about six o'clock
The popular Georgian watering-place was in a paroxysm of gaiety . The town was quite overpowered by the country round , much to the town 's delight and profit . The fear of invasion was such that six frigates lay in the roads to ensure the safety of the royal family , and from the regiments of horse and foot quartered at the barracks , or encamped on the hills round about , a picket of a thousand men mounted guard every day in front of Gloucester Lodge , where the King resided . When Anne and her attendant reached this point , which they did on foot , stabling the horse on the outskirts of the town , it was about six o'clock . The King was on the Esplanade , and the soldiers were just marching past to mount guard . The band formed in front of the King , and all the officers saluted as they went by . Anne now felt herself close to and looking into the stream of recorded history , within whose banks the littlest things are great , and outside which she and the general bulk of the human race were content to live on as an unreckoned , unheeded superfluity .