1788.
(CONTINUED.)
THE KING'S ILLNESS--CONDUCT OF THURLOW--PLANS OF MINISTERS--DISCUSSIONS
IN PARLIAMENT--IRISH VIEW OF THE REGENCY QUESTION--PROCEEDINGS OF THE
PRINCE'S PARTY--THE RATS IN BOTH HOUSES.
The fluctuations of the daily accounts from Windsor, and afterwards from
Kew, to which place the King was ultimately removed at the instance of
the Prince of Wales, and the effect they produced upon the public and
the Opposition, greatly increased the difficulties of the Government in
this unprecedented emergency. So long as there was the faintest hope of
His Majesty's recovery, Mr. Pitt was enabled to avert extremities
between the Administration and the Prince of Wales, by repeated
adjournments of Parliament. The interest, therefore, which attached to
the slightest items of intelligence contained in these letters may be
easily understood. All other subjects were of inferior consideration.
Even the serious inconvenience occasioned to the public service by the
suspension of business in Parliament was forgotten in the one absorbing
topic.
The uncertainty that hung over the issue, the responsibility that
attended the treatment of the case, and the extreme caution observed by
the physicians in the opinions they were called upon to pronounce, kept
all classes of the people in a state of constant agitation. The Prince
and his supporters availed themselves of these circumstances to
strengthen their party in Parliament and out of doors. The passions of
the inexperienced, and the hopes of the discontented, are always on the
side of youth and excitement; and every vicissitude in the condition of
the King that diminished the prospect of his recovery, augmented the
ranks of the Opposition, which now became familiarly known as "the
Prince of Wales's Opposition." Mr. Pitt acted throughout with the utmost
reserve. Deeply impressed by the complicated hazards of the situation,
he carefully avoided all allusions to his ulterior intentions in his
intercourse with the Prince of Wales, which was strictly formal and
official, and confined to such communications as were unavoidable in his
position.