which could not always be quietly settled. It does not, indeed, appear that he ever acted counter to the decisions of the cabinet on questions of policy, though the freedom of his speech and the eccentricity of his conduct gave rise to many reports; such as that in September 1827 he wrote to Sir Edward Codrington [q. v.] in three words, ‘Go it, Ned,’ or at greater length, ‘Go in, my dear Ned, and smash these damned Turks,’ a story which a knowledge of the duke's correspondence is sufficient to refute, even without the specific contradiction given it by Sir William Codrington (Fitzgerald, i. 170). It was out of matters of detail and administration that difficulties arose. He refused to be bound by the limitations of the patent. He ordered departmental commissions without consulting his colleagues; if he acquainted them with it afterwards, it was rather as a matter of courtesy than of obligation. He ordered promotions on the whim of the moment (Wellington, iv. 652, 680; cf. Buckingham, i. 4), and expected them to be made. ‘You're a damned fine fellow,’ he said to one lieutenant who had spun him a yarn of adventure; ‘go and tell Sir George he's to promote you at once.’ Cockburn refused. ‘We know quite as much about you,’ he said, ‘as his royal highness does, perhaps more, but if we were to promote all the “damned fine fellows” in the service, we should be very short of lieutenants.’
On comparatively small points like these there was a great deal of friction; but matters came to a head in the summer of 1828, when the duke went on board the Royal Sovereign yacht, hoisted the lord high admiral's flag, and assumed military command. Cockburn remonstrated in a letter which the duke pronounced ‘disrespectful and impertinent.’ The Duke wrote to Wellington, who had succeeded as prime minister, desiring him to ask the king to remove Cockburn from the council and appoint Sir Charles Paget in his room. Wellington and, afterwards, the king both took Cockburn's view, that the duke had no authority to exercise military command; and the duke seemed to yield the point; but a few days later he went round to Plymouth in the yacht, again hoisted the lord high admiral's flag, and put to sea in command of the Channel fleet. This brought on him very strong letters from both the king and the prime minister, and on 11 Aug. he resigned, ‘conceiving that, with the impediments thrown and intended to have been thrown in the way of the execution of my office, I could not have done justice either to the king or to my country’ (ib. i. 193). During his short term of office he had ‘distinguished himself by making absurd speeches, by a morbid official activity, and by a general wildness which was thought to indicate incipient insanity’ (Greville, ii. 2).
For a time he dropped back into something like his former obscurity, but George IV died on 26 June 1830, and the Duke of Clarence succeeded as William IV. He is said to have expressed a wish that the ‘old-fashioned’ and expensive coronation ceremony might be pretermitted; it took place eventually on 8 Sept. 1831, the outlay, which amounted in the case of his predecessor to 240,000l., having been cut down by laborious economy to 30,000l. The new king ‘threw himself into the arms of the Duke of Wellington—who was still prime minister—with the strongest expressions of confidence and esteem.’ Wellington, who had not been able to tolerate him as lord high admiral, was delighted with him as king, and told Greville ‘that he was so reasonable and tractable that he had done more business with him in ten minutes than with George IV in as many days.’ He presided at the council ‘very decently, and looked like a respectable old admiral’ (ib. ii. 3). ‘He began immediately to do good-natured things, to provide for old friends and professional adherents. There was never anything like the enthusiasm with which he was greeted by all ranks; though he has trotted about both town and country for sixty-four years and nobody ever turned round to look at him, he cannot stir now without a mob, patrician as well as plebeian, at his heels. But in the midst of all this success and good conduct certain indications of strangeness and oddness peep out which are not a little alarming, and he promises to realise the fears of his ministers that he will do and say too much, though they flatter themselves that they have muzzled him’ (ib. ii. 4). He had, in fact, all his life, when on shore, affected the manners and language of the rough and hearty tar; and this, added to much natural bonhomie, led him to do kindly things, and to set the etiquette of the court at defiance. ‘The king's good nature, simplicity, and affability to all about him are certainly very striking, and in his elevation he does not forget any of his old friends and companions. He was in no hurry to take upon himself the dignity of king, nor to throw off the habits and manners of a country gentleman. When Lord Chesterfield went to Bushey to kiss his hand and be presented to the queen, he found Sir John and Lady Gore there lunching, and when they went away the king called for their carriage, handed Lady Gore into it,
