In 1755 England and France were at issue touching their possessions in Canada. The dispute resulted in a war; and the war brought with it the temporary loss of the Electorate of Hanover to England, and much additional disgrace; which last was not wiped out till the great Pitt was at the helm, and by his spirited administration helped England to triumph in every quarter of the globe. Amid misfortune or victory, however, the King, as outwardly ‘impassible’ as ever, took also less active share in public events than he did of old; and he lived with the regularity of a man who has a regard for his health. Every night, at nine o’clock, he sat down to cards. The party generally consisted of his two daughters, the Princesses Amelia and Caroline, two or three of the late Queen’s ladies, and as many of the gentlemen of the household --whose presence there was a proof of the Sovereign’s personal esteem for them. Had none other been present, the party would have been one on which remark would not be called for. But at the same table with the children of good Queen Caroline was seated their father’s mistress, the naturalised German Baroness Walmoden--Countess of Yarmouth. George II. had no idea that the presence of such a woman was an outrage committed upon his own children. Every Saturday, in summer, he carried those ladies, but _without his daughters_, to Richmond. They went in coaches-and-six, in the middle of the day, with the heavy horse-guards kicking up the dust before them--dined, walked an hour in the garden, returned in the same dusty parade; and his Majesty fancied himself the most gallant and lively prince in Europe.[44]