262 THE BRIGHTON ROAD 



yellow barouche by Townsend, the Bow Street runner, 

 who was present to protect the Prince from insult or 

 robbery at the hands of the multitude. " It was a 

 position," says my authority, " which gave His Royal 

 Highness an opportunity to practise upon his guardian 

 a somewhat unpleasant joke. Turning suddenly to 

 Townsend, just at the termination of a race, he 

 exclaimed, ' By Jove, Townsend, I've been robbed ; 

 I had with me some damson tarts, but they are now 

 gone.' ' Gone ! ' said Townsend, rising ; ' impossible ! ' 

 4 Yes,' rejoined the Prince, ' and you are the purloiner,' 

 at the same time taking from the seat whereon the 

 officer had been sitting the crushed crust of the asserted 

 missing tarts, and adding, ' This is a sad blot upon your 

 reputation as a vigilant officer.' ' Rather say, your 

 Royal Highness, a sad stain upon my escutcheon,' 

 added Townsend, raising the gilt-buttoned tails of his 

 blue coat and exhibiting the fruit-stained seat of his 

 nankeen inexpressibles." 



XXXV 



But it was not this practical- joking Prince who first 

 discovered Brighton. It would never have attained 

 its great vogue without him, but it would have been 

 the health resort of a certain circle of fashion — an 

 inferior Bath, in fact. To Dr. Richard Russell — the 

 name sometimes spelt with one " 1 " — who visited the 

 little village of Brighthelmstone in 1750, belongs the 

 credit of discovering the place to an ailing fashionable 

 world. He died in 1759, long ere the sun of ro}^al 

 splendour first rose upon the fishing- village ; but even 

 before the Prince of Wales first visited Brighthelmstone 

 in 1782, it had attained a certain popularity, as the 

 " Brighthelmstone Guide " of July, 1777, attests, in 

 these halting verses : 



