"Your Excellency's, your Royal Highnesses, my Lords, Ladies, and
Gentlemen,--In the name of the Princess of Wales and myself, I
beg to tender you my warmest thanks for the very kind and
flattering manner in which this toast has been proposed, and for
the cordial way in which it has been received by the company
present here this evening. Under any circumstances I should feel
it a great honour to have my health proposed by his Excellency
the Lord-Lieutenant, but to-night the circumstances under which
it has been proposed are peculiar, for I appear here as a Knight
of the Illustrious Order of St. Patrick. I can assure you that
I feel very proud to wear this evening for the first time the
star and riband of this illustrious Order; and I am very
grateful to Her Majesty the Queen for having given it to me. On
former occasions I have received the Orders of Great Britain
from Her Majesty's own hands; and, although I cannot but regret
that on this occasion she has not been able to give this Order
to me herself, still it was the Queen's wish that I should
receive it on Irish soil, from the hands of her representative,
the Lord-Lieutenant.

"This Order was first founded, now more than 80 years ago, by my
great-grandfather, King George III., and was instituted by him
as a mark of his goodwill and friendship towards this country,
and it is my hope that, as his great-grandson, having to-day
received it on Irish soil, I may also be instrumental in
evincing in this country, in the name of my Sovereign and my
mother, her goodwill and friendship towards Ireland. I feel also
proud that I have been not only invested with the insignia of
this Order, but installed in the magnificent Cathedral of St.
Patrick, for the restoration of which we are indebted to the
great munificence of a private gentleman of Ireland, whose name
is so well known that I need not mention it to you, more
particularly as I have the pleasure of seeing him at this table.

"My Lords and Gentlemen, I am very glad to have this opportunity
of stating to you, on behalf of the Princess and myself, how
deeply gratified we are by the reception which has been accorded
to us in this country, not only, as the Lord-Lieutenant has
observed, by the higher classes, but by the sons of the soil as
well. After the sad times of the past ye