The deaths of kings travel so much faster than any post, that I can
not expect to tell you news, when I say your old master is dead. But I
can pretty well tell you what I like best to be able to say to you on
this occasion, that you are in no danger. Change will scarce reach to
Florence when its hand is checked even in the capital. But I will
move a little regularly, and then you will form your judgment more
easily.
This is Tuesday; on Friday night the King went to bed in perfect
health, and rose so the next morning at his usual hour of six; he
called for and drank his chocolate. At seven, his _valet de chambre_
heard a groan. He ran in, and in a small room between the closet and
bed-chamber he found the King on the floor, who had cut the right side
of his face against the edge of a bureau, and who after a gasp
expired. Lady Yarmouth was called, and sent for Princess Amelia; but
they only told the latter that the King was ill and wanted her. She
had been confined some days with a rheumatism, but hurried down, ran
into the room without further notice, and saw her father extended on
the bed. She is very purblind, and more than a little deaf. They had
not closed his eyes; she bent down close to his face, and concluded he
spoke to her, tho she could not hear him--guess what a shock when she
found the truth.
She wrote to the Prince of Wales--but so had one of the _valets de
chambre_ first. He came to town, and saw the Duke [of Cumberland] and
the Privy Council. He was extremely kind to the first--and in general
has behaved with the greatest propriety, dignity, and decency. He read
his speech to the Council with much grace, and dismissed the guards on
himself to wait on his grandfather's body. It is intimated, that he
means to employ the same ministers, but with reserve to himself of
more authority than has lately been in fashion. The Duke of York and
Lord Bute are named of the Cabinet Council. The late King's will is
not yet opened. To-day everybody kissed hands at Leicester House, and
this week, I believe, the King will go to St. James's. The body has
been opened; the great ventricle of the heart had burst. What an
enviable death! In the greatest period of the glory of this country,
and of his reign, in perfect tranquillity at home, at seventy-seven,
growing blind and deaf, to die without a pang, before any reverse of
fortune, or any distasted peace, nay, but two days before a ship-load
of bad news: could he have chosen such another moment?
The news is bad indeed! Berlin taken by capitulation, and yet the
Austrians behaved so savagely that even Russians felt delicacy, were
shocked, and checked them! Nearer home, the hereditary prince has been
much beaten by Monsieur de Castries, and forced to raise the siege of
Wesel, whither Prince Ferdinand had sent him most unadvisedly: we have
scarce an officer unwounded. The secret expedition will now, I
conclude, sail, to give an _éclat_ to the new reign. Lord Albemarle
does not command it, as I told you, nor Mr. Conway, tho both applied.
Nothing is settled about the Parliament; not even the necessary
changes in the Household. Committees of council are regulating the
mourning and the funeral. The town, which between armies, militia, and
approaching elections, was likely to be a desert all the winter, is
filled in a minute, but everything is in the deepest tranquillity.
People stare; the only expression. The moment anything is declared,
one shall not perceive the novelty of the reign. A nation without
parties is soon a nation without curiosity.