JET. 42.] HER RETURN. 355 



Upon the King's death she had become Queen, and 

 the difficulty became considerable of her position at 

 foreign courts, which would have been easy while 

 only Princess of Wales; and then, upon becoming 

 Queen, she might have retained the title under which 

 she had been known before. It must be allowed that 

 the Kegent and his ministers were placed in a great 

 embarrassment by some of the Opposition (Tierney 

 especially) calling for inquiry into the reports circu- 

 lated, and declaring that without it they could not 

 vote the allowance for life, her then income being 

 limited to the time she was Princess of Wales. There 

 was also this other difficulty, that the acceptance 

 of my proposition could not occasion her remaining 

 abroad without an express provision to that effect in 

 the grant. Nevertheless, if the annuity had been 

 granted, the omission in the bill of 1814 being sup- 

 plied, the Prince might have trusted to her complying 

 with the understood conditions, and her coming home 

 would have been avoided, which was the thing both 

 parties desired. Instead of that, she suddenly found 

 herself Queen, without any arrangement whatever, 

 and under no condition. She was at Geneva, and her 

 best friends strongly recommended her to remain 

 there until some arrangement could be made. But 

 she received letters from less discreet parties in Eng- 

 land, urging her to set out ; and she conceived that if 

 she came near England she could more easily negoti- 

 ate. I was quite convinced that if she once set out 

 she never would stop short. The Milan proceedings 

 were the general topic of conversation, and the feeling 

 which had been so strong in her favour before she left 

 England, had been revived in consequence of those 



