From a painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds
ADMIRAL THE HON. AUGUSTUS KEPPEL
The news of Keppel's acquittal arrived in London on February 11 between nine and ten o'clock in the evening, and before an hour had elapsed nearly every house in the metropolis was illuminated. The windows of the mansions of Lord North and Lord George Germaine were broken, the Admiralty was attacked, Palliser was hung in effigy, his house broken into, and his furniture carried into St. James's Square, and there burned by an angry, excited mob. "If you had any doubts about the truth of the accounts of the trial of Admiral Keppel, I suppose you will hardly credit the enthusiasm that has seized England and Ireland about him," Lady Sarah Bunbury wrote to Lady Susan O'Brien on March 9, 1779, "and yet nothing is more true than the general and wild joy that has animated all ranks of people. What a flattering thing it is to obtain much more than a Roman triumph merely for being an honest man, and a just, brave and humane officer, whose conduct has won him the hearts of a whole fleet, of a whole kingdom. How much more glorious is such a triumph than the pomp of war and all its melancholy honours. It is impossible not to envy him."[120]
After this the King regarded Keppel as his personal enemy, and, as we have said, used his influence against the Admiral when he stood as parliamentary candidate for Windsor in 1779. A certain silk-mercer, a stout Keppelite, would subsequently mimic the King's peculiar voice and manner as his Majesty entered his shop and muttered in his hurried way: "The Queen wants a gown—wants a gown. No Keppel!—no Keppel! What, what, what!" Keppel lost the election, but the King paid heavily for his victory. "With all due respect to his Majesty I say it, but in my opinion he has hurt himself a great deal more than he has hurt the admiral in using his influence and authority to make him lose Windsor," Lady Sarah Bunbury wrote to Lady Susan O'Brien on September 22, 1780. "A seat in this Parliament and in these times is no such very valuable privilege as to break an honest man's heart if he loses it, particularly when, as at Windsor, the electors come to him with the most affected countenances saying, 'Sir, we honour, we esteem, we love you, we wish you were our member, but our bread depends upon our refusing you our votes; we are ordered to go against you, and you are too good to wish us ruined by his Majesty's anger.' ... There are strange reports about all the underhand and indeed some open ways used to force the Windsor people to vote against him."[121]
CHAPTER XVII
THE ROYAL FAMILY