Well! now, how will this new change of scene operate? I fancy if any one could win access to him, who would tell him the truth, he would be as little pleased with his Queen, and his or her Pitt, as they will take care he shall be with his sons. Would he admire the degradation of his family in the person of all the Princes? or with the tripartite division of Royalty between the Queen, the Prince, and Mr. Pitt, which I call a Trinity in disunity? Will he be charmed with the Queen's admission to power, which he never imparted to her? Will he like the discovery of his vast private hoard? Will he be quite satisfied with the codicil to his Will,[1] which she surreptitiously obtained from him in his frenzy in the first agony of her grief? How will he digest that discovery of his treasure, which will not diffuse great compassion when he shall next ask a payment of his pretended debts? Before his madness he was indisposed towards Pitt; will he be better pleased with him for his new dictatorial presumption?
[Footnote 1: "His will." This refers to a scandal propagated by some of the opposition newspapers, for which there was not the slightest foundation.]
Turn to the next page—to Ireland. They have chosen for themselves, it is believed, a Regent without restrictions,[1] in scorn of the Parliament of England, and in order further to assert their independence. Will they recede? especially when their courtiers have flown in the face of our domineering Minister? I do not think they will. They may receive the King again on his recovery; but they have united interests with the Prince, and act in league with him, that he may pledge himself to them more deeply in future at least; they will never again acknowledge any superiority in our Parliament, but rather act in contradistinction.
[Footnote 1: "Regent without restrictions." The King, in the autumn of 1788, having fallen into a state of temporary derangement, Pitt proposed that the Parliament should appoint the Prince of Wales Regent, with some temporary limitations in the exercise of the power. Fox and his followers contended that the Prince, being of full age, was as absolutely entitled to the Regency as his right, as he would have been to the Crown in the event of his father's death; and Grattan, who had a paramount influence over the Irish Parliament, adopting Fox's view, carried an address to the Prince, entreating him to take upon himself the Regency as his right—a view which, of course, was incompatible with any power of limiting his authority. Fortunately, before this address could be acted upon, the King recovered. The matter unfortunately caused great divisions in the Royal Family, to which Walpole alludes in the latter part of the letter; the Queen considering (not without grounds) that the Prince had shown unfilial eagerness to grasp at power; and indeed he had already made it known that he had intended to dismiss Pitt and to appoint Fox Prime Minister.]
[Illustration: Hand-written Letter]
Feb. 22nd.
The person who was to have brought you this was prevented leaving town, and therefore I did not finish my letter; but I believe I shall have another opportunity of sending, and therefore I will make it ready.
Much has happened this last week. The Prince is Regent of Ireland without limitations—a great point for his character; for Europe will now see that it was a faction which fettered him here, and not his unpopularity, for then would not he have been as much distasted in Ireland? Indeed, their own Attorney-General made way for him by opposing on the most injudicious of all pleas, that it would be necessary before he could be Regent there, to set the Great Seal of England to the act! How could the fool imagine, that when that phantom had been invented here, it would not be equally easy for the Irish to invent a parallel phantom of their own? But though this compliment is most grateful to the Prince at present, he will probably find hereafter that he has in effect lost Ireland, who meant more to emancipate themselves from this country than to compliment the Prince or contradict the English ministerial faction.
What will be the consequence of that rapid turn in Ireland, even immediately, who can tell? for the King is called recovered, and the English Regency is suspended, with fresh and grievous insults to the Prince, who with the Duke of York are violently hindered by the Queen from even seeing their father, though she and their sisters play at cards with him in an evening; and that the Chancellor was with him for an hour and three quarters on the 19th.
Under colour of what new phantom her Majesty, the Chancellor,[1] and Pitt will assume the Government, we shall know in two or three days; for I do not suppose they will produce the King instantly, at the risk of oversetting his head again, though they seem half as mad as he, and capable of any violent act to maintain themselves. And so much the better: I do not wish them temperate; and it looks as if people never were so in minorities and incapacities of their kings. The Prince set out as indiscreetly as Pitt.