d
of her, and the king, who had forfeited the respect of the middle and
upper classes, was less hated by the lower classes after her death.

[Pageheading: _GEORGE IV. IN IRELAND._]

The personal character and opinions of George IV. seem to have
influenced politics less during the early years of his reign than during
his long regency. His coronation was celebrated with unprecedented
magnificence, and amidst external demonstrations of loyalty, hard to
reconcile with the unbounded enthusiasm which the queen had so lately
inspired. Soon afterwards, he sailed in his yacht from Portsmouth on a
voyage to Ireland, but put into Holyhead and there awaited news of the
queen's expected death. This reached him at last, and probably impressed
him, no less than his ministers, as "the greatest of all possible
deliverances, both to his majesty and the country".[68] He proceeded to
Dublin in one of the earliest steam-packets, and secluded himself until
"the corpse of his wife was supposed to have left England".[69] He then
plunged into a round of festivities, and pleased all classes of Irishmen
by his affable and condescending manners. He was, indeed, the first
sovereign of England who had appeared in Ireland on a mission of peace.
John William Ward, afterwards fourth Viscount Dudley in his letters,
describes him as having behaved like a popular candidate on an
electioneering trip, and surmises that "if the day before he left
Ireland, he had stood for Dublin, he might have turned out Shaw or
Grattan ".[70] Certain it is that his visit to Ireland was regarded as
an important political event. The same kind of success attended his
visit to Scotland in August of the following year, 1822. Thenceforth, he
scarcely figures in political life until the resignation of Lord
Liverpool in 1827, and though he consented with reluctance to Canning's
tenure of the foreign office, he did not attempt to interfere with the
change in foreign policy consequent upon it. He was, in fact, sinking
more and more into an apathetic voluptuary; but he could rouse himself,
and exhibit some proofs of ability, under the impulse of his brothers,
the honest Duke of York and the arch-intriguer, the Duke of Cumberland.

The cry for retrenchment, now taken up by the country gentlemen, and not
unmingled with suggestions for a partial repudiation of the national
debt, compelled the government to adopt a policy of strict economy.
Accordingly, in 1822, Vansittart introduced a