148

“ The mildness of Your Majesty’s government, united withthe exemplary probity and condescension of your private life,have left Your Majesty no deliberate enemies, no apprehensionof any danger from the malice of any of your subjects. In thelate calamitous event, Your Majesty will feel a comfort which isfully felt by all your people, from knowing that the hand ofviolence was not aimed against Your Majesty’s life by the spiritof public faction, or private discontent. The worst of kings, inevery age and country, have been encouraged by adulatory ad-dresses of flagitious men, to persevere in modes of governmentdestructive of the freedom and felicity of mankind. Sincerity andtruth have been in this way so often sacrificed on the altar ofprivate interest, as almost to render suspicious the professions ofhonest men, on the fairest occasions; yet on this occasion wefear not the being accused of flattery and insincerity, when weavow in the face of the world, that we believe there is not asingle person in Your Majesty’s dominions, who will not joinwith us in thanking God for this instance of his goodness towardsyou, and in praying that he will long continue to us the happiness,and the liberty, civil and religious, which we enjoy under YourMajesty’s government.”

I saw Lord Lansdown soon after the presenting this address,and he thanked me for it, saying that it had done him credit;but that Bishop Shipley’s address had done him disservice in acertain place. His Lordship looked upon himself as connectedwith the Bishop of St. Asaph and myself, and indeed he had aright to do so ; for he had made me a bishop, and he had askedfor the Archbishoprick of Canterbury for Shipley, on the death