And he did bring him back again, for which the King ought to have been eternally grateful to him, for it was only the splendid seamanship of the Admiral which saved him. “Sir,” remarked Sir Charles, when they did get back, “you wished to see a storm, how did your Majesty like it?” “So well,” answered the King, no doubt with a most rueful countenance, for he had been fearfully sick, “that I never wish to see another!” The Admiral remarked in a letter to a friend at the time: “His Majesty was at present as _tame_ as any about him.” “An epithet,” comments Lord Hervey who had read the letter, “that his Majesty, had he known it, would, I fancy, have liked, next to the storm, the least of anything that happened to him.” But there were many of these letters came to the Court by the same ship which brought the King’s, and the above passage of words between George and the Admiral was well known in the King’s suite at Helvetsluis, therefore when the Queen walked about with the King’s letter in her hand praising her husband’s patience, and condemning Admiral Wager as the cause of all their apprehension, it was somewhat difficult for the couriers to keep their countenances when they realized the King’s wilful mendacity to his wife. All the hopes of the Prince’s party were now crushed, but it is not recorded by Lord Hervey that Frederick gave vent to any other remark but that of thankfulness for his father’s return. His followers, and especially those in the city, while expressing their thankfulness, qualified it; the common expression in referring to the King’s escape was--“It’s the mercy of God, but a thousand pities!” It is to be feared that had they heard that the Royal Yacht with the King and Madame Walmoden on board, had sunk in mid-Channel, the expression of their thanks might have been the same without the concluding sentence. The catch query at the time of this voyage was: “How’s the wind for the King?” And the popular answer was:--“Like the nation, against him.” The danger over, the Queen confided her feelings to her almost inseparable companion the Vice-Chamberlain, Lord Hervey; after telling him of her affection for him--it was a motherly affection, she was fifty-three,--and the pleasure his society gave her she added: “You and yours should have gone with me to Somerset House[38] and though I have neither so good an apartment there for you as you have here, nor an employment worth your taking, I should have lodged you as well as I could, and given you at least as much as you have now from the King.”