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ment being thus removed, William smiled at the mistake, and embraced him with joy.

My account of WILLIAM the Third, Prince of Orange, shall be concluded in the words of Mr. W. Belsham, extracted from his History of Great Britain.

"On Saturday, February 21, 1702, WILLIAM rode as usual from Kensington to Hampton Court, and passing through the park his horse suddenly plunging fell on very level ground, and the King's collar-bone was fractured with the violence of the shock. He was immediately carried to Hampton Court, where the fracture was reduced by Tonjat, his first surgeon; and he thought himself in the evening well enough to be removed to Kensington. No dangerous symptoms appeared for some days, and his active and ardent mind was still employed on the great objects he had in view. On Wednesday, March 3, THE KING was seized with a shivering fit, which as usual was followed by a fever; and these fits returning with increasing violence every day, on the sixth his case was esteemed very dangerous. One the same day the Earl of Albermarle arrived from Holland, and being immediately admitted to the King's presence, gave such an account of affairs on the Continent as must have afforded him the highest satisfaction, had he been capable of attending to any temporal concerns. But he received the intelligence without any visible emotion, and soon afterwards said in French-I draw towards my end!

"He was attended during the latter period of his

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illness by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Burnet, Bishop of Sarum. His reason and all his senses were entire until the last minute. On Sunday morning he desired the sacrament, after which several of the Lords of Council and other Nobles attending were called in, to whom the King laboured to speak with cheerfulness. When Lord Auverquerque appeared, he raised his voice and thanked him for his long and faithful services. He took an affectionate leave of the Duke of Ormond and others, and delivered to the Earl of Albermarle the keys of his escrutoire. Breathing with great difficulty, he asked his first physician, Dr. Bidloo, How long this could last?' to which he answered, Perhaps an hour-but the King of fering his pulse, said, I do not die yet?' After a little interval, he inquired for the Earl of Portland, but before he came his voice totally failed, though his lips were seen to move; and taking him by the hand he carried it to his heart with much apparent tenderness. Throughout his illness no symptoms of weakness appeared which might sully the tenor of his former life. His firm and steady mind raised him far above the ignoble terrors of those who vainly fear inevitable things.' The conflict between life and death continued till the morning, when the commendatory prayer was said for him; as it ended, the King, who had been supported all night in his bed, expired in the arms of one of the pages, March 8, 1702, after a reign of thirteen years, one month, and in the fifty-second year of his age. On his left arm

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was found a ribband, to which was fastened a ring, enclosing a lock of the late Queen Mary's hair; a proof of the tender regard he entertained for her memory!

"Thus lived and died William the Third, King of Great Britain, and Stadtholder of Holland, a monarch on whose great actions and illustrious character history delights to dwell. In his person he was not above the middle size, pale, thin, and valetudinary. He had a Roman nose, bright and eager eyes, a large front, and a countenance composed to gravity and authority. All his senses were critical and exquisite. His words came from him with care and deliberation; and his manners, excepting to his intimate friends, were cold and reserved. He spoke Dutch, French, English, and German, equally well; and he understood Latin, Spanish, and Italian. His memory was exact and tenacious; and he was a profound observer of men and things. He perfectly underderstood, and possessed a most extensive influence over, the political concerns and interests of Europe. Though far above vanity and flattery, he was pertinacious in his opinions, and, from a clear perception or persuasion of their rectitude, was too impatient of censure or control. He attained not to the praise of habitual generosity, from his frequent and apparently capricious deviations into the extremes of profusion and parsimony. His love of secrecy was perhaps too nearly allied to dissimulation and suspicion; and his fidelity in friendship, to partiality and prejudice. Though

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resentful and irritable by nature, he harboured no malice, and disdained the meanness of revenge. He believed firmly in the truth of Religion, and entertained a high sense of its importance. But his tolerant spirit, and his indifference to the forms of Church government, made him very obnoxious to the great body of the clergy. He appeared born for the purpose of opposing tyranny, persecution, and oppression; and for the space of thirty years it is not too much to affirm that he sustained the greatest and most truly glorious character of any Prince whose name is recorded in history. In his days, and by his means, the first firm and solid foundations were laid of all that is most valuable in civil society. Every vindication of the natural and unalienable rights of mankind was, till he ascended the throne of Great Britain, penal and criminal. To him we owe the assertion and final establishment of our constitutional privileges. To him the intellectual world is indebted for the fullest freedom of discussion, and the unrestrained avowal of their sentiments upon subjects of the highest magnitude and importance. To sum up all, his character was distinguished by virtues rarely found amongst Princes, moderation, integrity, simplicity, beneficence, magnanimity. Time, which has cast a veil over his imperfections, has added lustre to his many great and admirable qualities. His political views were in the highest degree laudable and upright. He had true ideas of the nature and ends of government, and the beneficial effects of his noble and heroic exertions will probably de

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scend to the latest generations, rendering his name justly dear to the friends of civil and religious liberty, and his memory ever GLORIOUS and IMMORTAL!"

At present TORBAY is a rendezvous for our fleets, and its little village Brixham (where it is said the very stone on which WILLIAM first stepped ashore is still preserved) can boast of many vessels which trade in its fishery.

The celebrated John Wilkes, in his Letters, remarks" We at last made Brixham quay, in Torbay, the place where King William landed. I was ready to fall on my knees on the sacred spot, and could scarcely leave the holy steps on which he landed, to rescue a wretched people from sla very and the Stuarts. I was provoked to find no pyramid, obelisk, nor the least public memorial on such a spot; but I hope the memory of that event is engraved on the hearts of the people, who seem to me in that part of Devonshire very staunch to the cause of liberty!"

You will not, my good friend, censure me for this digression. Could I have contemplated, though at some distance, this famous spot, which, in my eye, at once formed a spectacle of picturesque beauty and national glory, without such feelingsyou might have accused me of a want of sensibility. An indifference to the events of our own history, particularly to those in which the welfare and happiness of our fellow-creatures were involved, is not enjoined upon us either by the dictates of reason or by the precepts of revelation. "To abstract the

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