[24] James Grant (Editor of the Morning Advertiser), Sketches in
London.
'Every one is aware that George IV., when Prince of Wales, was,
as the common phrase is, over-head-and-ears in debt; and that it
was because he would thereby be enabled to meet the claims of his
creditors, that he consented to marry the Princess Caroline of
Brunswick. But although this is known to every one,
comparatively few people are acquainted with the circumstances
under which his debts were contracted. Those debts, then, were
the result of losses at the gaming table. He was an inveterate
gambler--a habit which he most probably contracted through his
intimacy with Fox. It is a well-ascertained fact that in two
short years, after he attained his majority, he lost L800,000 at
play.
'It was with the view and in the hope that marriage would cure
his propensity for the gaming table, that his father was so
anxious to see him united to Caroline; and it was solely on
account of his marriage with that princess constituting the only
condition of his debts being paid by the country, that he agreed
to lead her to the hymeneal altar.
'The unfortunate results of this union are but too well known,
not only as regarded the parties themselves, but as regarded
society generally.
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