[172] "I have taken care to have it in my power to refute these malicious stories, from the most authentic information. Lord Bute told me that Mr. Wedderburn, afterwards Lord Loughborough, was the person who first mentioned this subject to him. Lord Loughborough told me that the pension was granted to Johnson solely as the reward of his literary merit, without any stipulation whatever, or even tacit understanding, that he should write for the Administration. His Lordship added that he was confident the political tracts which Johnson afterwards did write, as they were entirely consonant with his own opinions, would have been written by him though no pension had been granted to him."—Boswell: Life of Samuel Johnson.
[173] The records contain the following entries: October, 1760, to October, 1761, to John, Earl of Bute, for his Majesty's Privy Purse, £48,000; for Secret Service during the same period, £95,000. October, 1761, to October, 1762, to John, Earl of Bute, for his Majesty's Privy Purse, £48,000; for Secret Service during the same period, £72,000. This, however, is but a tithe of what was spent when Bute was in power, and the additional expenditure was distributed under different headings in the accounts of the various departments of state.
[174] Letter to the Duke of Bedford, Sept. 19, 1769.
[175] Walpole: Memoirs of George III.
[176] Letter from a Gentleman in Town to his Friend in the Country, occasioned by a late resignation.
[177] Adolphus: History of England.
[178] "The coronation is over, 'tis even a more gorgeous sight than I imagined," Horace Walpole told the Hon. Henry Seymour Conway. "I saw the procession and the hall; but the return was in the dark. In the morning they had forgot the sword of state, the chairs for the King and Queen, and their canopies. They used the Lord Mayor's sword for the first, and made the last in the hall; so they did not set forth till noon; and then, by a childish compliment to the King, reserved the illumination of the hall till his entry, by which means they arrived like a funeral, nothing being discernible but the plumes of the Knights of the Bath, which seemed the hearse." Indeed, the whole was a comedy of errors, crowned by the historic apology of the Earl Marshal, Lord Effingham, in reply to the King's complaints: "It is true, sir, there has been some neglect, but I have taken care that the next coronation shall be regulated in the exactest manner possible."
[179] Philip Stanhope, fifth Earl of Chesterfield (1755-1815).
[180] Wraxall: Historical Memoirs of My Own Times.
[181] Genesis vi, 4.