For more than two centuries, the conventional story of the American Revolution has been that King George III went to his grave bitter at the colonies. A rediscovered handwritten essay tells a very different story.
In this clip from Part 1 of The Jenny Beth Show’s four-part Constitution training series with Tea Party Patriots Foundation, constitutional scholar Bill Norton walks Jenny Beth Martin through an essay King George III wrote in his own hand after losing the Revolutionary War. The opening line: “America is lost. Must we fall beneath the blow, or have we resources that may repair the mischiefs?”
What follows is even more remarkable. The King concedes that “there is reason to suppose we actually gained more by them while in actual rebellion… than when they were in obedience to the Crown.” He muses that perhaps he should govern future colonies less heavy-handedly — because, he admits, free Americans were more industrious, and being industrious made them richer.
This was not the speech to Parliament. This was George III alone with a pen, working out for himself what the Declaration of Independence had just proved: that words can change a king’s heart. It’s a powerful example of why the founders treated words so seriously — and why Thomas Jefferson believed Americans should keep declaring liberty long after 1776.
Bill Norton has been studying the founders for more than three decades and is co-author of “Speaking the Language of Liberty.”
Hosted by Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Tea Party movement and Chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action.
Learn more at jennybethshow.com and teapartypatriots.org.
00:00 — A Rediscovered Letter
00:45 — “America Is Lost”: The Opening Line
01:30 — What Self-Governance Proved
02:30 — How Jefferson’s Words Reached a King
03:30 — Why Words Still Reshape History
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