DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

a) a squib; they are firing squibs.’ Perhaps as striking an instance of his courage is found in his conduct when attacked by the mob, and his carriage smashed with stones, during the riots of 1795. A shot passed through the window without affecting his coolness, and though repeatedly struck with stones, he never winced. He only took one of the stones out of his cuff and presented it to Lord Onslow, as a mark of the ‘ civilities’ they had received that day. In moments of national danger, when a foreign invasion was feared on the part of France, the King was prepared to place himself at the head of his army for the defence of the country, and it was no idle boast on his part that he would maintain the reputation for courage won by his ancestors on the field of battle. Happy as the King was in his conjugal life, and in the affection of his daughters and sisters, the conduct of some of his brothers, and also even of more than one of his sons, in their earlier years, was of a kind to give him the greatest offence; although to the nation their transgressions only served as a foil to set off his own personal qualities. Marriages below their station were contracted by some of his brothers, to the King’s intense annoyance, and led to the passage of the Royal Marriage Act, in consequence of which no Royal marriage is now valid without the sanction of the Sovereign. In days when statesmen, eminent politicians, and