London took the lead, and in their address said, "Your faithful citizens lately beheld with infinite concern the progress of a measure which equally tended to encroach on the right of your majesty's crown; to annihilate the chartered rights of the East India Company; and to raise a new power unknown to this free government, and highly inimical to its safety. As this dangerous measure was warmly supported by your majesty's late ministers, we heartily rejoice in their dismissal, and humbly thank your majesty for exerting your prerogative in a manner so salutary and constitutional."

INDEPENDANCE OF AMERICA.

The separation of a whole people from a crown to which they had for ages borne allegiance, is no ordi. nary event; and next to it in singularity and importance, we may rank the appearance of an ambassador in the name of that people, as an independant state, at the court of the monarch they formerly owned for their sovereign. Mr. Adams, who was the first ambassador from the United States to Great Britain, has given, in a letter to Mr. Jay, the following interesting account of his first audience of his majesty, George the Third.

Bath Hotel, Westminster, June 9, 1785.

DEAR SIR,--During my interview with the Marquess of Carmarthen, he told me that it was customary for every foreign minister, at his first presentation to the king, to make his majesty some compliments conformable to the spirit of his credentials; and when Sir Clement Cottrel Dormer, the master of the ceremonies,

came to inform me that he should accompany me to the secretary of state, and to court, he said that every foreign minister whom he had attended to the queen, had always made an harangue to her majesty; and he understood, though he had not been present, that they always harangued the king. On Tuesday evening the Baron de Lynden (Dutch Ambassador) called upon me, and said he came from the Baron de Nelkin (Sweedish Envoy), and had been conversing upon the situation I was in; and they agreed in opinion that it was indispensable that I should make a speech, and that it should be as complimentary as possible. All this was parallel to the advice lately given by the Count de Vergennes to Mr. Jefferson. So that finding that it was a custom established at both these great courts, and that this court and the foreign ministers expected it, I thought I could not avoid it, although my first thought and inclination had been to deliver my credentials silently, and retire. At one, on Wednesday the 1st of June, the master of the ceremonies called at my house, and went with me to the Secretary of State's office, in Cleveland Row, where the Marquess of Carmarthen received me, and introduced me to Mr. Frazier, his under secretary, who had been, as his lordship said, uninterruptedly in that office, through all the changes in administration, for thirty years, having first been appointed by the Earl of Holderness. After a short conversation upon the subject of importing my effects from Holland and France, free of duty, which Mr. Frazier himself introduced, Lord Carmarthen invited me to go with him in his coach to court. When we arrived in the anti-chamber, the Eil de Bœuf of St. James, the master of the ceremonies, met me, and

attended me while the secretary of state went to take the commands of the king. While I stood in this place, where it seems all ministers of state, bishops, and all other sorts of courtiers, wait, as well as the next room, which is the king's bed-chamber, you may well suppose that I was the focus of all eyes. I was relieved, however, from the embarrassment of it, by the Swedish and Dutch ministers, who came to me, and entertained me in a very agreeable conversation during the whole time. Some other gentlemen whom I had seen before, came to make their compliments too; until the Marquess of Carmarthen returned, and desired me to go with him to his majesty! I went with his lordship through the levee room into the king's closet; the door was shut, and I was left with his majesty and the secretary of state alone. I made the three reverences; one at the door, another about half way, and the third before the presence, according to the usage established at this and all the northen Courts of Europe, and then addressed myself to his majesty in the following words:

"Sir-The United States of America have appointed me their minister plenipotentiary to your majesty, and have directed me to deliver to your majesty this letter, which contains the evidence of it. It is in obedience to their express commands, that I have the honour to assure your majesty of their unanimous disposition and desire to cultivate the most friendly and liberal intercourse between your majesty's subjects and their citizens, and of their best wishes for your majesty's health and happiness, and for that of your royal family.

"The appointment of a minister from the United

States to your majesty's court, will form an epoch in the history of England and America. I think myself more fortunate than all my fellow citizens, in having the distinguished honour to be the first to stand in your majesty's royal presence in a diplomatic character; and I shall esteem myself the happiest of men, if I can be instrumental in recommending my country more and more to your majesty's royal benevolence, and of restoring an entire esteem, confidence, and affection, or in better words, the old good-nature, and the good old humour,' between people, who though separated by an ocean, and under different governments, have the same language, a similar religion, a kindred blod. I beg your majesty's permission to add, that although I have sometimes before been entrusted by my country, it was never in my whole life in a manner so agreeable to myself."

The king listened to every word I said, with dignity it is true, but with an apparent emotion. Whether it was the nature of the interview, or whether it was my visible agitation, for I felt more than I did or could express, that touched him, I cannot say ; but he was much affected, and answered me with more tremour than I had spoken with, and said, Sir, the circumstances of this audience are so extraordinary, the language you have now held is so extremely proper, and the feelings you have discovered so justly adapted to the occasion, that I must say, that I not only receive with pleasure the assurance of the friendly disposition of the United States, but that I am very glad the choice has fallen upon you to be their minister. I wish you, sir, to believe, and that it may be understood in America, that I have done nothing in the late

I

contest but what I thought myself indispensably bound to do, by the duty which I owe to my people. will be very frank with you. I was the last to conform to the separation; but the separation having been made, and having become inevitable, I have always said, as I say now, that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power. The moment I see such sentiment and language as your's prevail, and a disposition to give this country the preference, that moment I shall say, let the circumstances of language, religion, and blood, have their natural awful effect."

I dare not to say that these were the king's precise words and it is even possible that I may have in some particular mistaken his meaning; for although his pronunciation is as distinct as I ever heard, he hesitated sometimes between his periods, and between members of the same period. He was indeed much affected, and I was not less so, and therefore I cannot be certain that I was so attentive, heard so clearly, and understood so perfectly, as to be confident of all his words or sense; and I think that all which he said to me, should at present be kept secret in America, unless his majesty, or his secretary of state, should judge proper to report it. This I do say, that the foregoing is his majesty's meaning, as I then understood it, and his own words as nearly as I can recollect them.

The king then asked me whether I came last from France? and upon my answering in the affirmative, he put on an air of familiarity; and smiling, or rather laughing, said, "There is an opinion among some people, that you are not the most attached of all your