[[A.D. 1737.]] Queen Caroline wrote a letter to her husband congratulating him on his safety, and he sent one in return filled with terms of affection and praise. He passed five long, tedious weeks at Helvoetsluys, and did not arrive in England until the fifteenth of January. Contrary to his usual habit, he came from Germany in a splendid humor, smiled on every one, complimented his wife, and declared her to be the most superior woman in the world. One thing made him very angry, and that was when any of the ministers inquired after his health. He really was not well, for his experience at sea had upset him dreadfully; but any man who presumed to refer to his illness was pronounced a "puppy," and treated with supreme contempt.
Soon after his return to England the king was much annoyed about the income of the Prince of Wales, but the manner in which it was settled by parliament gave both his majesty and Queen Caroline perfect satisfaction. This means, of course, that the prince did not get what he asked for, because, if he had, their majesties would have been very much displeased. Queen Caroline was so anxious for her son William to succeed to the throne that she would have given anything if Frederick could have been put out of the way; but she was not to be gratified, { 124}and even if she had been, the little daughter born to the Princess of Wales on the thirty-first of July, would have stood in William's path.
The child was named Augusta, and the Prince of Wales had behaved so badly towards his parents about the time when she appeared in the world that he was requested to leave St. James's Palace. He removed with his wife and baby to Kew, and from that time he and his mother never spoke to each other.
In September the Prince and Princess of Wales held a levee at Carlton House, when the lord mayor and other officials of the city offered congratulations on the birth of the Princess Augusta, and many friends gathered about the prince, anxious to show him that they considered him oppressed, and wished to prove themselves his partisans. He invariably discussed his father's treatment of him, but always blamed the queen for it. Probably this was because she was unwomanly, and unlike a mother enough to call him by the harshest and most disgraceful names whenever she had occasion to speak of him at all, and these were no doubt repeated to him.