Page:Memoirs of a Trait in the Character of George III.djvu/108

the second reading) volunteered with one reverberating voice in support of the aged Claimant; their device being the goddess, Astrea, who seemed to have descended through the roof of St. Stephen's arena, with the ægis of Jove for their panoply. The petition of John Harrison thus, incidentally, introduces the curious and novel spectacle, of his Majesty at the head of that phalanx to which he was opposed on the subject of the American war, but to which he owed the victory on a question unincumbered with the usual display of Whig and Tory muster rolls. Mr. Fox advocated the hearing of the petition when it was presented, and we shall soon introduce his colleagues; but for the present must observe,—it would be a very mistaken inference, to imagine that after the application his Majesty had already given the subject, it sufficed if he wished well to the inventor of the Timekeeper, in his endeavours to recover the second moiety of the reward, so long detained. This friend to merit, was not a friend by halves; and the letter above quoted furnishes indubitable evidence of the patient attention the King gave to the details of proceedings adopted for that purpose.—It discloses also the extraordinary fact,—that but for the consolation, the kind encouragement and countenance derived from such a source, the father and son, totally despairing of success, would have dropped the further prosecution of their object, as quite hopeless. The passage which ascertains a circumstance at once so