She was quick to encourage English inventions and enterprise. For instance: “On Monday Mr. Clay, the inventor of the machine watches in the Strand, had the honour of exhibiting to her Majesty at Kensington his surprising musical clock, which gave uncommon satisfaction to all the Royal Family present, at which time her Majesty, to encourage so great an artist, was pleased to order fifty guineas to be expended for numbers in the intended raffle, by which we hear Mr. Clay intends to dispose of this said beautiful and most complete piece of machinery.”[60] And again: “On Tuesday a most beautiful hat, curiously made of feathers in imitation of a fine Brussels lace, was shown to her Majesty, who, for the encouragement of ingenuity, being the first of the kind ever made in England, was so good as to purchase it, and afterwards presented it to the Princess of Wales.”[61] There was very little social legislation during Walpole’s tenure of power, the great Minister going on the principle of letting things alone; but a few useful reforms were passed from time to time, and in all of them the Queen took a warm interest. One was effected at the instance of the Duke of Argyll, who brought in a bill that all proceedings of the courts of justice should be conducted in English instead of Latin as heretofore. “Our prayers,” said the Duke of Argyll, “are in our native tongue, so that they are intelligible; and why should not the laws wherein our lives and properties are concerned be so, for the same reason?” The measure was carried, notwithstanding the fact that most of the lawyers strongly opposed the change; Lord Raymond, for instance, declared that if the bill were passed the law must likewise be translated into Welsh, since in Wales many understood no English. Another reform was the purging of the Charitable Corporation from gross abuses. This corporation had been formed for the relief of the industrious poor by lending them small sums of money at legal interest, but had drifted into malpractices and extortionate usury; penalties were now inflicted upon the malefactors, and the whole system was reformed. The Queen’s private charities were very numerous. She would never refuse a supplicant who sought her aid, in whatever rank of life he might be, and though her income was large, she spent all of it, chiefly upon others. She had no sense of the value of money, and with her to have was to spend, or to give away, not always very wisely perhaps, but always cheerfully. The journals of the period teem with notices of her liberality; but, even so, they did not represent a tithe of her charities, for she gave away much in secret, of which the public never knew. The following extracts from newspapers, taken almost at random, will serve to show how wide was her sympathy, and how generous her impulses:--