ce the
interests of the country by keeping him; it may be disagreeable to
dismiss him, but he must do it. Hay told me that for the many
years he had been in office he had never met with any public
officer so totally inefficient as he, not even Warrender at the
Admiralty Board.

[2] [Sir George Murray was Secretary of State for the
Colonial Department.]

In the meantime the King has had his levee, which was crowded
beyond all precedent. He was very civil to the people, particularly
to Sefton, who had quarrelled with the late King.

[Page Head: THE KING GOES DOWN TO PARLIAMENT.]

Yesterday he went to the House of Lords, and was admirably
received. I can fancy nothing like his delight at finding himself
in the state coach surrounded by all his pomp. He delivered the
Speech very well, they say, for I did not go to hear him. He did
not wear the crown, which was carried by Lord Hastings. Etiquette
is a thing he cannot comprehend. He wanted to take the King of
Wuertemberg with him in his coach, till he was told it was out of
the question. In his private carriage he continues to sit
backwards, and when he goes with men makes one sit by him and not
opposite to him. Yesterday, after the House of Lords, he drove
all over the town in an open caleche with the Queen, Princess
Augusta, and the King of Wuertemberg, and coming home he set down
the King (_dropped him_, as he calls it) at Grillon's Hotel. The
King of England dropping another king at a tavern! It is
impossible not to be struck with his extreme good-nature and
simplicity, which he cannot or will not exchange for the dignity
of his new situation and the trammels of etiquette; but he ought
to be made to understand that his simplicity degenerates into
vulgarity, and that without departing from his natural urbanity
he may conduct himself so as not to lower the character with
which he is invested, and which belongs not to him, but to the
country.

At his dinner at St. James's the other day more people were
invited than there was room for, and some half-dozen were forced
to sit at a side table. He said to Lord Brownlow, 'Well, when you
are flooded (he thinks Lincolnshire is all fen) you will come to
us at Windsor.' To the Freemasons he was rather good. The Duke of
Sussex wanted him to receive their address in a solemn audience,
which he refused, and when they did come he said, 'Gentlemen, if
my love for you equalled my ignorance of everything concerning