| Citation | "To the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty.
"The humble Address of the President, Council, and Fellows of the Royal Society of London for improving Natural Knowledge.
"May it please your Majesty,
"We Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the President and Council of the Royal Society of London for improving Natural Knowledge, beg leave most humbly to offer Your Majesty, in the name of the Society, our most sincere condolence on the death of our late Sovereign, King William the Fourth, our most gracious Patron, whose enlightened zeal for the improvement and maintananceof the institutions of this country, and whose munificent support of the Royal Society, we shall ever remember with respect and gratitude.
"At the same time that we venture to express to you, Madam, the deep sense which we entertain of the great loss sustained by Your Majesty and by the nation at large in the demise of the late King, we beg leave to offer, with all loyalty and sincerity, our congratulations on the accession of Your Majesty to the throne of this great empire. The careful instruction in the duties and responsibilities of your high station which Your Majesty has received from your illustrious mother, aidedby those happy dispositions which have been manifested by Your Majesty from your earliest years, encourages us to hope , in common with the rest of your loyal subjects, that Your Majesty's reign may form a happy and a glorious epoch in the annals of our country; that it may be distinguished by the triumphs of the arts of peace, and the general diffusion and advancement of religion and knowledge; and we fervently pray that the gentleness and purity of Your Majesty's sex and character may exercise a tranquillizing influence upon the violence of all party feelings, and tend to unite all classes of Your Majesty's subjects in common efforts to promote the happiness and prosperity of their common country.
"The Royal Society of London has enjoyed from the period of its foundation the uninterrupted patronage of Your Majesty's royal predecessors, and we are accustomed to refer with just and becoming pride to the succession of their signatures which appear in our Register, declaring themselves the patrons of our Society and the friends and protectors of its labours. We feel encouraged by their example, most gracious Lady, to solicit from Your Majesty the same protection and support which we have received from other members of Your Majesty's Royal House; and we most humbly and respectfully request that Your Majesty would be graciously pleased to inscribe your royal name in our Register as Patroness of our Society, so that it may continue to boast, asit has hitherto done, that 'Kings have been its nursing fathers and Queens its nursing mothers.'
"But whilst we gratefully express our sense of the general support and protection which the Royal Society has received from Your Majesty's royal predecessors, we feel called upon to declare our more especial obligations to their Majesties King George IV and King William IV of blessed memory, who graciously placed at our disposal two gold medals to be given annually in such a manner as was considered best calculated to promote the general interests of science. We trust, most illustrious Princess, that in the disposal of those Royal Medals the President and Council have endeavoured to fulfil the patriotic views and expectations of their enlightened and royal founders; and we venture most humbly and respectfully to express our hope that Your Majesty will be pleased to continue to us the same gracious patronage and generous protection which was afforded to us by Your Majesty's royal uncles and predecessors.
"That Your Majesty may enjoy length of days and every earthly happiness, and that Your Majesty may continue with increase of years to be more and more endeared to the affections of a free and grateful people, is the earnest wish and prayer of Your Majesty's loyal and devoted subjects, the President, Council, and Fellows of the Royal Society of London." |