"DEAR SIR--This evening I received your letter from Deal, and in answer to it, I beg to observe, that I have made both a public and private application to the king, that I may be permitted to hoist my flag, and relieve Lord Collingwood in the command of his majesty's fleet in the Mediterranean. There cannot be any secrecy in this thing; because, before more than fifty brother officers, I declared my resolution at Portsmouth. Until I have the order to hoist my flag, I cannot be certain; but I am very much inclined to think eventually that I shall have the honour and the happiness of commanding those fine fellows whom I saw in the spring in the Downs, and lately at Portsmouth. My short stay at Admiral Campbell's had impressed me with very favourable ideas of the improved state of the navy; but my residence at Portsmouth has afforded me ample opportunity of examining, and consequently of having a perfect judgment of the high and correct discipline now established in the king's service. * * * I could not resist what I felt; and reasons, both public and private, urged me to make the offer I have already mentioned, and I hope I shall be gratified.--I remain, dear sir, yours, &c. "WILLIAM." These zealous sentiments are, however, further corroborated by a recent declaration of the duke to the Goldsmiths' Company, on their presenting him with the freedom of their society. Having sketched the principal circumstances which appertain to what may be termed the _public career_ of his royal highness, it is our less pleasant, though equally important, duty, to notice his _domestic life_; for obvious reasons our details will be less perfect. It is a portion of the duke's life which cannot be entirely passed over in silence, since it must be conceded, that much of his unpopularity may be traced to this source. Neither the court nor the people of England are so ascetic as not to extenuate the indiscretions of royalty; but this charitable estimate of misgivings does not extend to approbation of any culpable dereliction of social and moral duties. The fact of his royal highness having a large family, by a lady now no more, is too well known to be concealed; but the odium attached to his royal highness for his participation in a certain scene of license and poverty, has doubtless been over-rated; but his proportion must be left for the biographer of a future age to settle; and we sincerely hope that, to quote a contemporary, "when the time arrives that the historian shall feel himself at liberty to enter into details, and sift matters to the bottom, his royal highness will come out of the investigation, (not without some blame, for which of us is faultless, but) with a character unsullied _even in this respect_, and in all other respects irreproachable." Mankind are, more or less, the children of error; but their propensity to exaggerate human frailty