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The sufferings of the Queen and the Princesses, on this trying occasion, cannot be described. Uncertain whether the King would fol low, yet, satisfied that their departure was the only possible means of inducing his Majesty to remove, they left Windsor, doubtful whether they were not performing an unavailing journey, and their minds tortured with solicitude for what might occur during a cruel interval. If any thing could add to feelings thus acute, it must have been the profound, respectful, silent woe, manifested by every individual of an immense crowd assembled to behold the sad procession.

Either disappointment of the expectation his Majesty had entertained of seeing the Queen on his arrival at Kew, or irritation from exercise long discontinued, produced hurtful effects upon the royal mind, and the succeeding night was passed in a deplorable manner.

December 3d. The examination of the physicians before the Privy Council, who, on this important occasion, assembled to the extraor dinary number of, ascertaining the nature of the King's malady, and his incapacity to exercise his royal functions, a Regency was deemed necessary to supply the deficiency. The result was communicated to the Prince; who waited upon the Queen to apprise her of it, and to declare his intention to assert those pretensions which his situation and age gave him. His Royal Highness added, that if, as he expected, he should be declared sole regent, he should hope her Majesty would take upon herself the sole and absolute care of the King. Her Majesty at this time entertained no other wish, and unequivocally professed her determination to take no part in politics.

His Royal Highness then proceeded to the Duke of Portland, and embracing him most cordially, "begged that every unpleasant circumstance that had passed between them might be buried in oblivion; as suring his Grace, that he had the highest regard for him, and that he should be happy to receive his assistance, and to depend upon his wisdom in this moment of calamity."

The genuine urbanity of the Duke's mind rendered this concession ample atonement. His Grace promised to devote himself to the Prince's service; and prepared to combat the difficulties of arrangements with a zeal inspired rather by the testimony of the Prince's confidence, and the desire to serve dependent friends, than by any immediate wish for power to himself. That he had exercised, heretofore, long enough to reach the alloy that lurks under its enchanting surface; and the now opulent state of his fortunes, made emoluments of little account in his scheme of happiness.

December 7th. When the end desired has not been obtained, it is common to condemn the means that have been employed. The King's malady not having abated during the restraints imposed at Windsor, it was judged that the indulgence of a degree of liberty might have produced salutary effects. On his Majesty's removal to Kew, his range was enlarged; and, instead of several persons watching over him, a single page only remained to receive his commands. Two equerries only waited in the anti-chamber; and the assistance which contingencies might make necessary, was placed out of sight.

After the second day of his Majesty's removal, longer intervals, and less violent paroxyms, suggested the flattering hope, that change of

system had produced beneficial effects; but, on the Thursday, the worst symptoms reappeared. The night was restless, and the two succeeding days destroyed the dawning hope.

Dr. Willis, who had been sent for from Lincolnshire, first saw his Majesty on Friday the 5th. He scrupled not to blame the delay in calling in practitioners peculiarly devoted to the study of his Majesty's complaint, and he highly condemned the degree of liberty allowed the royal patient. He encouraged the Queen to think that a cure was not improbable; and he represented that it might the rather be expected, as the means peculiarly adapted to the disorder still remained untried. He begged, if his attendance should be commanded, that he might be permitted to act without control. He said, that there was but one method in that complaint, by which the lowest and the highest person could be treated with effect, and that his reputation was too much concerned in the event for him to attempt any thing, if he might not be invested with unlimited powers.

It may be conceived with what anguish her Majesty yielded to this requisition. But her conviction of its propriety fortified the magnanimity that prefers the performance of duties to the indulgence of feelings. It was known to her, that the first principle of Dr. Willis's practice is to make himself formidable, to inspire awe. In these terrible maladies, those who superintend the unhappy patients, must so subjugate their will, that no idea of resistance to their commands can have place in their minds. It was but too obvious, that the long and habitual exercise of high command must increase the difficulty of accomplishing this in the present instance; and an apprehension of the necessity of peculiar rigour, gave all possible aggravation to the Queen's distress.

A Council was held at Mr. Pitt's on Sunday the 7th, at noon. Upon its rising, a messenger was dispatched to Kew, with a letter to the Queen. At nine o'clock in the evening of the same day, the Prince of Wales received a letter from her Majesty, in which were strongly expressed sentiments of that prudence, good sense, and maternal and conjugal affection, by which her Majesty's conduct had ever been distinguished. Her Majesty informed the Prince, that she had been applied to, and urged, to take a share in the Regency, as the only means of securing to herself a certainty of preserving the care of the King's person. But her Majesty added, "she authorized his Royal Highness to declare, that she would on no account take any share in the political affairs of this kingdom; it being her determination to remain at Kew, or wherever else his Majesty might be, and to devote herself wholly to him, as his friend and companion."

His Royal Highness's answer, which was immediately returned, contained the most dutiful and tender professions. It concluded with the assurance, that, "if her Majesty's taking any share in the government of this country, could give her any additional care or authority over his Royal Father's person, he should be the first to propose its being conferred; but her Majesty being the only person upon whom such a trust ought to devolve, she might assure herself, that she should be considered as his Majesty's sole guardian, so long as the unhappy malady should continue."

December 13th. A great change in the Queen's sentiments became apparent at this time. The neutrality her Majesty had originally adopted was dismissed, and the proceedings of the minister received her approbation and support. Many causes probably combined to produce the alteration. It was said, that apprehension of the abuse of power by Opposition had been industriously infused by those whose interest it was to withhold it from them. It was certainly known, that her Majesty gave implicit belief to the assurances of Dr. Willis, that the recovery of the Royal Patient was not only probable, but possibly near at hand. With this persuasion, not only tenderness but wisdom dictated the conduct the Queen pursued. On the other hand, the Prince, confiding in the great and universally acknowledged pre-eminence of Dr. Warren; and remembering, that, to his perspicuity and ingenuousness he owed the first knowledge of the real cause of his Majesty's indisposition, naturally considered his opinion as entitled to respect and deference. This gentleman in strong terms reprobated the assertion of an amended state, and unqualifiedly declared his incredulity respecting a happy issue. Influenced by such contrary impressions, unanimity of sentiment could not be expected. Doubt, distrust, and coldness, unhappily succeeded to the confidence, esteem, and cordial affection, which had hitherto soothed the sorrows of the august relatives of the afflicted Monarch.

The King's state, at this time, encouraged no hope of speedy restoration. On Friday and Saturday his Majesty was much indisposed; and on Sunday his situation was deplorable. The coercive waistcoat was found to be insufficient, and a necessity arose of confining the royal sufferer to his bed for several hours. Exhausted strength, by degrees, rendered his efforts less powerful; and the failure of nature, rather than an abatement of the malady, produced an appearance of tranquillity. Violent exertions frequently repeated, long confinements, want of usual air and exercise, produced the most lamentable effects. The flesh, gradually wasted away, had left the bones of every joint hardly covered; and the whole of his Majesty's appearance was become so affecting, that even the Chancellor's strong mind was overpowered at the first interview, and a flood of tears witnessed the involuntary sensibility.

Unpleasant altercations had arisen amongst the physicians. Willis, introduced by Addington, was strongly suspected of circulating reports rather gratifying to the minister than consonant to truth. He regularly sent to him every night a particular message, and generally by his son. On the 16th, whilst the propositions were debating in the House of Commons, Mr. Pitt and his friends declared that that evening, at eleven o'clock, the son of Dr. Willis arrived at the Treasury, with the satisfactory account that a happy change had taken place, and that Dr. Willis considered it as a certain indication of speedy and perfect recovery. Dr. Warren, whose observations on the morning of that day had suggested a very different opinion, was much surprized at this account. He hastened to Kew early on the morning of the 18th. Dr. Willis met him in an anti-chamber; assured him the King was going on vastly well; said he was perfectly composed; and begged that Dr. Warren would not make a point of seeing his Majesty, as his ap

pearance would certainly disturb him. Warren, surprized at this language, desired to see the pages. To his first question, "How is the King?" the reply was, Very bad indeed.' To his second, "What sort of night has his Majesty passed?" A terrible one,' was the melancholy

answer.

Warren then insisted upon being introduced; and he had the affliction to find the person of the illustrious sufferer under the powerful restriction which violent paroxysms make indispensable.

The sight of Warren produced no painful sensation. The King was not discomposed by it. A partial recollection, o ating on an habitual consciousness of dignity (which never forsook his Majesty in his most unhappy moments), he was prompted to say, "I have been very ill indeed, Dr. Warren, and I have put myself into this waistcoat, but it is uneasy to me; will you take it off?" Warren hesitated for a moment; but, attentively surveying the royal sufferer, he perceived that his exhausted strength made the indulgence safe; and he replied, untying the sad bonds, " Most willingly do I obey you, Sir."

Warren afterwards remonstrated with Willis upon the disingenuousness of his conduct, and protested that, so long as he should have the honour to retain his appointment to the care of the Royal Person, he should scrupulously discharge his duty to his Majesty and to the public, whose anxious solicitude entitled them to full and true information respecting his state. Willis then resisting the request to subscribe the bulletin which the attending regular physician conceived to be the proper one, great altercation ensued; but he was at length induced to set his name to that which appeared on the 18th.

The perpetual diversity in opinion between the regular physicians and Dr. Willis, was a source of much affliction to the Queen, and of perplexity to the people. The high reputation of the court-physicians, the extensive popularity they had justly acquired, not only amongst the inhabitants of the capital, but throughout the kingdom, gave them great superiority, in the general estimation, in a competition with Dr. Willis, whose retired situation, and restricted practice, had left him in a state of comparative obscurity.

The Prince, having understood that the Chancellor had used some expressions of which he thought he had cause to complain, desired to see his Lordship, and generously afforded him an opportunity of vindicating himself, if the rumour were unfounded. The Chancellor assured his Royal Highness, that he never had, even in thought, deviated from the very profound respect he owed him. He begged to know the full extent of what he had been charged with, in the full confidence of being able to exculpate himself. His Lordship proceeded to say, that what opinions he had publicly advanced, his legal situation compelled; but that he felt himself strongly devoted to his Royal Highness; and that he might assure himself that he should on no account unite with Mr. Pitt, or enter into any opposition to his Royal Highness's government, when his dismission, which he saw was at hand, should take place. He should, on the contrary, give it every support in his power; and if, at a future day, his services should be thought of use, he should be happy to offer them. The Chancellor spoke of Mr. Pitt as a haughty, impracticable spirit, with whom it would be impossible for

him ever cordially to unite. He added, that the whole party was split, divided, disunited, in a manner that would prevent their ever acting in opposition with vigour and effect.

1789.-January 2d. The Prince received a letter from Dr. Willis, to inform him of essential amendment in the King. The Queen wrote to Mr. Pitt to the same effect. Ministry presumed much upon these communications, and expressed their hopes, that his Majesty might be well enough on Monday to signify his approbation of a Speaker. Dr. Warren was still tenacious of his former opinion; and assured the Prince that, though the King was not then in the deplorable way in which he had often seen him, there was nothing in his Majesty's present state that could warrant the expectation of recovery. The Prince, confiding in Warren's judgment, naturally considered the favourable reports as mere fabrications, to serve a sinister purpose, and could not refrain from some expressions against the -, who relying upon the infallibility of Willis, considered the Prince's backwardness to credit her assurances as an argument of his discontent at the nature of them. Officious persons, acting from indiscreet zeal, if not from still more reprehensible motives, contributed to increase the subsisting discontents.

The entertainments given by the Duke of York, having for their avowed object the conciliation of members of both Houses, the conversations then naturally rested upon subjects interesting to the Prince. At the three first his Royal Highness was present, and expatiated with great eloquence upon " the indignities and injustice he had experienced from the usurpers of those powers of which he conceived he ought to be possessed, as the natural representative of a father, unhappily in capable of exercising them; and, to the infinite affliction of his family, not likely to be ever again in a situation to hold the reins of Govern ment." The Prince spoke copiously, expressed himself with great propriety, and a degree of eloquence that would have ensured atten tion, if his rank had not commanded it. His Royal Highness gave a particular detail of some transactions at Windsor, in the beginning of the King's illness. He said, "Reports have been circulated, that I had frequent interviews with Mr. Pitt. The truth is, I saw him but. once during my stay at Windsor. In the first days of the King's illness, and before I had recovered from the shock it occasioned me, some person told me that Mr. Pitt and the Duke of Richmond were come. My mind fully occupied by the sad state of things, I hardly heard, and it soon escaped my recollection that they were there.

Some time after, Mr. St. Leger entered the room, and told me that the Duke of Richmond and Mr. Pitt had been waiting two hours. I awoke as it were from a trance, and desired that they might instantly be admitted. The Duke was most obsequious, bowed incessantly. Mr. Pitt was most stately: he said he should do so and so, aud looked with unforgiving haughtiness.

Adverting to the King's private concerns, the Prince said, "That in a lucid interval of some hours, before his Majesty left Windsor, he had talked consistently of the state of his affairs; said he had written, some time since, directions respecting the distribution he wished to have made of his property; but he doubted whether they were pro

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