[Sam Gamgee]

My limited understanding is that the Whigs in the minority in Parliament, and somehow the King had many Tory MPs in his pocket.

[KC Burke]

Tory and Whig members didn’t work as parties at that time. More division as factions was the case. The term King’ s Men was used to include some. Keep in mind that by the French Revolution there were old and new Whigs.

We haven’t had mention of Tarlton yet.

[Verginius Rufus]

I think you are right about the Tories having a majority at the time in Parliament. The people called Tories in America would mostly have been considered Whigs in Britain in the period 1765-1775.

There were a few friends of the colonists who spoke out on their behalf...Edmund Burke is a good example. But even they drew the line on independence and did not think the Americans were justified in throwing off allegiance to the king...although they honored their ancestors who had done the same thing in 1688.

Parliament as a whole seemed to have the attitude that the colonists were children who had to do what the adults told them to do.