in their dispositions, and pursuits, than George, Prince of Wales, the heir apparent to the Crown, and Prince William Henry, a common midshipman on board of a man of war. The latter was, indeed, exempt from many of those temptations to which his elder brother was daily and hourly exposed, and which gradually rendered him one of the most accomplished libertines of his age. In no period of the history of this country, was the odious vice of gambling carried to such an extraordinary height as it was when the Prince of Wales was on the eve of his majority. He frequently lost more at one nights play, than the whole annual income of his sailor brother, and it became a passion so deeply rooted in the right reverend Father in God, the Bishop of Osnaburg, that it followed him through life, and at last reduced him to the most abject state of pauperism and disgrace; the scandal of his name, the contempt of his nation. At the period of which we are now writing, the most desperate doings were carried on at the gambling table, which was regularly frequented by the royal Princes, but from the contamination of which, Prince William was fortunately preserved. The principal performers at the hazard table, and at faro, were several of the most talented men of those days, and the associates of the royal Princes. On the authority of Lord Lauderdale, the immense sum of five thousand pounds was staked on a single card at faro, and on authority equally credible, we find the appalling fact of Mr. Fox having played at hazard for twenty-two consecutive hours, losing at the rate of five hundred pounds in each hour. So infatuated, indeed, was this justly celebrated, though too often ill-judging man with the passion for deep play, that he was once heard to declare, that the greatest pleasure in his life, was to play and win, and next, to play and lose; and this man was the bosom friend, the adviser of the heir apparent to the Crown of England. This much, however, may be said of Mr. Fox, that no imputation of unfair play was ever attached to him, even in those days, which were those of the gambling royal Princes, the first Lord Barrymore, Sir

John Lade, and others, whose splendid patrimonies were absolutely devoured by the sharks of those times, in little more than three years.

We cannot in this place, refrain from touching upon the character of an individual, who unfortunately became the companion of the illustrious object of these memoirs, when he was Duke of Clarence, and who contributed not not a little, to involve him in that disgrace, which with the conduct of his royal brothers, contributed much to bring royalty into disrepute, and to attach a stigma upon him, which required a length of time to wipe off. This individual was the celebrated Matthias Byrne, an Irish adventurer, of neither birth nor education; so deficient was he, indeed, in the latter, that he was not able to endite a commou business letter. His having volunteered his services, however, to Lord Lyttleton, in a quarrel that nobleman had with the Fitzgerald of those days, commonly called the fighting Fitzgerald, which occurred in a crowded assembly in Vauxhall Gardens, gave him a slender introduction to a a certain class of persons of ton, which his native assurance enabled him to make the most of. And this was all that was wanted, for he was a skilful and successful gambler, which, by enabling him to play the gros jeu, in a certain circle to which he had access, did more for him in six mouths, with the help of his assurance, than the Lyttletons, and all their interest could have done for him in any other way, in six years. Not only the doors of the nobility, but the saloons of royalty were no longer shut against him. He was received at the tables of the great, and the greatest amongst the great did not scruple to grace his luxuriously supplied board in return. He has been heard to boast of having had at one time at his table, two Princes of the blood, the Duke of York, and the Duke of Clarence, four Dukes, three Duchesses, besides Ministers from foreign Courts, and others of high distinction, and those of both sexes. But the attraction was neither for his society, for there was nothing there to attract, nor his dinners. It was the mania for deep play at that memorable epoch, and this in either sex, that brought the strange and ill

assorted congregation together. Sitting down one evening to play piquet in private, he found himself the winner of a hundred thousand pounds. Being aware of the inability of his antagonist to pay the whole sum, and suspecting, if he could not pay the whole, he might pay none, he designedly suffered him to recover all he had won from him, except ten thousand pounds, which he received. In consequence of this masterly manoeuvre, the witty Mr. Hare gave him the name of XENOPHON O'BYRNE, from his retreat with the ten thousand. These things were in the mouths of men some forty or fifty years back, and it may not be amiss to exhibit such disgusting scenes, independently of their connexion with the Duke of Clarence, as the Greeks did their helots, to the rising generation, and with the same end in view. It was an opinion of the Lord Chesterfield, that ten times more people are ruined by the adoption of vice, than from natural inclination to it, and gaming may be truly classed under the head of adopted vices, the catalogue of which, it is to be feared, is the longest of the two.

cannons.

From this passing sketch of cards, dice, and billiard balls, we pass to other scenes in which a different ball was used, although in one respect they were similar, for both had to do with About the middle of December, Admiral Darby, with Admiral Digby, second in command, returned to Spithead, without any particular occurrence having taken place during his cruise, in fact it was one of those useless manifestations of power, which produced no benefit to the country, for the English fleet seldom ventured out of the channel, and it was not in the channel that an enemy of any formidable description was to be found. In fact, some of the captains of the British navy, were at this period, not very highly celebrated for their love of fighting, as was particularly evinced in the case of the Isis of fifty guns, commanded by Captain Evelyn Sutton, who on his passage from the Nore to Spithead, fell in with the Rotterdam, a Dutch ship of war, of fifty guns, when after a short action, both ships, as if by consent, mutually sheered off, and very coolly pursued their respective courses.

It cannot be disputed, that at this period, the Board of Admiralty was one of the most venal and corrupt that ever guided the naval affairs of the country. Every thing was carried by the power of favouritism, and particular ships were allowed to make their summer campaign, as it has been ridiculously styled, and then to remain in port until the following spring, although at the very time, perhaps, the enemy's fleets were scouring the ocean, destroying the commerce of the country and carrying the sinews of war to the transatlantic belligerents. Of this kind of summer campaigning ships, was the Prince George, the trial ship of Prince William Henry, and, perhaps, neither Admiral Digby, nor his crew entertained any objection to be riding comfortably and snugly at Spithead, until Prince Wil liam had passed his Christmas holidays with his royal parents in the magnificent halls of Windsor. It is certain, that the Earl of Sandwich protested in very strong terms against these periodical absences of his Royal Highness from the duties of his ship; and he argued that they were likely to instil into him a dislike for the naval profession, rather than contribute to his advancement. The Queen did as much as tell my Lord Sandwich to mind his own business, and not to interfere in a matter, which in no way concerned him;-that it was the will of the King, that his son should enjoy some relaxation from his arduous duties, and especially, as he himself had expressed a wish to take leave of his brother, the bishop of Osnaburg, who was about to leave England for some time to learn the military art in Germany. The Earl of Sandwich was not the most polished courtier in the purlieus of St. James, and on retiring from the presence of her Majesty, he was heard to "If the Queen does not know her duty, I know mine." We have in a previous part of this work cursorily hinted at the great advantage which this country has derived from the military talents and prowess of the royal family, especially of the Duke of York, who because he had been sent to be instructed in the military art in the first school of Europe, was consequently deemed fit and capable to command an army against the experienced officers of France. His Royal High

say.

ness took with him to the court of Berlin, in the capacity of a tutor, a worthy superannuated colonel of the name of Greville, who had risen gradually to his rank by favouritism and influence; and he had never seen any actual service, but by his suppleness as a courtier, he was well calculated to be a bearleader at one of the proudest courts of Europe. Instruction, however, by no means implies the acquisition of knowledge, for there are some faculties so obtuse, so impervious to every thing having any affinity to intellectual brightness, that a ray of knowledge imparted to them is refracted like the beam of light from the block of marble. George III., if he had possessed a common degree of penetration, must have seen the bias of the disposition of his son Frederick, long before the time appointed for the commencement of his military scholarship, and further, George III. could not be ignorant of what was well known throughout all Europe, that the court of Berlin was at the period of the Duke of York visiting it, one of the most proffigate and immoral of all the European courts. The reigning monarch himself was, in morality, a decided latitudinarian, the females of the court were notorious for their departure from the commonest rules of chastity and decorum, and the courtiers, who buzzed about them, were men immersed in debauchery and licentiousness. And was this a proper court at which to fix the residence of a young prince for a considerable length of time, who had in him by nature the seeds of the most dangerous vices, and which only wanted opportunity and encouragement to spring up into a most baneful luxuriance. The Duke of York was sent to Prussia, to fit him for being placed at the head of the English army, and when occasion required it, to command it in the day of battle. He, therefore, attended all the reviews, paid some attention to the evolutions of the Prussian infantry, then supposed to be the best disciplined in Europe, he admired some of their cumbersome, harlequin uniforms and having thus amused himself in the morning, he was certain to be found at the gambling table in the evening, or paying his devotions to some of the celebrated beauties of the court, whose favours were a direct purchasable commodity; but