"In the consultation which settled the respective functions", Dr. Ray has stated, "Willis was to have charge of all the domestic and strictly moral management--in accordance, however, with such general views as had been agreed upon. The medical treatment was arranged in the morning consultations, and it was understood that Willis was to take no decisive measure, either medical or moral, not previously discussed and permitted. Pepys, Gisborne and Reynolds attended, in rotation, from four o'clock in the afternoon until eleven the next morning. Warren or Baker visited in the morning, saw the King, consulted with Willis and the physicians, who had remained over night, and agreed with them upon the bulletin for the day. Willis was soon joined by his son John, whose particular function seems not to have been very definitely settled. Willis professed to regard him as equal to himself in point of dignity and responsibility, but his colleagues considered him merely as an assistant to his father. Two surgeons and two apothecaries were also retained, each one, in turn, staying twenty-four hours in the palace. The personal service was rendered by three attendants whom Willis had procured from his own establishment, and the King's pages--one attendant and one page being constantly in his room."[257] [257] Dr. Ray: _The Insanity of King George III_. It would be out of place in this work to enter into the details of Willis's treatment, but it may be stated that for the mode of restraint used before he came on the scene, he employed one that, while exercising a more firm coercion, was not so teasing to the patient. It has been told how when the King, convalescent, was walking through a corridor at Kew with one of his equerries, he saw a straight-jacket lying in a chair, "You need not be afraid to look at it," he said to his companion, who, somewhat embarrassed, had averted his eyes, "Perhaps it is the best friend I ever had in my life." Willis did not, however, rely entirely upon coercion, as did most of the physicians of that day in cases of insanity; but endeavoured by kindness to establish a hold upon the King. "Willis has, I understand, already acquired a complete ascendency over him," William Grenville wrote a couple of days after the mad-doctor took charge, "which is the point for which he is particularly famous."[258] Sheridan, too, remarked, in one of his speeches that Willis professed to have the gift of seeing the heart by looking at the countenance, and, with a touch of delicious humour, added, looking at Pitt, that this simple statement seemed to alarm the right honourable gentleman. [258] Duke of Buckingham: _Court and Cabinets of George III_. CHAPTER XXII THE KING'S RECOVERY