A Story of William IV.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 67, 13 September 1884, Page 4

A Story of William IV.

One morning, when the Prince, having received his commission and his ship, was on his way to his tailor's in Plymouth to get the new uniform, at the street corner he saw a boy crying, and stopped to inquire the cause. The lad looked up through his tears, revealing a handsome, winning, and intelligent face, and replied that his mother had died only a few days before, and that he had been cast homeless into the streets. " Where is your father ?" asked the Prince. "He was lost in the Sussex,on the Cornwall coast, two yeai'S ago." "How would you like to go to sea in a first-rate man-of-war ?" The boy's face brightened as he answered that he should like it very well. The Prince took out his pocketbook and I wrote something upon a slip of paper, which he gave to the boy with a shilling. "Go down to the docks," he said, " and with this shilling you will hire a boatman to carry you off to the Pegasus. When you get on board this ship you will give this paper to the officer whom you find in charge of the deck, and he will take care of you. Cheer up, my lad ! Show him that you have a true heart, and you shall surely find a true friend." Arrived on board the Pegasus, the officer of the deck recoived him kindly, and sent him to sit upon a gun carriage under the break of the poop. In less than an hour the Prince came off in his new uniform, and the boy was strangely moved upon discovering that the man who had promised to be his friend was none other than William, Duke of Clarence, and Captain of the frigate. The boy, whose name was Albert Doyer, was taken into the cabin, where the Prince questioned him, and forthwith he ordered him to be rated as a midshipman, and from his own purse he procured him an outfit. During the voyage to the American coast the Prince became strongly attached to bis youthful protege, keeping him about his person continually, and instructing him in general branches of education, as well as in his profession. Time passed on, and the boy grew to be a man, serving King and country faithfully, In time William became King, and signed the commission which made Albert Doyer a rear-admiral. He exclaimed, as he put hjs signature to the document: "There— if I have ever done a good deed for England", ifc was when I saved to her. service that true and worthy man." — "The Life and' Times of William 1V.," by Percy Mtzgeral^, M.^t