I have since passed much of my time at Rochetts, Lord St. Vincent’s, who is as much alive to all this at eighty as if he were only thirty-five.
When I found no payment of salary was made me in October, I wrote to Lord Liverpool, and the Prince ordered 300_l._ a year should be paid me from the Civil List as a compensation for having left the Queen’s service to attend on Princess Charlotte. To the servants, wages and board wages have been granted.
[The following is the correspondence referred to:]
MY LORD,—When, by the special desire of the Prince Regent, I left her Majesty’s service for that of Princess Charlotte, his Royal Highness was graciously pleased to promise (through the medium of the Earl of Moira) that I should never be a sufferer by the change.
I therefore take the liberty of requesting that your Lordship will lay before the Prince my humble petition for the continuation of my salary; and I am so fully convinced of the humanity, liberality, and justice of his Royal Highness, that I am confident he will not refuse me a provision, which I really would not claim were it not essential to my subsistence in the station of life which Providence has assigned me.
Lord Liverpool presents his compliments to Miss Knight, and begs to acknowledge the receipt of her letter to him of yesterday’s date. Lord Liverpool will not fail to lay it before the Prince Regent when his Royal Highness returns to town.
MY DEAR LORD,—I am just returned from Fife House, whither I went by appointment at twelve. I said that my first motive was to thank his Lordship for his obliging attention to my request in laying my letter before the Prince Regent, and my next to show him a letter from Lord Moira, which I had preserved, as, although it contained no specific promises, it implied _much_. He read it attentively, and I then showed him that from Sir H. Halford, with the intention of giving me the rank of Honourable, and the certainty of my remaining in the family, &c. He read that also attentively. I added that I had several letters from the Princesses to the same effect, if not still more explicit, but that I considered _them_ as _sacred_. He was silent for a little while, and then said the Prince had directed that what I had from the Queen should be given to me; that he had laid my letters before his Royal Highness, and had no further power. I answered that I should not dispute with my Sovereign, nor refuse whatever he chose to give me, but that it was _not_ a compensation for what I left, as, besides the salary, I had apartments and other advantages adequate at least to the 500_l._ I received at Warwick House. I subjoined that I had hoped his Royal Highness would have continued my salary, as, when he dismissed me, he said he did not complain of anything; since which, however, I had written him a letter in my justification, which, not being answered, I concluded there was no complaint to make. Lord L. bowed assent. I then said I neither wished to trouble his Lordship nor to refuse the pension, but was anxious to put him in the possession of facts. He said the pension was clear of all expenses but the property tax, and inquired what was the time of my last payment of salary. I said the 5th of July, and that I was dismissed on the 12th. He could not exactly tell, he said, when the pension might begin, as it depended on what money was in the Exchequer. I rose to wish him a good morning. He asked if I had a carriage, and I hoped Lady Liverpool was well. So we parted.