“Your Majesty, we must send a Commission to treat with the Colonists on the spot, when we have turned the men of substance to a desire for peace. We must send a skilled diplomat among the Colonists, who will keep us informed as to what the Colonists will do for peace if we were to grant all their demands except independence. This undertaking will be dangerous and delicate. Our agent must gain the confidence of the leaders within the rebel lines. He must be one who can go without the least suspicion. If he succeeds we must reward him by making him Viceroy (an echo of the conspirators in the ‘Old Cock’ Tavern) and by granting him a peerage and a landed estate befitting his dignity of office.” “Agreed, Mr. Prince, but whom can you recommend for such delicate commissions?” asked the King, as he grew enthusiastic over the plot, for George III loved intrigue. “Ah!” exclaimed “the arbiter of the power of the purse” (the one great security of the rights of Englishmen), as he bowed very low to the monarch: “May it please your Majesty to entrust your humble servant with so much privilege as to name the one who is to save your Colonies. There is no one that will respect your royal will with as much diligence as your faithful diplomat, Roderick Barclugh. Then for the commissioner to conclude your terms of peace, I would humbly beg that you entrust such matters of importance to your Lord Carlisle.” “Excellent! Excellent! Sir,” exclaimed the King, “but where are these gentlemen? Command them into my presence. My plans shall be carried out at once. All that was needed was to have a suggestion, for these have always been my ideas, I now stand firmly on this idea since you have seconded me; I have always stood for it; England shall not lose her Colonies. I am not to be outdone by the French. Where are these gentlemen, sir?” asked the subtle monarch of the President of the Bank of England. Mr. Prince bowed and left the King, for he knew his character so well that there was nothing more for him to do. He had carried his plans, although His Majesty had finally claimed them as his own. However, when the King asked for Roderick Barclugh and Lord Carlisle, these worthy gentlemen were close at hand (not by accident) but by means of the finesse of the worthy George Selwyn, who was a courtier of no mean order. He had his pawns ready for the next move on the checker-board. The King had now grown more self-conceited, and when these worthy gentlemen came into his private audience and both approached and knelt in obeisance to his commands (for Mr. Prince had given the cue of what was to happen when he passed out), the King arose and said: