHN J. PRATT, Viscount BAYHAM and the 1st Marquess Camden (1759-1840) had a long political career in the United Kingdom; after succeeding his father, the Earl Camden, in his earldom, Camden was appointed the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland by Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, where he was disliked as an opponent of Roman Catholicism emancipation, and his term culminated in the Irish rebellion of 1798, which he suppressed before his resignation. In 1804 Camden became to Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, and in 1805 was named Lord President of the Council, a position he held until 1812 when he was re-titled the Marquess Camden. He spent the years before his death as Lord Lieutenant of Kent as well as the Chancellor of Cambridge. RICHARD HOPKINS (1728-1799) sat as a Member of Parliament from 1766 until his death in 1799. His most notably role was as a Lord Commisioner for the Treasury. Nicked at mid-horizontal fold. Ink transference at bottom left corner of first page. Light show through from writing. Tip of lower left corner missing. Verso is lightly shaded at right margin and mid-horizontal fold. Lightly soiled at bottom margin, lightly stained at top margin, touching 1 word of heading. Overall, fine condition.