The duke saw at once my difficulty, and as he shook me warmly by the hand, added, in a laughing tone,-- "Don't wait, now; you mustn't forget that your despatches are pressing." I bowed deeply, attempted a few words of acknowledgment, hesitated, blundered, broke down, and at last got out of the room, Heaven knows how, and found myself running towards Long's at the top of my speed.

Within that same hour I was rattling along towards Bristol as fast as four posters could burn the pavement, thinking with ecstasy over the pleasures of my reception in England; but far more than all, of the kindness evinced towards me by him who, in every feeling of his nature, and in every feature of his deportment was "every inch a prince." However astonished I had been at the warmth, by which I was treated in London, I was still less prepared for the enthusiasm which greeted me in every town through which I passed.

There was not a village where we stopped to change horses whose inhabitants did not simultaneously pour forth to welcome me with every demonstration of delight.

That the fact of four horses and a yellow chaise should have elicited such testimonies of satisfaction, was somewhat difficult to conceive; and even had the important news that I was the bearer of despatches been telegraphed from London by successive postboys, still the extraordinary excitement was unaccountable.

It was only on reaching Bristol that I learned to what circumstance my popularity was owing.