Hunt, Henry, 1773-1835; Social reformers -- Great Britain -- Biography
All this time the old King was confined at Windsor Castle, in some
apartments which were padded six feet high; in these, blind and mad, he
was suffered to wander about, a melancholy and disgusting object. It is
confidently affirmed, however, that he had frequent intervals of reason,
in which he was perfectly sensible of his forlorn and wretched fate.
During one of these lucid intervals it is said that one of the domestics
about his person informed him of the abdication of Napoleon; upon which
he put himself in a great passion, and swore "_it was a lie_." This
wretched old man was reduced from the highest pinnacle of grandeur to
the most pitiable condition; none of his subjects were admitted to
see him for many years; even his children were excluded, except upon
particular occasions, and then they were admitted only in the presence
of certain individuals. The old Queen had the care of his person, and it
is currently reported that she governed his gracious Majesty (it being
of course necessary to do so) with considerable harshness.
When one reflects upon the bloody reign of George the Third, and calls
to mind the rivers of human gore that were shed during that reign; when
one looks back to the period of the American war, which was generally
understood to be a war of the King's, more than of his Ministers; when
one calls to recollection the commencement of the French war, which, it
has been asserted, was waged at his Majesty's particular instance, in
opposition to the private opinion of Mr. Pitt; when one looks back on
the numerous sanguinary penal statutes that were passed during this
King's reign, and the thousands of victims that fell a sacrifice to
them; when one contemplates the myriads upon myriads of brave Britons
whose lives were offered up as a sacrifice to these Moloch wars, it
may well and truly be called the UNFORTUNATE REIGN of King George the
Third--which reign was concluded by the King himself being locked up,
for many years, in his own castle, a solitary captive, suffering under
the complicated and melancholy visitation of _blindness_ and _madness_:
and when one thinks of all this, one may, without being very
superstitious, consider the catastrophe as an awful instance of the
Divine vengeance levelled at the ruler of a sinful nation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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