What will be the consequence of that rapid turn in Ireland, even immediately, who can tell? for the King is called recovered, and the English Regency is suspended, with fresh and grievous insults to the Prince, who with the Duke of York are violently hindered by the Queen from even seeing their father, though she and their sisters play at cards with him in an evening; and that the Chancellor was with him for an hour and three quarters on the 19th.

Under colour of what new phantom her Majesty, the Chancellor,[1] and Pitt will assume the Government, we shall know in two or three days; for I do not suppose they will produce the King instantly, at the risk of oversetting his head again, though they seem half as mad as he, and capable of any violent act to maintain themselves.  And so much the better:  I do not wish them temperate; and it looks as if people never were so in minorities and incapacities of their kings.  The Prince set out as indiscreetly as Pitt.

[Footnote 1:  The Chancellor was Lord Thurlow, an able but unprincipled man.  Johnson expressed a high opinion of him as an arguer “who brought his mind to bear upon yours.”  But Fox declared his very face “proved him an impostor, since no man could be as wise as he looked.”]

Of the event I am very glad; it saves the Prince and the Opposition from the rashness of changing the Administration on so precarious and shackled a tenure, and it saves them too from the expense of re-elections.  If the King recovers, they are but where they were, but with the advantage of having the Prince and Duke of York rooted in aversion to the Ministers, and most unlikely to be governed by the Queen.  If the King relapses, the Opposition stock will rise; though in the mean time I do not doubt but the nation will grow drunk with the loyalty of rejoicing, for kings grow popular by whatever way they lose their heads.  Still, whatever eccentricity he attempts, it will be imputed to his deranged understanding.  And, however even Lord Hawkesbury[1] may meditate the darkest mischiefs under the new fund of pity and loyalty, he will not be for extending the prerogative, which must devolve (on any accident to the King) on the Prince, Duke of York, or some of the Princes, who will all be linked in a common cause with their brothers, who have been so grossly affronted; and Prince William, the third, particularly so by the last cause of hindering his peerage while abroad.  The King’s recovery before the Regency Act was passed will be another great advantage to the Prince; his hands would have been so shackled, that he could not have found places for half the expectants, who will now impute their disappointments to the King’s amendment, and not to the Prince.

[Footnote 1:  Lord Hawkesbury was afterwards promoted to the Earldom of Liverpool, and was the father of the sagacious, prudent, but resolute minister under whose administration the French Revolutionary War was brought to a conclusion by the final overthrow of Napoleon.]