dissolute adventurer by an Edinburgh mob at the Grassmarket.

{69}

CHAPTER XXV.

FAMILY JARS.

[Sidenote: 1737--Unpopularity of George the Second]

"How is the wind now for the King?" "Like the nation--against him."
Such was the question put, and such the answer promptly given, by two
persons meeting in a London street during certain stormy days of
December, 1736. The King had been on a visit to his loved Hanover.
When the royal yachts were returning, some fierce tempests sprang up
and raged along both coasts; and the King's vessel was forced to return
to Helvoetsluis, in Holland, from which she had sailed. She had parted
company with some of the other vessels. The storms continued to rage,
and the King, who had been most reluctant to leave Hanover, was wild
with impatience to get away from Helvoetsluis. Having had to take
leave of Madame Walmoden, he was now anxious to get back to the Queen.
He sailed for Helvoetsluis while the tempest was still not wholly
allayed, and another tempest seemed likely to spring up. News
travelled slowly in those times, and there were successive intervals of
several days, during which the English Court and the English public did
not know whether George was safe in a port, or was drifting on a wreck,
or was lying at the bottom of the sea.

That was a trying time for the Queen and those who stood by her.
George the Second was just then very unpopular in London, and indeed
all over England. "The King's danger," Lord Hervey says, "did not in
the least soften the minds of the people towards him; a thousand
impertinent and treasonable reflections were thrown out against him
every day publicly in the streets--such as wishing him at the bottom of
the sea; that he had been {70} drowned instead of some of the poor
sailors that had been washed off the decks--and many other affectionate
_douceurs_ in the same style." A man went into an ale-house where
several soldiers were drinking; he addressed them "as brave English
boys," and called on them to drink "damnation to your master." The man
went on to argue that there was no reason why the English people should
not hate the King, and that the King had gone to Hanover only to spend
the money of England there, and to bring back his Hanoverian mistress.
There is not much in this of any particular importance; but there is
significance in what followed. The man was arrested, and the sergeant
who was with the soldiers when the invitat