
GEORGE III Autograph letter signed and subscribed ("Your most affectionate Father/ George R") to his son Fredrick, fearing French troops would overrun Hanover, after the Peace of Basel, Weymouth, 22 September 1795
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GEORGE III
Footnotes
'THE UNFAIR CONDUCT OF THE KING OF PRUSSIA': George III writes to his son as Commander-in-Chief of the army during the French Revolutionary Wars to relate his concerns that the King of Prussia, after signing the Peace of Basel with France in April 1795, would let French troops overrun Hanover from nearby Osnaburg.
Whilst George III at this time ruled both the electorate of Hanover and Britain and whilst William Pitt reiterated in the Commons that 'the Elector of Hanover will never separate himself from the King of England', our letter seems to reinforce the theory by historians such as Guy Stanton Ford that it was Prussian rather than English interests that determined Hanover's fortunes. George III's fears expressed here that Hanover would be occupied by Prussian troops were not realised until March 1801 when Tsar Paul of Russia, then a friend of France, coerced Frederick William III to temporarily occupying the Electorate (see Stanton Ford, Hanover & Prussia, 1796-1803: A Study in Neutrality, 1903, review by Sidney B. Fay, The American Historical Review, Vol. 9. No.4, July 1904).