DEATH AND CHARACTER OF GEORGE I.
King George, having appointed a regency, embarked at Greenwich on the third day of June, and landing in Holland on the seventh, set out on his journey to Hanover. He was suddenly seized with a paralytic disorder on the road: he forthwith lost the faculty of speech, became lethargic, and was conveyed in a state of insensibility to Osnabruck. There he expired on Sunday the eleventh day of June, in the sixty-eighth year of his age, and in the thirteenth of his reign.—George I. was plain and simple in his person and address, grave and composed in his deportment, though easy, familiar, and facetious in his hours of relaxation. Before he ascended the throne of Great Britain, he had acquired the character of a circumspect general, a just and merciful prince, a wise politician, who perfectly understood, and steadily pursued, his own interest. With these qualities, it cannot be doubted but that he came to England extremely well disposed to govern his new subjects according to the maxims of the British constitution, and the genius of the people; and if ever he seemed to deviate from these principles, we may take it for granted that he was misled by the venal suggestions of a ministry whose power and influence were founded on corruption. [229] [See note 2 I, at the end of this Vol.]