These compose the inventory of prosperous circumstances,
whether they regard a Prince or a subject; their enjoyments
differing only in the scale upon which they are formed.
Suppose then we were to ask, whether the King has been richer than
his predecessors in accumulated wealth, since the establishment of
the plan of Favouritism? I believe it will be found that the
picture of royal indigence which our Court has presented until this
year, has been truly humiliating. Nor has it been relieved from
this unseemly distress, but by means which have hazarded the
affection of the people, and shaken their confidence in Parliament.
If the public treasures had been exhausted in magnificence and
splendour, this distress would have been accounted for, and in some
measure justified. Nothing would be more unworthy of this nation,
than with a mean and mechanical rule, to mete out the splendour of
the Crown. Indeed, I have found very few persons disposed to so
ungenerous a procedure. But the generality of people, it must be
confessed, do feel a good deal mortified, when they compare the
wants of the Court with its expenses. They do not behold the cause
of this distress in any part of the apparatus of Royal magnificence.
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