Note 443 — THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. (continued 3)

In the previous December the City of London in an address, writes Horace Walpole, 'besought the King to remove both his public and private counsellors, and used these stunning and memorable words:—"Your armies are captured; the wonted superiority of your navies is annihilated, your dominions are lost." Words that could be used to no other King; no King had ever lost so much without losing all. If James II. lost his crown, yet the crown lost no dominions.' Journal of the Reign of George III, ii. 483. The address is given in the Ann. Reg. xxiv. 320. On Aug. 4 of this year Johnson wrote to Dr. Taylor:—'Perhaps no nation not absolutely conquered has declined so much in so short a time. We seem to be sinking. Suppose the Irish, having already gotten a free trade and an independent Parliament, should say we will have a King and ally ourselves with the House of Bourbon, what could be done to hinder or overthrow them?' Mr. Morrison's Autographs, vol. ii.