The wind was fair, and all London was in expectation, but without eagerness, of seeing once more their _gaillard_ of a King, with his grave look, among them. But the wind veered, and a hurricane blew from the west with such violence that every one concluded, if the King had embarked, he must necessarily have gone down, and the royal convoy of ships perished with him. Bets were laid upon the event, and speculation was busy in every corner. The excitement was naturally great, for the country had never been in such uncertainty about their monarch. Wagers increased. Walpole began to discuss the prospects of the royal family, the probable conduct of the possible new sovereign, the little regard he would have for his mother, the faithless guardian he would be over his brother and sisters, and the bully and dupe he would prove, by turns, of all with whom he came in contact. Lord Hervey and Queen Caroline discussed the same delicate question; and the latter, fancying that her son already assumed, in public and in her presence, the swagger of a new greatness, and that he was bidding for popularity, would not listen to Lord Hervey’s assurances that she would be able to rule him as easily as she had done his father. She ridiculed his conduct, called him fool and ass, and averred that while the thought of some things he did ‘made her feel sick,’ the idea of the _popularity_ of Fritz made her ‘vomit.’ As hour was added to hour, amid all this speculation and trouble, and ‘still Cæsar came not,’ reports of loss of life at sea became rife. At Harwich, guns had been heard at night booming over the waters; people had come to the conclusion that they were guns of distress fired from the royal fleet--the funeral dirge of itself and the monarch. Communication of this gratifying conclusion was made to Caroline. Prince Frederick kindly prepared her for the worst; Lord Hervey added the expression of his fears that that worst was not very far off; and the Princess Caroline began meditating upon the hatred of her brother ‘for mamma,’ and the little chance there would be of her obtaining a liberal provision from the new king. The Queen was more concerned than she chose to acknowledge; but when gloomy uncertainty was at its highest, a courier, whose life had been risked, with those of the ship’s crew with whom he came over, in order to inform Caroline that her consort had not risked his own, was flung ashore ‘miraculously’ at Yarmouth; whence hastening to St. James’s, he relieved all apprehensions and crushed all expiring hopes, by the announcement that his Majesty had never embarked at all, and was still at Helvoetsluys, awaiting fine weather and favouring gales.