Frederick North, Lord North (1732-1792), Prime Minister from 1770 to 1782, whose government administered the Isle of Man through the first two decades after the Revestment.

The Island's business came to him as routine departmental work. Governor Edward Smith wrote to him in October 1783 asking for leave of absence, for a chapel in Castle Rushen for the use of the troops barracked within it, and for a royal portrait. Under the arrangement by which Smith and his Lieutenant-Governor held their offices, one of the two had to be resident on the Island, and North accordingly told Smith that he must relieve Dawson. Smith was by then already showing the signs of the illness that brought his resignation seven years later.

On the questions that touched the Island's trade he was a protectionist. When the importation of cotton into Ireland was proposed he spoke against it, following Sir Thomas Egerton, who had told the House that if it were once permitted there would be an end to the prosperity of England and the people of Manchester in particular would be completely ruined. Burke tried to show the folly of the apprehension, and failed to carry a committee.

Later speakers used his administration as a byword. They cited it for the seventy thousand stand of arms sent to Ireland which were afterwards used in rebellion, for a beer tax that allowed a deduction to the public brewer, and for the Shoreham franchise measure said to have been extorted from the weakness of his government and passed by small majorities in small houses.