ad in the
presence of the King, the Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, Lord
Liverpool, the Duke of York, Adair, the King's solicitor (Spyer
his name), and one or two others whom he mentioned. Buckingham
House, which had been left to the Duke of Clarence, had been
twice sold; the Queen and the Duke of Kent were dead; the
only legatee, therefore, was the Duke of York. Now arose a
difficulty--whether the property of the late King demised to the
King or to the Crown. The Chancellor said that the only person
who had anything to say to the will was the Duke of York; but
the Duke and the King differed with regard to the right of
inheritance, and the Duke, wishing to avoid any dispute or
discussion on the subject, begged to wash his hands of the whole
matter. The King conceives that the whole of the late King's
property devolves upon him personally, and not upon the Crown,
and he has consequently appropriated to himself the whole of the
money and jewels. The money did not amount to more than L120,000.
So touchy is he about pecuniary matters that his Ministers have
never dared to remonstrate with him, nor to tell him that he has
no right so to act. The consequence is that he has spent the
money, and has taken to himself the jewels as his own private
property. The Duke thinks that he has no right thus to appropriate
their father's property, but that it belongs to the Crown. The
King has acted in a like manner with regard to the Queen's
[Charlotte's] jewels. She possessed a great quantity, some of
which had been given her by the late King on her marriage, and
the rest she had received in presents at different times. Those
which the late King had given her she conceived to belong to the
Crown, and left them back to the present King; the rest she left
to her daughters. The King has also appropriated the Queen's
[Caroline's] jewels to himself, and conceives that they are his
undoubted private property. The Duke thinks that the Ministers
ought to have taken the opportunity of the coronation, when a new
crown was to be provided, to state to him the truth with regard
to the jewels, and to suggest that they should be converted to
that purpose. This, however, they dared not do, and so the matter
remains. The King had even a design of selling the library
collected by the late King, but this he was obliged to abandon,
for the Ministers and the Royal Family must have interfered to
oppose so scandalous a transaction. It was therefore presented to