"My Lords and Gentlemen;
"I have taken the earliest occasion of assembling you here, after having referred to the sense of my people.
"In meeting you personally, for the first time since the death of my beloved father, I am anxious to assure you, that I shall always continue to imitate his great example, in unceasing attention to the public interests, and in paternal solicitude for the welfare and happiness of all classes of my subjects.
"I have received from foreign powers renewed assurances of their friendly disposition, and of their earnest desire to cultivate with me the relations of peace and amity.
"Gentlemen of the House of Commons;
"The estimates for the present year will be laid before you.
"They have been framed upon principles of strict economy; but it is to me matter of the deepest regret that the state of the country has not allowed me to dispense with those additions to our military force which I announced at the commencement of the last session of parliament.
"The first object to which your attention will be directed is the provision to be made for the support of the civil government, and of the honour and dignity of the crown.
"I leave entirely at your disposal my interest in the hereditary revenues; and I cannot deny myself the gratification of declaring, that so far from desiring any arrangement which might lead to the imposition of new burthens upon my people, or even might diminish, on my account, the amount of the reductions incident to my accession to the throne, I can have no wish, under circumstances like the present, that any addition whatever should be made to the settlement adopted by parliament in the year 1816.