APPENDIX. 395 



who had lost his confidence. The elections received his full ap- 

 probation and signature after which he was graciously pleased to 

 hold me in his confidence for three hours and a half. Thus armed 

 with his signature to my election, and his full confidence, as well 

 as his signature to the election of Mr. Fuseli as Keeper of the 

 Royal Academy, whom the same party had opposed by placing 

 Mr. Rigouad against him, with a declaration that his Majesty 

 would have no one for Keeper but Mr. Rigouad, and would not 

 sanction any other person ; but in this their calculations were as 

 false as in that of mine, as the King highly approved the choice 

 the Academy had made in selecting Mr. Fuseli to the place of 

 Keeper. 



A few days after I returned from Windsor, I ordered the Sec- 

 retary to summon a general assembly, to receive his Majesty's 

 decisions on the elections of President and Keeper of the Royal 

 Academy : this ambiguous word brought the whole parties to 

 know what had been his Majesty's will. 



I opened the business to the general assembly by a short ac- 

 count of the gracious manner in which I had been received by the 

 King, both as President and as Mr. West, and then laid the 

 papers of the elections, with the royal signatures to them, on the 

 table. I must confess I never saw an opposition so crushed, or a 

 majority act with more becoming moderation and dignity, on any 

 occasion, than on that ; and observing a disposition in some of 

 the members to move for censure being made on some of the 

 most active in the opposition, I declaimed against any such acts ; 

 that it was my wish not a minute should be entered on our books ; 

 that an event so disgraceful should not be recorded : my triumph, 

 and the triumph of my friends, was the King's signatures on the 

 table. Let those who had informed the general assembly that I 

 had lost the King's confidence retire unnoticed and leave them 

 to their own thoughts ; and I then recommended the prosperity 

 of the arts and the Institution, and that if any other person's be- 

 ing in the Chair would contribute more to their prosperity, I 

 would wait on his Majesty to relinquish it to that person, and 

 give him and the arts my support as long as I was able. Mr. 

 Farrington, Mr. Lawrence, Flaxman, Nollikins, Hoppenor, Shee, 

 Banks, and all the professional strength of the Academy, spoke 

 on the occasion, and handsomely touched on my being one of the 

 four, and the only surviving one, that founded the Academy, 

 under his present Majesty ; and took an extended view of my 



