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The History of the Present King of Great-Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States … A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People.
American Declaration of Independence, 4 July 1776
George III, who reigned from 1760 to 1820, was one of the longest ruling and, in many respects, least regarded of British monarchs. To the leaders of the American Revolution, who fought for and won their independence in the face of his fierce personal resistance, he was a tyrant. And to many of his subjects back in Britain, where his intransigence was widely blamed for the loss of the American colonies, he was little better.
Inspired by the examples of the American and, later, the French Revolution, the Irish rose up to demand their own liberty from the British crown. And in England, Scotland and Wales, a growing movement for political reform won the support of significant sections of the political elite, as well as the rising artisan and middle classes.
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 Caricaturist James Gilray exploits the revolutionary news from France and imagines George III, wary of a repetition of an earlier regicide as he examines a portrait of Oliver Cromwell
www.nypl.org
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