Although Arthur spoke some good words about King William IV, it didn't prevent Dickens from disliking this Sailor King.
Having worked early on as a parliamentary reporter for the British News Agency, Dickens vividly remembers when William IV, still the Duke of Clarence, sharply refuted the views of the leader of the abolition movement, William Wilberforce, during a speech in the House of Lords.
As Arthur noted, in his youth, William IV served for a long time at the Caribbean naval station in North America, yet his prolonged experiences led him to a rather politically incorrect view on slavery: "Freedom offers no benefit to slaves, because from what I have seen, the living standards of free people in the Scottish Highlands and Islands are even worse than those of slaves in the West Indies."
What Dickens found even more intolerable was that the young William IV claimed in his speech: "Fanatics or hypocrites, Mr. Wilberforce and his supporters are categorized into one of these."
