It was this circumstance which placed his majesty in such an unpleasant dilemma. His message of 1787 declared, that no further debts should be incurred, and yet such was the embarrassed state of his son's affairs at this time, and, which was the more to be deplored, on account of his marriage, that the king saw himself obliged to make another application to par man in the kingdom. There was one man, it would follow of course, that the minister had however, bold enough to make the attempt. In put a falsehood into the mouth of his sovereign. one of the many debates which occurred on this To repel so foul an imputation, Mr. Secretary business in the course of the summer of 1795, Dundas informed the house, " That his majesty's Mr. Sheridan observed, that alderman Newnham message of 1787, was read to the prince of Wales, had considered that promise (of 1787) as not before it was presented to parliament: it was perbinding, because not formally delivered by the fectly intelligible, and his royal highness had prince himself; this, he could not accede to, for certainly a competent knowledge of the English if he could be more bound than by a direct pro-language to enable him to understand its immise, it would be by the circumstances which port*." Hence the fact was indisputably proved, attended the promise, such as it was. Had the that the promise was made with the knowledge prince acted under a notion that he gave no and consent of the prince. direct promise, and received the money under any idea that he could quibble away the promise which he did make, he would act in a shameless and profligate manner, he would then appear to have entered into an incomplete engagement with a view to future prevarication. Mr. Sheridan then declared, that he would state the fact to the house, such as it really was, and leave them to draw their own inference: he,liament, and at a time when the people were Mr. Sheridan, had advised the prince, not to bind himself by any such obligation, without a more full knowledge of the state of his circumstances altogether, and without the assistance of a man of business, who could regulate his future expenditure. An order of payment and arrangement had been drawn up, and sent to his majesty, and the prince was then informed from the proper quarter, that such arrangement would be sufficient, and the prince's friends strongly advised him to abstain from any promise. How then was he astonished to find, in the message from the throne, that his majesty had received the strongest assurance, that no future debt would be incurred. by no means well-inclined to support the extravagance of royalty. Accordingly on the 27th of April, his majesty sent a message to the house, in which he expressed the deepest regret in being under the necessity of communicating to the house, that the benefit of any settlement, then to be made, could not be effectually secured to the prince, without providing him with the means of freeing himself from incumbrances to a large amount, to which he was actually liable. His majesty, however, disclaimed all idea of proposing to parliament to make any provision for that object, otherwise than by the application of part of the income which might be settled on the prince; and he It was thus plainly asserted that the prince earnestly recommended the house to consider neither knew of the promise contained in the of the propriety of thus providing for the gradual message of 1787, nor acquiesced in it, whence | discharge of those incumbrances, by appropri venues arising from the duchy of Cornwall, together with a proportion of the prince's other annual income; and the king declared his readiness to concur in any provisions which the wisdom of parliament might suggest for the purpose of establishing a regular and punctual order of payment in the prince's expenditure, and of guarding against the possibility of the prince being again involved in so painful and embarrassing a situation. ating and reserving, for a given time, the re- | multitude, who act more from their feelings than their intellects, that war, whatever be its object or end, is an evil to be avoided, and that peace on whatever terms and conditions, is a blessing to be courted. Indeed, when a man, with the superior talents and knowledge of Mr. Fox, did not hesitate to subscribe to a similar position, and to avow his preference for a peace, the most iniquitous, over a war the most just, it cannot be a matter of surprise that men, unaccustomed to reason, and unable, from education and habit, to enter into those sentiments, principles and considerations, which lead statesmen and others rather to forego the enjoyment of a present good, and to bear the pressure of a temporary evil, than expose a country to the danger of permanent mischief, should be led to prefer any peace to any war. From the period of this extraordinary declaration, as if it had served as a text for the comments of disaffection, the endeavours of the members of the seditious societies to spread discontent through the country, had become more strenuous, and evidently more successful. Peace and reform were the watchwords repeated from one extremity of the island to the other, by the emis This message was no sooner brought down to the house, than the voice of the people remonstrated strongly against it, and the king and queen were publicly called upon to come forward and pay a proportion of the debts of their son from their private fortune, and not to throw the whole burthen upon the people. The proverbial parsimony of the queen, and the extraordinary large private fortune of the king, became the subject of general conversation, and exposed them both to the most indiscriminate abuse. The event will testify, that the period in which this additional burthen was imposed upon the people was, of all others, the most dangerous to the interests of royalty, and only tended to increase the disaffection and dis-saries of faction, who thus acquired the support loyalty which then appeared to pervade all ranks of the community. of numbers, unable to perceive that those who spread this clamour, had ulterior views, and instead of peace and reform, aimed at revolt and revolution. It was a great point gained, if by inspiring a disgust of the war, the government could be rendered odious, and the king be in It will be, however, necessary, to the right understanding of the dangers which environed the throne at this time, to enter into a concise statement of the causes which led to almost the extinction of royalty, and to the attempted as-duced to change his ministers, and to bring the sassination of the monarch. opposition into power. Peace was certainly. The war had become extremely unpopular in desired by the factious themselves, as they felt this country, for the greatest efforts had been the importance of a free and open communicamade to persuade the people, that it had no tion with the French, which could not, by any definite object, and that therefore it was not other means be procured; and therefore, whelikely to be brought to a speedy termination. ther considered as a means for the attainment It is at all times easy to convince au unthinking of an end, or as the end itself, it was a great object to them, and every additional advocate | risen to an enormous price, and this evil was gained for a peace, was a fresh accession of imputed exclusively to the war; and here a strength to the friends of revolution. noble instance displayed itself of the attention which his majesty paid to the sufferings and privations of his subjects. He ordered mills to be erected at different stations, where he caused corn to be ground, and retailed to the poor at a cheap rate; and in order to render his munificence general, he instituted a careful inquiry throughout the towns of Windsor, Staines, Egham, and their vicinity, for those persons who were deserving of his bounty: to these persons tickets were given, which entitled them to flour gratis. His majesty intended to have given greater publicity to this plan, and to have recommended it to some of the great landed proprietors of the kingdom; but like many other If it required little ability to render the multitude hostile to any war, it required still less to persuade them of the propriety of opposing the present war. For though, had it been considered merely as a defensive war in which we had been attacked without provocation, in which the enemy had made no offer of reparation for her unprovoked aggression, and the injuries consequent upon it, it differed in nothing from similar wars at former periods, and, therefore, afforded no grounds for a violent opposition to it, yet all defensive, as it unquestionably was in the strictest sense of the word, it involved so many important considerations, and the discussions to which it had given rise, had been ex-institutions which have charity for their fountended to so many collateral objects, that it became easy to divert the minds of the people from its real origin, and to make them misapprehend its true cause, purport, and end. For this insidious and unworthy purpose, every engine was employed. The press groaned with the weight of publications, solely designed to promote it. From the brilliant talents of men in superior stations of life to the coarsest intellects of unlettered advocates, all were employed in forwarding the same object. During the summer, meetings had been holden in the fields in the vicinity of the metropolis-debating so-lications, daily, weekly, monthly, and annual, cieties had been opened-and public lectures had been given, at which popular orators were employed to excite discontent at the war, and dissatisfaction with the government. dation, excess and fraud soon displayed themselves, and his majesty found himself obliged to depart, in some degree, from his general plan, and to fix a certain price, selling the flour at five shillings and four pence per bushel, which, in corn, cost fifteen shillings and six pence in Egham market. In the mean time, the efforts to excite discontent were not counteracted by adequate exertions on the other side. The press was almost exclusively devoted to the jacobins. With very few exceptions indeed, the periodical pub were appropriated to the purpose of extending the dissemination of jacobinical principles, and notwithstanding the direful example which the French revolution had supplied of the powerful To the war were ascribed, not only the incon- efficacy of this engine of destruction, Mr. Pitt, veniencies, but even the calamities which pro- who had high notions of the potential influence ceeded from natural causes. A considerable of undirected reason, when employed in the failure in the crops of two successive years, cause of truth and justice, forbore to adopt the proved an efficient ally to those labourers in the necessary means for counteracting the effects vineyard of faction. Corn had, in consequence, I of this wide-spreading mischief, and wholly neglected the press, as a channel for the con- | greater that had ever been witnessed on a veyance of antidotes to the most fatal poison which ever infected the mind of man. The trials for high treason which took place about this period at the Old Bailey, had greatly facilitated the plans of the seditious, for they were produced as examples to prove, that there was nothing illegal in the conduct of the factious societies, and that no possible danger could ensue from their proceedings, so long as peace and reform were their ostensible objects. The credulous multitude gave easy belief to representations which suited their prejudices, while they flattered their consequence. The legal distinction which would render the delusion obvious, they had neither the wish to investigate, nor the ability to understand. They saw | the plain broad fact before them, that a revolutionary plan had been adopted, and, to a certain extent, acted upon; that certain leading characters in the transaction had been prosecuted, tried, and acquitted, and hence it was no unnatural conclusion for their own minds to draw, even without assistance, that the law sanctioned all attempts of a similar nature. The lessons then, which were repeated to them at Chalk-farm, at Copenhagen-house, at the various debating societies, and in newspapers, pamphlets, and hand-bills circulated with profusion, found a ready reception in their minds, and prepared them for corresponding acts of resistance and outrage. similar occasion, had assembled in the park, through which the king was to pass on his way to the house of lords. As the royal carriage moved slowly on, the mob pressed close upon it, vociferating, Peace-No War-No King, thus unwarily betraying, not only the ostensible object, but the end of these violent proceedings. Superadded to these violent demands, the people were clamorous for the dismission of Mr. Pitt, and for bread. At one period, about midway between St. James's-palace and the gates of Carltonhouse, the mob had separated the royal carriage from the guards who accompanied the king, had pressed close to the door on either side, and so surrounded almost the horses, as nearly to impede their course. It seemed for a short time, to be the resolution of the mob to drag the king from his carriage, and sacrifice him to their brutal fury. At least such was the impression made by their movements, in the minds of those spectators who were at a little distance, and attentively observed the whole transaction. It was impossible at this moment not to make the disgraceful comparison between this British mob and the French mob who stopped the unhappy Louis XVI. on his road to St. Cloud. about them; their cries, their gestures, their principles, and their actions, all plainly indicated the polluted source whence they sprung, and proved that they were not of British origin or growth. Every thing seemed French. It was during this ferment, that the ministers deemed it expedient to assemble parliament at Mr. Gifford, in his History of the Political Life a much earlier period than usual. The 29th of of William Pitt, says, "I had the misfortune to October, was the day fixed for its meeting, a be a spectator of this disgraceful scene. I have day destined for the practical illustration of seen many mobs in my life, but never did I bethose vile principles which had been diffused | hold such an assemblage of ill-looking, deswith so much industry, and with such fatal suc- perate wretches, as were collected together on cess during the summer. the present occasion. And as far as the deAn immense concourse of people, much signs of men can be inferred from their looks, their language, and gestures, the designs of this | dered in connexion with the insults which the rabble, who so basely dishonoured the name king experienced in the park, and with the and character of Englishmen, were most trea- attack made on him on his return, there is every sonable and murderous." reason for believing that they all sprung from the same source, that they were all equally the result of a settled plan, and that they had all the same object in view-the murder of the king, as a preparatory step to a revolution in the country. The coachman, who drove his majesty, now became alarmed for the personal safety of his sovereign, but though aware of the danger to which he was exposed, he dared not urge the speed of his horses, who, being used but seldom and accustomed to the slow pace of a state procession, would, he feared, become restive and unmanageable, so that seeking to rescue his royal master from one peril, he might possibly subject him to another. Fortunately, most fortunately for the country, the attempt was not made to perpetrate the meditated deed at this juncture, when it would have been physically impossible to prevent its execution. His majesty pointed out the quarter whence the bullet proceeded, and where stood a dray before a house in which no person appeared; which was the more singular, as the windows. of every other house on the road, were filled with spectators, who went to see the king pass. As soon as the king had opened the parliament, he returned, the same way, to the palace, The king reached the Horse-guards, amidst having remained, there for some time. He set the hisses, groans, and abuse of a rabble, who off alone in his chariot, drawn by two horses, had been regularly trained to sedition and trea- with two footmen behind for Buckingham-house, son. The gates were then closed, so as to pre- unattended, through some great neglect or misvent numbers of the mob from following the take, by any part of the civil or military power. royal carriage to Whitehall. But as it was The horse-guards, some time before, were passing through Palace-yard, the coach window marched off towards Whitehall, so that in prowas struck with violence, by something which portion to their progress and that of the carperforated the glass, and passed with great riage, they became further removed from each velocity, very near to the earl of Westmorland, other. As it turned the corner, the mob in who was with his majesty. From the shape great numbers, and vociferating "d-n him, out and size of the hole made in the glass, as well with him," rushed towards it, and took hold of as from the great thickness of the glass itself, it the spokes of the wheels. At that critical and was pretty evident, that what had passed through awful moment, Mr. Bedingfield, who was standit was a bullet, and that as no explosion had been ing near the wall of the garden waiting for his heard it had been fired from an air gun, for horses, witnessed the daring attempt. He nothing less powerful than some such instru- darted forward to the assistance of the king. ment could have produced the effect. What- Several persons who had hold of the carriage, ever it was, there cannot exist a doubt in the and impeded its progress, were knocked down, mind of any rational being, that it was intended and the wrist of one man was broken. Atfor the purpose of assassination, and that the tempts were made to throw Mr. Bedingfield. king was its object. It is equally certain that down, and he received several blows. Appre |