| Citation |
MS-B.772.076
5 Nov 1772:1473,1474 (2/90)
From the Political Register. To Lord North.
My Lord,. Those who remark how very callous you and your
companions in administration, and your master are grown,
convinced that it is a hopeless attempt to endeavour to
rouse you to a sense of duty, of honour, or of shame, are
therefore of opinion, that, we ought to sit down quietly,
and let things take their course till some event unforeseen
and unprovided for striking you coward souls with surprise
and dismay, the reins of government shall fall of themselves
from your weak and trembling hands. What, say they, can
touch the hearts of men like these? All Europe heard with
indignation and contempt, that while the fate of his wife
and his friend was depending, the King of Denmark gave
himself up to an uninterrupted series of diversions. It was
coming from a masquerade that he signed the order to arrest
his Queen and his minister; it was going to an opera that he
signed the death warrant of Sturensee and Brandt; and our
pious monarch, so famous for social and domestic virtues,
what degree of sensibility did he shew on this occasion?
While the fortune, the rank, the life, the honour of his
sister were at stake, he too was remarkable to be more at
plays, at oratorios, and at operas than at any other time of
his life. . . [50 lines] The present ministry of France
hold their places on a precarious tenure: They depend on
the fluctuating influence which a common prostitute has over
a weak, an old, and a debauched Prince. Choiseul may yet
return, and your Lordship knows how much more trouble you
will have in managing the impetuous violence of a Chatolet
de Lomunt, than in soothing the placid indolence of the
dancing, feasting Guigne. . .
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