the remaining term of the Assiento Treaty, and obtained 100,000l. to compensate the claims of our South Sea Company; but not a word was said about the right of search! At the same time Maria Theresa, dissatisfied with the terms she had procured, and unmindful of her former and vast obligations to England, was making overtures both to France and Spain, and taking every opportunity of showing her animosity to the court of St. James's. George was naturally solicitous and anxious about Hanover; but, where so many other fruitful causes of quarrel existed-in America, in both Indies, on the African coast, in the Mediterranean, about Gibraltar and Minorca,-it was a vulgar falsehood, though at times a popular one, to say that the king's affection for his hereditary dominions was the sole cause that was leading us fast to another waste of blood and money. The French at this very moment were advancing claims to a part of Nova Scotia, and were refusing to give up the islands of St. Lucia and St. Vincent, which they were bound by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle to evacuate.

The king returned and found Mr. Pelham greatly embarrassed as to the direction of the House of Commons, and anxious to reconcile his friend Bedford and his brother Newcastle. Pitt continued to court the favour of Newcastle, but Lord Cobham and Pitt's nearest friends and relations were labouring to aggravate the dissensions in the cabinet, and were secretly caballing with the Prince of Wales, who, for some time past, had been in close connexion with Bolingbroke and the factious men that frequented his lordship's house at Battersea. The prince's chief manager was Bubb Dodington, who, upon a careful calculation of interests and chances, had thought it advisable to relinquish the treasurership of the navy and resume a place in the prince's household. Most of the speeches in opposition to government were concocted either at Leicester House, the residence of the Prince of Wales, or at Lord Bolingbroke's, at Battersea. Fox, who never travelled in the same path with Pitt, continued to attach himself to the Duke of Bedford and Mr. Pelham. Bedford, it appears, would now have resigned his

secretaryship and taken the mastership of the horse; but upon the unpalatable condition that he should be allowed to name Lord Sandwich for his successor. The only important change which immediately followed his majesty's arrival from Hanover, was the sudden and uncourteous removal of Lord Harrington, who was succeeded in the lieutenancy of Ireland by the Duke of Dorset, then president of the council.

A. D. 1751.—Parliament met on the 17th of January, when the king announced that he had concluded a treaty with the Elector of Bavaria for the better security of peace on the Continent. The effect of recent deliberations at Battersea and Leicester House was made evident at once. Lord Egmont, one of the Prince of Wales's men and a fluent speaker, opposed the address on the ground that it approved of useless treaties and ruinous subsidies (for, as a matter of course, Bavaria was to be subsidised); and he was followed by Bubb Dodington, Dr. Lee, and others of that party; but the address was carried by a majority of 203 to 74. There followed a terrible storm and long war about the privileges of the House of Commons, parliamentary returns, and "the maiden and uncorrupted city of Westminster." Crowle, a lawyer, upon being brought to his knees at the bar, for breach of privilege, said, that the House of Commons was the dirtiest house he had ever been in. Mr. Alexander Murray, a Scotch Tory, brother to Lord Elibank, and one of the principal performers in these scenes, was committed and re-committed to Newgate.

While this privilege war was at its hottest, and many months before it terminated, the Prince of Wales was removed by death from factious struggles and the expectation of that crown which had so long seemed to be within his grasp, and of which he had made so sure, through the illness of his father, fourteen years ago.*

*At the time of his death the prince was forty-four years old-the king, his father, sixty-six. Not one of the political jobbers seems to have calculated that the hale temperate father might possibly outlive the frail intemperate son!

On the 17th of March it was reported in the House of Commons that the prince was dangerously ill. On the 18th he was thought better, but on the 20th he was worse and had a severe fit of coughing. One of the physicians told him the cough would do him good; but Hawkins, the surgeon, said in coming out of the room— "Here is something I do not like." This was about ten o'clock at night; the cough continued; and soon after the prince laid his hand upon his chest and said, "Je sens la mort." His favourite German valet-de-chambre felt him shiver, and cried out, “Good God, the prince is going!" The Princess of Wales, who was in the room, snatched up a candle and rushed to the bed-head; but before she got there he was gone. An imposthume in

the breast had burst and had caused this almost instantaneous death. His constitution had never been a good one, and his habits of life had not tended to improve it. The little that has been related of the conduct of Frederick is not calculated to conciliate esteem for his memory; but, as usual with princes, his character was neither so bad as it was painted by his enemies, nor so good as it was represented by his friends. He appears to have been weak rather than vicious, and more pettish and passionate than headstrong and malignant. His early edu cation, at Hanover, had been exceedingly bad; and from the first moment of his arriving in England he had been purposely initiated into irregularities and excesses, and . made the tool of a faction. Though never popular-not even when heading the strong opposition to government in Sir Robert Walpole's days-the people were generally disposed to prefer him to the Duke of Cumberland; and just after his death ballads were sung about the streets wishing that it were but his brother; and some on Change were heard to say, "Oh that it were but the Butcher!" Since the reconciliation effected between father and son in the year 1742, though they had often met, the king had scarcely ever spoken a dozen words at once to the prince; and the recent attempt of his royal highness to set up the banner of opposition had not tended to awaken any affection for the first-born-a feeling which George

never knew, and the want of which and his partiality to his second son ought to be taken into account among the circumstances which had tended to make Frederick what he was. The old king, however, was shocked at the sudden death, which was announced to him by Lord North, who found him looking over a table where Princess Emily, the Duchess of Dorset, and the Duke of Grafton were playing at cards. The widowed princess had eight young children, and was far gone with the ninth. The total amount of Frederick's debts is differently stated, but it appears to have been very large; and there is no doubt as to the fact that the debts were never paid, either by his father George II., or by his son George III. It is probable that the majority of the creditors did not deserve to be paid.

Bubb Dodington, and the men of intrigue acting with him, instantly called a meeting to know what was to be done "under this fatal change of situation." Dodington spoke of the military interest-of the sad certainty of having the Duke of Cumberland forced upon them as regent in case the old king should die-and recommended bold measures. But the Princess of Wales, after speaking in private with Lord Egmont* and Dr. Lee, burned all the prince's papers, and made up her mind to trust wholly and solely to the king, without any reliance on those factions and cabals which had brought nothing but debt and mischief to her husband. The Leicester House faction was thus utterly disconcerted, and compelled to look out for some new game. As soon as Frederick was interred

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* Horace Walpole says that Egmont called a meeting of the faction at his own house at a very early hour in the morning after the prince's death. All was whisper! At last Egmont hinted something of taking the princess and her family under their protection, and something of the necessity of harmony. No answer was made to the former proposition; somebody said, it was very likely indeed they should agree now, when the prince could never bring it about; and so everybody went away to take care of himself."—Letter to Horace Mann.

in Westminster Abbey* some of these honourable gentlemen offered their services to the Pelhams, for their dread of the Duke of Cumberland was a lasting and reasonable passion, and they suspected that, if the Duke of Bedford and the other members of the government opposed to the Pelhams were permitted to gain the ascendancy, Cumberland would be put at the head of the regency. In the course of a few days Prince George (afterwards George III.), Frederick's eldest son, was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester, and had a household settled for him. Lord North was dismissed, and Lord Harcourt, a very inferior man, was appointed governor to the prince, as being more devoted to Mr. Pelham and the Duke of Newcastle; for these personal objects were kept closely in view in selecting the persons who were to be intrusted with the education of the future sovereign-an education which had been hitherto so much neglected, that Prince George, at eleven years old, could hardly read English. Stone, a man of ability, who had long been private secretary to the Duke of Newcastle, was appointed sub-governor.† Hayter, Bishop of Norwich, and reputed to be a natural son of Blackburn, a somewhat free-living archbishop of York, was named preceptor. The Bishop of Norwich was good-humoured, sensible, and attached to the constitution as established by the Revolution of 1688, and believed to be devoted to the Duke of Newcastle; but he had for his assistant, or sub-preceptor, one Scott, a high Tory and decided Jacobite, who had been strongly recommended to the prince and princess by that great mischief-maker Lord Bolingbroke. It was strange to leave the young prince chiefly in the hands of this Scott (who was ready to teach the

*Dodington complains bitterly of the whole ceremonial of the funeral, and of the sad fact that the lords of the bedchamber and all the prince's gentlemen were obliged to pay for their own dinner. Bathos can scarcely go lower.

Andrew Stone, styled, by Horace Walpole, "a dark, proud man, very able and very mercenary," was the son of a banker: his brother was primate of Ireland.