June 16th, 1820
The speech which Canning made on the occasion of the King’s message has been violently attacked by all parties, and is said to have given as great dissatisfaction to the Queen as to the King. It is not easy to discover what the Queen could have objected to in the speech, for it was highly favourable and flattering to her. It was generally supposed last Sunday that he would resign in the course of the week, and bets were laid that he would not be in office next Sunday. On Wednesday he had an audience of the King at the levee, which lasted fifty-two minutes by Yarmouth’s watch; nobody knows what passed between them. Lord Fitzwilliam and Lord Sefton have refused to act as negotiators for the Queen.
There was some indiscipline manifested in a battalion of the 3rd Guards the day before yesterday; they were dissatisfied at the severity of their duty and at some allowances that had been taken from them, and on coming off guard they refused to give up their ball cartridges. They were ordered off to Plymouth, and marched at four yesterday morning. Many people went from the ball at Devonshire House to see them march away. Plymouth was afterwards changed for Portsmouth in consequence of their good behaviour on the route. Worcester41 met many of them drunk at Brentford, crying out, ‘God save Queen Caroline!’ There was some disturbance last night in consequence of the mob assembling round the King’s mews, where the rest of the battalion that had marched to Portsmouth still remained.
Notes
41 [The Marquis of Worcester, afterwards seventh Duke of Beaufort]