KING GEORGE PROCLAIMED.

The queen had no sooner resigned her last breath than the privy-council met, and the archbishop of Canterbury, the lord-chancellor, and the Hanoverian resident, Kreyenburgh, produced the three instruments in which the elector of Brunswick had nominated the persons * to be added as lords-justices to the seven great officers of the realm.

* These were the dukes of Shrewsbury, Somerset, Bolton,
Devonshire, Kent, Argyle, Montrose, and Roxburgh; the earls
of Pomfret, Anglesea, Carlisle, Nottingham, Abingdon,
Scarborough, and Or-ford; lord viscount Townshend, and lords
Halifax and Cowper.

Orders were immediately issued for proclaiming king George in England, Scotland, and Ireland. The regency appointed the earl of Dorset to carry to Hanover the intimation of his majesty’s accession, and attend him in his journey to England. They sent the general officers in whom they could confide to their respective posts; they reinforced the garrison of Portsmouth; they appointed Mr. Addison their secretary; while Bolingbroke was obliged to stand at the door of the council-chamber with his bag and papers, and underwent every species of mortification. On the whole, king George ascended the throne of Great Britain in the fifty-fifth year of his age, without the least opposition, tumult, or sign of popular discontent; and the unprejudiced part of the nation was now fully persuaded that no design had ever been concerted by Queen Anne and her ministry in favour of the pretender. The mayor of Oxford received a letter, requiring him to proclaim the pretender. This being communicated to the vice-chancellor, a copy of it was immediately transmitted to Mr. secretary Bromley, member of Parliament for the university; and the vice-chancellor offered a reward of one hundred pounds to any person who should discover the author. It was either the production of some lunatic, or a weak contrivance to fix an odium on that venerable body.