CHAPTER XII.
THE BLAGDON PERSECUTION.
Mrs. Baker's death was not the only trouble that befell the zealous sisterhood in these years. Old friends were passing away in London; Horace Walpole, a friend of twenty years, died in 1797, Edmund Burke the same spring, both during the two months which were all Hannah could spare to Mrs. Garrick and the Porteous family. While at Fulham, she saw the wedding of the eldest daughter of George III. with the Duke of Wurtemberg. She observes: "As I looked at the sixteen handsome and magnificently dressed royals sitting around the altar, I could not help thinking how many plans were perhaps at that very moment formed for their destruction, for the bad news from Ireland had just arrived."
These were anxious years, both politically and
