ABSTRACT
First published in The Examiner, V, 22 March 1812, pp. 177–80. This famous diatribe on the Prince Regent gave the government the ammunition it needed to mount, after three previous failed attempts, a successful prosecution of the Hunt brothers. The immediate occasion was a formal dinner, attended by notable Irish political figures, held on 17 March in honour of St. Patrick’s Day. When the obligatory toast to the Prince Regent came round, some in attendance hissed because of his withdrawal of his former support for Catholic Emancipation and Irish rights. In a subsequent article excerpted below, the pro-government Morning Post tried to defend the Prince with egregiously inflated praise of his courageous virtues. Over the last year Hunt had been acutely critical of the Prince’s political apostasy and the hypocritical efforts of the ministerial papers to smother it over. This latest, most extreme example of sycophantic falsehood on such a crucial issue finally broke all holds on Hunt’s rage. He responded with one of the most lively satires, deflating the Post’s hagiography by exposing its royal ‘Exciter of Desire’ and ‘Adonis in Loveliness’ as ‘a corpulent gentleman of fifty’ who violates his word and carouses with low company (see below, pp. 220–1). For a record of Hunt’s battles with the Prince Regent and his ministers throughout 1812, see headnote above, pp. 203–5.
