The Mysteries of the Court of London by Pauline Clarendon — page 4: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT OF LONDON CHAPTER I THE CATALOGUE OF CRIMES Our narrative opens in the month of January, 1795, — a date belonging to one of the most eventful periods in the history of Great Britain, or indeed of Europe. — At that time King George III was in the thirty-fifth year of his reign; and his scapegrace son, the Prince of Wales, was already verging toward that important climacteric which is usually denominated “the prime of life ’’ — his age being thirty-three. Pitt was then ine power; the Reign of Terror had just closed in Paris, leaving the French Republic in the hands of the Jacobins and the Thermidorians; and the English armies, under the Duke of York, had reaped nothing but disgrace from the previous campaigns in the Netherlands. The memorable trial of Warren Hastings was then in progress; that of Hardy, Tooke, and Thelwall, the people’s staunch champions, had recently terminated in a glorious triumph. The Habeas Corpus Act was suspended: for democratic opinions were spreading rapidly throughout England — and the doctrine of “ the divine right of kings’ was falling to a miserable discount. The Ministers were demanding more money to carry on the war against France; Wilberforce was agitating the question of the slave-trade; and the approaching marriage GOMIGIOOkKS (EO) im