"The accession of George III. was an actual political revolution in England: the days of the Pretenders were over; the house of Hanover was established; the Whigs, who had placed that family on the throne, were dismissed from administration: they were troublesome observers, who were no longer wanted. The government was again seized by the Tories, those friends of power, who have ever since kept it, to the great detriment of public liberty.
"The King, however, was personally free from prejudice in this respect: he sincerely loved the laws, justice, and the welfare and prosperity of his country. The violent part taken by England against our French revolution was much less the fault of George III. than of Mr. Pitt, who was the real firebrand. The latter was instigated by the extreme hatred to France which he inherited from his father, the great Chatham, and also by a strong predilection for power and the oligarchy. At the commencement of our revolution, Mr. Pitt was the man of the people: he governed England; he drew in the King, who was always to be worked on by facts; and it must be acknowledged that the excesses and crimes of our outset afforded very favourable opportunities to the measures and the eloquence of Mr. Pitt. It is probable, Sire, that if the unfortunate George III. had retained his reason, your Majesty would eventually have found it greatly to your advantage, because your reign would have presented new facts to his observation, to which he would have yielded. George III. had his own species and degree of character: it was in harmony with his intellectual conceptions: he wished to know things, to be convinced. When once his resolution was taken, it was difficult to make him alter it; yet it was not impossible: his good sense afforded great opportunities.
"His illness was, on this account, a curse to us, a curse to Europe, and to the English themselves, who begin now to give up the high opinion they once professed of Mr. Pitt, of whose fatal errors they now feel the effects.
"It was the first attack of the King’s illness which established the reputation and credit of Mr. Pitt. That minister was little more than twenty-five years of age, when he ventured alone to encounter the mass of those who deserted the King and considered him lost; and who were eager to proclaim the monarch’s incapacity, in order to possess themselves of power under his youthful successor. This conduct rendered Mr. Pitt the idol of the nation. This was the most glorious period of his life; and his noblest triumph was, undoubtedly, that of conducting George III. to St. Paul’s, to return thanks to God for his restoration to health, amidst an immense concourse of people intoxicated with joy and satisfaction.
"There was no doubt that Mr. Pitt was on this occasion the saviour of the King as well as of the public peace; for experience proved that George III. had not become incapable of reigning again; and it was strongly suspected that, had the regency been organized, as the Opposition wished to have it, this capability would not have been very readily acknowledged at a subsequent period; and thus a civil war might have been occasioned.
"I have often heard it said that the mental derangement of George III. was not a common kind of madness: that his alienation did not exactly arise from a local affection of the brain, but from the repletion of the vessels leading to it; a derangement produced by a malady which had long been peculiar to this family. His disorder, it was said, was rather delirium than insanity. When the cause was removed, the sovereign instantly recovered all his faculties, in as great perfection as if they had sustained no interruption; this circumstance explains his numerous relapses and restorations. As a proof of this, people used to mention the strength of mind he must have possessed, to be able, immediately on his first convalescence, to support the pomp of the procession, attended by the assembled population of London, filling the air with acclamations.
"After his second relapse, he gave another not less remarkable proof of this nature, by the calmness and composure which he displayed, when fired at by an assassin, as he entered his box at the theatre. He was so little disturbed that he instantly turned to the Queen, who had just reached the door of the box, to tell her not to be alarmed, for that it was only a squib which had been let off in the theatre: he remained during the whole performance apparently unmoved. Here was certainly no proof of weakness. The permanence of the complaint in his latter years might indeed be opposed to these facts, if it be certain that he had not long lucid intervals.
"George III., although so worthy and well-meaning a monarch, was several times very near falling a victim to assassins. Several instances of this kind occur in his history; and I do not believe any of the persons implicated suffered death, because they all appeared to be insane—all religious or political fanatics. The last and most famous attempt occurred, I think, in 1800.[[26]] The King went to the theatre, as he did from time to time at that critical period, to keep up his popularity. As he entered his box, a man in the pit took aim at him with a horse pistol, and the ball only missed through the King’s bowing at the moment to salute the public. The dreadful tumult that ensued may easily be conceived! The man did not attempt to deny his crime; he was precisely such another as the fanatic at Schoenbrun, who would have sacrificed your Majesty, and always maintained that he had no other object in view than peace and the happiness of his country. A jury pronounced this man insane, and he was condemned to confinement.
"During my excursion to London in 1814, a singular chance procured me a sight of this very assassin. My mind being still occupied with the mission which your Majesty had confided to me the preceding year, concerning the depôts of mendicity and houses of correction, I wished to see the English establishments of this kind. Whilst I was taking a minute survey of Newgate, I entered an apartment in which I found a great number of condemned persons enjoying a certain degree of liberty. The first on whom my conductor fixed his eyes happened to be Hatfield, whom he pointed out to me, and whose name I immediately recollected, and asked if he was the man who had attempted to assassinate George III. It was the same, he said, and he was undergoing the confinement to which he had been condemned, as insane, in Newgate. I observed that, at the time, his insanity had been much doubted and contested by the public, as it always happens in such cases. I was assured, however, that Hatfield was indisputably mad, but only by fits; that his madness was, however, so mild that he was suffered to go about the town, on his word; and that he was the first to request he might be attended to, when he felt that his disorder was coming on. My conductor then called him. Having ventured to ask him some questions, he immediately discovered me to be French by my accent, and told me he had often fought against my countrymen in Flanders. (He had served in the light-horse, or dragoons, under the Duke of York.) He bore their marks, he said, shewing me several scars; and yet, he added, he was far from hating them, for they were brave, and were not to blame in that affair; people had insisted on meddling in their disputes, which concerned themselves only. He began to grow very warm, which induced my conductor to make me a sign, and to send him away. We had touched the chord of his derangement, my conductor observed, and had we continued, he would have become outrageous.
"But I return to George III. The predominant sentiment of that prince was the love of the public good and the welfare of his country. To these he always sacrificed every consideration: this alone induced him to retain Mr. Pitt so long, towards whom he felt a strong repugnance, because he was very ill-treated by that minister.