Page:English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the nineteenth century.djvu/99

 in amazement and horror, while another spurs off in hot haste to apprise the Regent of the flight of his daughter. But a satire of far superior merit, entitled, Miss endeavouring to excite a glow with her Dutch Plaything, was issued by the same publisher a few days previously, in which the rejected prince figures as a Dutch top, which the princess has kept spinning for some time. "There," she says to her father at last, "I have kept it up for a long while; you may send it away now, I am tired of it; mother [i.e. the Princess Caroline] has got some better plaything for me." "What! are you tired already?" exclaims the Regent. "Take another spell at it, or give me the whip." "No, no," replies Her Royal Highness; "you may take the top, but I'll keep the whip." Behind her is a picture representing an orange falling with Cupid headlong into space. The Regent was so incensed at his daughter's refractoriness, that he went at once to Warwick House and dismissed all her attendants, and never forgave the Duke of Sussex for his supposed share in breaking off the connection. It was immediately after this event that her mother, the Princess Caroline, contrary to the advice of her friends and well-wishers, applied for permission to make that tour on the Continent which, owing to her own obstinate folly and contempt for the duties of her high station, was destined—as we shall afterwards find—to end in such disastrous consequences to herself.

In the course of the year 1812, England had become involved—scarcely through any fault of her own—in a war with the United States of America. The causes of difference were mainly due to the obnoxious Orders in Council, which had been forced upon us in consequence of the Berlin and Milan Decrees of Napoleon. As an evidence, however, of our own friendly intentions, it may be mentioned that the Regent had issued a declaration on the 23rd of April, that if at any time the obnoxious decrees should by an authentic act be absolutely repealed, thenceforth the Orders in Council of 7th January, 1807, and 26th April, 1809, should be revoked;