bequeathed to him a court foul with all the vices of the
Restoration, a court swarming with sycophants, who were ready, on
the first turn of fortune, to abandon him as they had abandoned
his uncle. Here and there, lost in that ignoble crowd, was to be
found a man of true integrity and public spirit. Yet even such a
man could not long live in such society without much risk that
the strictness of his principles would be relaxed, and the
delicacy of his sense of right and wrong impaired. It was unjust
to blame a prince surrounded by flatterers and traitors for
wishing to keep near him four or five servants whom he knew by
proof to be faithful even to death.

Nor was this the only instance in which our ancestors were unjust
to him. They had expected that, as soon as so distinguished a
soldier and statesman was placed at the head of affairs, he would
give some signal proof, they scarcely knew what, of genius and
vigour. Unhappily, during the first months of his reign, almost
every thing went wrong. His subjects, bitterly disappointed,
threw the blame on him, and began to doubt whether he merited
that reputation which he had won at his first entrance into
public life, and which the splendid success of his last great
enterprise had raised to the highest point. Had they been in a
temper to judge fairly, they would have perceived that for the
maladministration of which they with good reason complained he
was not responsible. He could as yet work only with the machinery
which he had found; and the machinery which he had found was all
rust and rottenness. From the time of the Restoration to the time
of the Revolution, neglect and fraud had been almost constantly
impairing the efficiency of every department of the government.
Honours and public trusts, peerages, baronetcies, regiments,