King George had not been dead three days before everybody discovered that he was no loss, and King William a great gain. Certainly nobody ever was less regretted than the late King, and the breath was hardly out of his body before the press burst forth in full cry against him, and raked up all his vices, follies, and misdeeds, which were numerous and glaring enough. The new King began very well. Everybody expected he would keep the Ministers in office, but he threw himself into the arms of the Duke of Wellington with the strongest expressions of confidence and esteem. He proposed to all the Household, as well as to the members of Government, to keep their places, which they all did except Lord Conyngham and the Duke of Montrose. He soon after, however, dismissed most of the equerries, that he might fill their places with the members of his own family. Of course such a King wanted not due praise, and plenty of anecdotes were raked up of his former generosities and kindnesses. His first speech to the Council was well enough given, but his burlesque character began even then to show itself. Nobody expected from him much real grief, and he does not seem to know how to act it consistently; he spoke of his brother with all the semblance of feeling, and in a tone of voice properly softened and subdued, but just afterwards, when they gave him the pen to sign the declaration, he said, in his usual tone, 'This is a damned bad pen you have given me.' My worthy colleague Mr. James Buller began to swear Privy Councillors in the name of 'King George IV.--William, I mean,' to the great diversion of the Council. A few days after my return I was sworn in, all the Ministers and some others being present. His Majesty presided very decently, and looked like a respectable old admiral. The Duke [of Wellington] told me he was delighted with him--'If I had been able to deal with my late master as I do with my present, I should have got on much better'--that he was so reasonable and tractable, and that he had done more business with him in ten minutes than with the other in as many days. I met George Fitzclarence, afterwards Earl of Munster,[1] the same day, and repeated what the Duke said, and he told me how delighted his father was with the Duke, his entire confidence in him, and that the Duke might as entirely depend upon the King; that he had told his Majesty, when he was at Paris, that Polignac and the Duke of Orleans had both asked him whether the Duke of Clarence, when he became King, would keep the Duke of Wellington as his Minister, and the King said, 'What did you reply?' 'I replied that you certainly would; did not I do right?' 'Certainly, you did quite right.'