season of 1715, but refused to pardon him, until Handel's old Venetian
acquaintance, Baron Kielmansegge, now Master of the Horse, devised an
ingenious expedient for surprising the King into clemency.

One of the favourite amusements of London society was to make up a
water-party on the Thames, with a band of musicians in attendance. Mrs.
Pendarves describes a party of this kind in July 1722; they rowed up to
Richmond, where they had supper, and "were entertained all the time by very
good music [for wind instruments] in another barge." Baron Kielmansegge
arranged that the King should go for an excursion of this kind, and that,
without his knowledge, Handel should conduct appropriate music of his own
in a barge that followed the King's. As the Baron was often in charge of
the music for such occasions, this can have been a matter of no great
difficulty; in any case it achieved the desired result. The King was
enchanted with the music, and restored Handel to favour. As Mainwaring
tells this story just before speaking of _Amadigi_, it has generally been
assumed that this episode took place in the summer of 1715, but more
recently it has been ascribed to 1717, on the strength of a long account of
a royal water-party, with music by Handel, given in the _Daily Courant_,
a newspaper of the period. This account was copied by the Envoy of
Brandenburg at the court of St. James's and despatched by him to Berlin;
the discovery of this document has led certain writers to cast doubt on
Mainwaring's story. Streatfeild is probably right in suggesting that
Mainwaring's story refers to an earlier water-party, and that Handel
contributed music frequently for such occasions. He also points out that
the celebrated _Water Music_ was not published until 1740, and that it may
quite well have been collected from various aquatic programmes.

Hawkins relates the story of the _Water Music_, evidently copying from
Mainwaring; but Hawkins had known Handel personally, and had been supplied