‘A few days ago the King and Queen dined with the Princess of Wales, who is unwell. The after-dinner conversation between the august personages became so animated, that the servants in the ante-room overheard the discussions which were being conducted with warmth far from royal. Although the King enjoys an income of 120,000_l._ sterling, I know from Temple, who has learnt it from his brother, lately paymaster at the Treasury, who has verified the fact, that his personal debts, contracted since he ascended the throne, amount to upwards of half a million sterling, and this in consequence of having followed the advice of Lord Bute, and distributed sums of money for the sake of securing votes in Parliament and establishing royal authority, all of which has turned out very amiss. These debts, the wish to bribe, as well as the economical education given him by the Princess of Wales, oblige him to live in London and at Richmond with a niggardliness unworthy of royalty. He never has any kind of supplies, but sends for six bottles of wine at a time, and for one bottle of rum with which to brew punch, so that he is the laughing-stock of all the city dealers, who are great feeders, heavy drinkers, and whose jokes are as light as their roast-beef. Numerous pamphlets and prints have been published on the subject, and the matter has been turned into jest on the stage. In his almost daily drives between London and Richmond, the King takes for his body-guard a detachment of five-and-twenty light horse of the _élite_ or of the _bourgeois_; it is only a few days since a whole detachment of these supposed guards was placed under arrest for playing at highway robbery, pistol in hand.