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Westgarth, William, 1815-1889

"Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne and Victoria"

The Prince, who was then only of
the age of nineteen, and of most amiable and ingenuous look, had that
charm of the true politeness of his years, which left you the impression
that he thought that everyone was to be preferred to himself. If
unfortunate, in the chances of the struggle, in being dropped out of his
principality, he was afterwards compensated in another direction, for
not only is his younger brother our Queen's son-in-law, but one of his
daughters is to-day Empress of Germany. What a reminder are such changes
of the swift passing of time and of the crowd of portentous events in
these quick-speeding years.
The Prince and his guardian landed, as it were, in my arms, by virtue
both of introductions from the Godeffroys, and of my position as virtual
parental head of the German flock which had begun to stream into Port
Phillip. Unacquainted myself with the language, I was ably and
untiringly helped, as I have said, by my late friend Mr. Neuhauss. The
Prince took the thin disguise of Lieutenant Groenwald, but I never heard
that name, except in Captain Carr's official intimation. We all called
him the Prince, but he was equally courteous and unassuming whatever way
we addressed him.


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