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179 Conclusion, 1796–1809 The appointment of William Dowdeswell as governor of the Bahama Islands in late 1797 more or less made it official: Dunmore’s career in the empire was over.His would not be a restful retirement.Between the saga of Lady Augusta’s marriage and the family’s finances, sources of anxiety were legion and every day a struggle. George III was determined that his son never see Augusta again. But despite years of Crown-mandated separation, the prince remained committed to his young family. In a letter to Augusta in the spring of 1796, Augustus Frederick recalled the consummation of their marriage with rapture:“To this day my treasure do we owe the origin of our dear little boy. . . . This day three years ago was the first full Pleasure I enjoyed of my Wife.” After hearing exaggerated reports of her husband’s failing health in 1799, Augusta travelled under an assumed name to see him in Berlin, where the couple spent several happy weeks together. During that period, the prince asked Dunmore, then in London, to forward their marriage certificate to Germany. When Augusta decided to return to England, her husband followed. For much of 1800, they lived together at 40 Lower Grosvenor Street with their son, like the family they longed to be. These were tense, uncertain times for Dunmore. Although in good health, his financial woes continued. If he saw Augusta’s connection to the House of Hanover as a potential source of salvation, he knew enough not to rely on it alone.In 1800,he and John Miller were in London trying to convince the ministry to reimburse them for their investments with William Bowles. The ultimate failure of this effort coincided with a painful turn of events for Augusta. When the prince took his usual leave of England in the winter of 1800–1801, he did not know that she was pregnant with their second child, a daughter named Augusta Emma, the future Lady Truro. Jane Austen, whose brother 180 dunmore’s new world shared the voyage back to England with the prince in 1801, reported that he “talks of Lady Augusta as his wife, and seems much attached to her.” Malicious gossip, however, gave rise to rumors that Lady Augusta’s pregnancy had resulted from an indiscretion. Possibly influenced by these stories, the prince abruptly ended the relationship in December 1801. Only days later, he was created Duke of Sussex. The news came as a shock to Augusta. In search of an explanation, she traveled to Lisbon in the spring of 1802, only to be turned away from the prince’s residence, an insult that she felt made her “the sport of his mistress & dependents.” She defended her honor and sought to shame her detractors in an affecting letter to Augustus’s older brother, the Prince of Wales,but the damage was done.She was left to provide for two children with no regular income.Augustus himself was having a hard time securing his own allowance from the Treasury at this time, but unlike Augusta he never had to struggle to pay for his bread. Outraged by his daughter’s treatment,Dunmore secured a conference with the king in October 1803. It was the last time the two men met.“Our Father has just returned from his Audience with the King in a most famous rage,” Jack Murray informed one of his brothers. The story, as retold by Jack, provides a rare glimpse of Dunmore both in old age and through the eyes of his children: He informed us that before he went to the King,he was urged by Mr Addington [the prime minister] to be as moderate as possible on the subject he was about to bring under His Majesty’s consideration—as it was one to which he was most particularly alive. Our Father then went on to detail to us that having laid before the King the marriage of his daughter Augusta with his Son at Rome—he then proceeded to expatiate on the treatment she had experienced at his hands, by leaving her penniless and subject to all the misery of being arrested and of having her house daily beset by Creditors asking and demanding payment of her for things which had been furnished while her husband was living with her and many of which he had taken with him to Lisbon, leaving her without a shilling to provide for herself...

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