It is not too much to say that at that epoch the strength of political speculation in this country, from Adam Smith downwards, was drawn from France; and Burke had been led to some of what was most characteristic in his philosophy of society by Montesquieu's _Spirit of Laws_ (1748), the first great manual of the historic school.

We have no space here to work out the relations between Montesquieu's principles and Burke's, but the student of the _Esprit des Lois_ will recognise its influence in every one of Burke's masterpieces.
So far as immediate events were concerned, Burke was quick to discern their true interpretation.

As has been already said, he attributed to the king and his party a deliberateness of system which probably had no real existence in their minds.

The king intended to reassert the old right of choosing his own ministers.

George II.