It was in August of this year that the "Peterloo" outrage took place. A meeting convened by Henry Hunt, in St. Peter's Fields, Manchester, was dispersed by force, six persons being killed and many being seriously wounded. Later in the year, Lord Liverpool carried the infamous "six Acts intended to prevent the circulation of cheap literature as well as to crush out the right of meeting.

On the 29th January, 1820, after a sixty years' reign-in which debt, dishonor, and disgrace accrued to the nation he reigned over-George III died. The National Debt at the date of his accession to the throne was about £150,000,000, at his death it was about £900,000,000.

Phillimore asks: "Had it not been for the unlimited power of borrowing, how many unjust and capricious wars would have been avoided! How different would be our condition, and the condition of our posterity! If half the sum lavished to prevent anyone bearing the name of Napoleon from residing in France, for replacing the Bourbons on the thrones of France and Naples, for giving Belgium to Holland, Norway to Sweden, Finland to Russia, Venice and Lombardy to Austria, had been employed by individual enterprise, what would now be the resources of England?"

An extract, giving Lord Brougham's summary of George III's life and character, may, we think, fairly serve to close this chapter:-"Of a narrow understanding, which no culture had enlarged; of an obstinate disposition, which no education perhaps could have humanised; of strong feeling in ordinary things, and a resolute attachment to all his own opinions and predilections, George III possessed much of the firmness of purpose which being exhibited by men of contracted mind without any discrimination, and as pertinaciously when they are in the wrong as when they are in the right, lends to their characters an appearance of inflexible consistency, which is often mistaken for greatness of mind, and not seldom received as a substitute for honesty. In all that related to his kingly office he was the slave of deep-rooted selfishness; and no feeling of a kindly nature ever was allowed access to his bosom whenever his power was concerned."

CHAPTER V.

THE REIGN OF GEORGE IV.

The wretched reign of George IV commenced on the 30th January, 1820. Mr. Buckle speaks of "the incredible baseness of that ignoble voluptuary who succeeded George III on the throne". The coronation was delayed for a considerable period, partly in consequence of the hostility between the King and his unfortunate wife, and partly because of the cost. We find the Right Hon. Thomas Grenville writing of the coronation: “I think it probable that it will be put off, because the King will not like it unless it be expensive, and Vansittart knows not how to pay for it if it is". Generous monarchs, these Brunswicks! Thousands at that moment were in a state of starvation in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Lord Cassilis writes: "There seems nothing but chaos and desolation whatever way a man may turn himself . . . . the lower orders existing only from the circumstance of the produce of the land being unmarketable.

. . . The weavers are certainly employed, but they cannot earn more than from six to eight shillings a week. Such is our When the coronation did ultimately take place, some strange expenses crept in. Diamonds were charged for to the extent, it is said, of £80,000, which found their way to one of the King's favored mistresses. The crown itself was made up with hired jewels, which were kept for twenty-one months after the coronation, and for the hire of which alone the country had to pay £11,000. The charge for coronation robes was £24,000. It was in consequence of Sir Benjamin Bloomfield having to account for some of the diamonds purchased that he resigned his position in the King's household. Rather than be suspected of dishonesty, he preferred revealing that they had reached the hands of Lady Conyngham. Sir George Naylor, in an infamously servile publication, for which book alone the country

paid £3,000, describes "the superb habiliments which His Majesty not less regardful of the prosperity of the people than of the splendor of his throne-was pleased to enjoin, should be worn upon the occasion of His Majesty's sacred coronation".

Sir William Knighton declares that on the news of the King's death reaching the Prince Regent, "the fatal tidings were received with a burst of grief that was very affecting ". The King had been mad, and blind, and deaf for ten years, and the Queen, years before, had complained of the Prince's conduct as unfilial, if not inhuman. With the Prince Regent's known character, this sudden burst of grief is really "very affecting".

On the 23rd of February, London was startled with the news of what since has been described as the Cato Street Conspiracy. The trial of Arthur Thistlewood and his misguided associates is valuable for one lesson. The man who found money for the secret conspirators, and who incited them to treason and murder, was one George Edwards. This Edwards was well described by one of the journals of the period as neither more nor less than the confidential agent of the original conspirators, to hire for them the treasons they have a purpose in detecting". By original conspirators were meant Lord Castlereagh and Lord Sidmouth. In the House of Commons, Mr. Alderman Wood moved formally: "That George Edwards be brought to the bar of the House on a breach of privilege. He pledged himself, if he had that incendiary in his hands, to convict him of the crimes imputed; he hoped he had not been suffered to escape beyond seas; otherwise there were hon. gentlemen who were in possession of him, so that he might be produced"-meaning by this that he was kept out of the way by the Government. "He regarded him as the sole author and contriver of the Cato Street plot. It was strange how such a man should be going about from public-house to public-house-nay, from one private house to another, boldly and openly instigating to such plots; and, in the midst of this, should become, from abject poverty, suddenly flush with money, providing arms, and supplying all conspirators." Mr. Hume seconded the motion. "It appeared by the depositions, not of one person only, but of a great many

persons, that the individual in question had gone about from house to house with hand-grenades, and, up to twenty-four hours only preceding the 23rd of February, had been unceasingly urging persons to join with him in the atrocious plot to assassinate his Majesty's Ministers. All of a sudden he became quite rich, and was buying arms in every quarter, at every price, and of every description; still urging a variety of persons to unite with him. Now, it was very fitting for the interest of the country that the country should know who the individuals were who supplied him with the money."

As a fair specimen of the disposition of the King in dealing with his Ministry, I give the following extract from a memorandum of Lord Chancellor Eldon, dated April 20th, 1820: "Our royal master seems to have got into a temper again, so far as I could judge from his conversation with me this morning. He has been pretty well disposed to part with us all, because we would not make additions to his revenue. This we thought conscientiously we could not do in the present state of the country, and of the distresses of the middle and lower orders of the people-to which we might add, too, that of the higher orders.. My own individual opinion was such that I could not bring myself to oppress the country at present by additional taxation for that purpose."

"It

On the 23rd of March, Henry Hunt, John Knight, Joseph Johnson, Joseph Healey, and Samuel Bamford, were, after six days' trial at York, found guilty of unlawfully assembling. Lord Grenville feared that, if acquitted, Peterloo might form a terrible bill of indictment against the Ministry. His lordship writes on March 29th to the Marquis of Buckingham: would have been a dreadful thing if it had been established by the result of that trial that the Manchester meeting was under all its circumstances a legal assembly". His lordship knew that the magistrates and yeomanry cavalry might have been indicted for murder had the meeting been declared legal. Sir C. Wolseley and the Rev. J. Harrison were at this time being prosecuted for seditious speaking, and were ultimately found guilty on April 10th. In May, the state of the country was terrible; even Baring, the Conservative banker, on May 7th,

described the "state of England" to a full House of Commons "in the most lamentable terms". On the 8th, we find Mr. W. H. Fremantle saying of the King: "His language is only about the Coronation and Lady Conyngham [his then favorite Sultana]; very little of the state of the country". Early in June, it being known that Queen Caroline was about to return to England, and that she intended to be present at the Coronation, the King offered her £50,000 a year for life to remain on the Continent, and forbear from claiming the title of Queen of England. This Caroline indignantly refused. The Queen's name had, by an order in Council, and on the King's direction, been omitted from the Liturgy as that of a person unfit to be prayed for, and on the 6th July a Bill of pains and penalties was introduced by Lord Liverpool, alleging adultery between the Queen and one Bartolomeo Bergami. To wade through the mass of disgusting evidence offered by the advisers of the King in support of the Bill is terrible work. It seems clear that many of the witnesses committed perjury. It is certain that the diplomatic force of England was used to prevent the Queen from obtaining witnesses on her behalf. Large sums of the taxpayers' money were shown to have been spent in surrounding the Princess of Wales with spies in Italy and Switzerland. Naturally, the people took sides with the Queen. To use the language of William Cobbett: "The joy of the people of all ranks, except nobility, clergy, and the army and the navy, who in fact were theirs, was boundless; and they expressed it in every possible way that people can express their joy. They had heard rumors about a lewd life, and about an adulterous intercourse. They could not but believe that there was some foundation for something of this kind; but they, in their justice, went back to the time when she was in fact turned out of her husband's house with a child in her arms, without blame of any sort ever having been imputed to her. They compared what they had heard of the wife with what they had seen of the husband, and they came to their determination accordingly. As far as related to the question of guilt or innocence they cared not a straw; they took a large view of the matter; they went over her whole