A General Thanksgiving for the Victory was proclaimed to take place on the 5th of December. The good Volunteers were duly marched to church, and one member of the Royal Family—the Duke of Cambridge—actually attended Divine Worship on the occasion. At Drury Lane Theatre, “the Interlude of The Victory and Death of Lord Nelson seemed to affect the audience exceedingly; but the tear of sensibility was wiped away by the merry eccentricities of The Weathercock”—the moral to be learned from which seems to be, that the good folks of the early century seemed to think that God should not be thanked, nor heroes mourned, too much. This must close this year, for Nelson’s funeral belongs to the next.
After the Battle of Trafalgar, the Patriotic Fund was again revived, and over £50,000 subscribed by the end of the year.
Consols were remarkably even during this year, varying very little even at the news of Trafalgar: January, 61⅞; December, 65.
The quartern loaf varied from January 1s. 4¼d., to December 1s. 0¼d.
Wheat varied from 95s. to 90s. per quarter.
CHAPTER XIII.
1806.