most unjust aspersions against her: and although their eagerness renders it impossible to discover precisely what is meant, or even what she has been charged with; yet, as the princess of Wales is conscious of no offence whatever, she thinks it due to herself, and to the illus trious house with which she is connected by blood and marriage, and to the people among whom she holds so distinguished a rank, not to acquiesce for a moment in any imputation affecting her honour. "The princess of Wales has not been permitted to know upon what evidence the members of the privy council proceeded, still less to be heard in her own defence. She knew only by common rumour of the inquiries which had been carried on until the result was communicated to her, and she has no means now of knowing whether the members of the privy council, appointed to determine on her case, acted as a body, to whom she can appeal for redress, or only in their individual capacity, as persons se lected to make a report on her conduct.

"The princess is compelled, therefore, to throw herself upon the house, and upon the justice of parliament, and to require that the fullest investigation may be instituted into the whole of her conduct during her residence in this country. "The princess of Wales fears no scrutiny, however strict, provided she is tried by impartial judges known to the constitution, and in the fair and open manner the law of the land requires. Her only desire is, that she may be either declared to be innocent, or proved to be guilty.

"The princess desires Mr. speaker to communicate this letter to the house of commons."

After a short pause, without any inclination being evinced on the part of any other member to address the house,

Mr. Whitbread rose and said, that feeling as he did, and as the house must feel, the importance of the question invol in the letters which had just been read to them, he could not suffer those letters to pass with no other notice taken of them than that of their being merely read from the chair; and the more especially as he saw opposite to him a noble lord who held a seat in his majesty's councils during the period, if newspaper report spoke true, in which the investigation alluded to in the letter last read, took place. He had observed the noble lord quit his place, and take it again, during the reading of the letters, but without showing an inclination to address the house on the subject of their contents. Conceiving, as he did, the subject to be one not only of great delicacy, but also of great importance; his object in now rising was, to put a question to the noble lord. Did he, or did he not, mean to submit any motion on the subject of these letters to the house?

Lord Castlereagh said, no man could be more sensible than he was of the delicacy and importance of the subject alluded to in the letters which had just been read to the house; but when he considered that a motion connected with the same subject (the motion of Mr. Cochrane Johnstone) stood on the order book of the house for consideration on a day at no greater distance than the day after tomorrow, he did not feel it to be his duty to anticipate the question. When the motion alluded to came before them, he should feel himself obliged, however delicate the: subject

E 2

subject was, to give all the explanations the case might require.

As Mr. C. Johnstone was about bringing forward his promised motion, with respect to her royal highness the princess of Wales, the hon. Mr. Lygon rose and said, that the nature of the subject to be discussed was such, as to induce him to move the standing order for the exclusion of strangers. The gallery was accordingly cleared; but the following is an account of what passed after the exclusion of the reporters.

When Mr. C. Johnstone rose to make his promised motion, the hon. Mr. Lygon, member for Worcestershire, moved the standing order for the exclusion of strangers; on which Mr. Bennett rose, and moved that the house do now adjourn. The earl of Yarmouth seconded the motion.

On this question the house divided; when there appeared Against the adjournment 248 For it 139

Majority

109 On returning to the house, Mr. Johnstone said, that as Mr. Lygon had exercised his discretion in moving the exclusion of strangers, he (Mr. Johnstone) would exercise his by bringing forward his motion only when he should himself choose to do so, and the hon. gentleman then walked out of the house; but on the discussions proceeding fur ther, he returned. In reply to this, captain Vyse, member for Beverley, said, that as it was clear from what Mr. Johnstone had said, that he only put off his motion because the gallery was cleared, and that he did not intend to make it till he should have an audience; he thought it fair to apprise the hon. member, that he thought it highly inexpedient

that the debate on this question should be made more public than was absolutely necessary, and that he should therefore feel it his duty, whenever the motion was brought forward, to move the exclusion of strangers. Upon which Mr. Bennett, member for Shrewsbury, rose and said, that as captain Vyse had promised to exercise his right of clearing the gallery, he (Mr. Bennett) would now employ his, and would move that the house do adjourn. Mr. Whitbread then asked lord Castlereagh whether he did not intend to take some measure on the princess of Wales's letters to which lord Castlereagh replied nearly as he had done to a similar question the day before.

Mr. Whitbread read from a newspaper what purported to be the report, which, he said, no one could read without agreeing with her royal highness, that it contained aspersions against her character, and that it was the duty of the ministers of the crown not to let a question that involved even the right of succession, lie like waste paper on the table of the house.

Lord Castlereagh said, that he had no motion to make on that paper, he had no share in laying it on the table, and was in no degree responsible for its contents; but if any other member should think it of so much importance as to move upon it, he should be ready, as far as was consistent with his public duty, to state and vindicate the view that the privy council had taken of the case referred to it by the crown. That with reference to the report from a newspaper read by Mr. Whitbread, the house he was sure would feel that he was not called upon to make any reply to a statement in that shape; but thus much he would say, that the newspaper

newspaper report, even if accurate, did not bear out the construction of criminality which Mr. Whitbread gave it; for that report talked only of restraining and regulating the intercourse between the mother and the daughter; whereas it was ob yious that, if it had inferred criminality, it should have recommended, not the regulation only of the intercourse, but its total suspension.

Mr. Whitbread then said, the public were ignorant of all the circumstances which had induced the council to make such a report. Was the report of 1806 referred to, to refresh the memory of those who were in the old cabinet, or that of 1807, to give information to the present ministers? It should be remembered her royal highness has no privy council, no members of parliament to command. But if no other member would submit a motion to the house on her petition, he would do so, though this was peculiarly the duty of the noble lord. It was sufficient for a menaber of parliament, in his common capacity, to say he would wait and give his opinion; but such was not the duty of the noble lord, as a minister of the crown in this house, in such a case.

Mr. Bennett withdrew his motion, and Mr. Johnstone was requested to proceed on his motion: but he deferred it till the next day, when He rose, and said, that it was the undoubted right of the hon, member (Mr. Lygon) to act as he had done, in clearing the house of strangers: if, however, this precaution had been taken under the impression that any thing he had to say should be unbecoming the respect he owed to that house, or inconsistent with what was due to the feelings of every branch of the royal family, such apprehensions

He

were utterly unfounded. thought it a duty he owed, in the first instance, to the princess of Wales, to declare, that for the motion he was about to submit he had no authority from her; that he had no communication with any person or persons whatsoever, and that the proceeding originated entirely and exclusively with himself. The hon. member proceeded to observe, that it was well known that a commission had been granted by the king in 1806, to four noble lords, Grenville, Spencer, Erskine, and Ellenborough, to examine into certain allegations that had been preferred against the princess of Wales. He then read the whole of the report made by the commissioners above stated, containing the most unqualified opinion, that the charge produced by sir John and lady Douglas against the princess of Wales, of having been delivered of a child in the year · 1802, was utterly destitute of truth. It added, that the birth and real mother of the child said to have been born of the princess, had been proved beyond all possibility of doubt. The report concludes with some objections made by the commissioners to the manners, or to levity of manners, upon different occasions, in the princess. hon. member next proceeded to state, that the paper he should now read was a document which, he was ready to prove at the bar of the house, was dictated by lord Eldon, Mr. Perceval, and sir Thomas Plomer, though signed by the princess of Wales; it was a letter written, or purporting to be written, by her royal highness to the king, on the 9th of October 1806, as a protest against the report of the commissioners, just detailed. The letter, being read at length, apE 3

The

peared

peared to be a formal and elaborate criticism upon the nature of the commission under which her conduct had been reviewed: it asserted in the most unqualified terms her own innocence, and called the charges of her accusers a foul and false conspiracy, made ex parte, and affording no appeal. Upon this letter being read, the hon. member observed, that he fully concurred in the sentiments it expressed upon the subject of the commission, and he insisted that the charge against the princess before that tribunal, by sir John and lady Douglas, was nothing short of treason; that, if the commissioners had power to acquit her royal highness of the crime charged, they had equally the power to convict her. What was the state of that country in which such a thing was even possible? Besides, he inquired, what became of sir John and lady Douglas? If he were rightly informed, they still persisted in the same story. If all they maintained were so notoriously false, why were they not prosecuted? The hon. member went on to remark, that he understood no proceedings of the late privy council, except the report, had been transmitted to the princess of Wales. This was the case in 1806; but he submitted that copies of all those examinations should be given to her. The honourable member then concluded by moving two resolutions to the following purport:

"1st, Resolved, That it has been stated to this house, by a member thereof, who has offered to prove the same by witnesses at the bar of this house, that in the year 1806 a commission was signed under his majesty's royal sign manual, authorizing and directing the then lord chancellor, Erskine,

earl Spencer, the then secretary of state for the home department, lord Grenville, the then first lord of the treasury, and the then and present lord chief-justice, Ellenborough, to inquire into the truth of certain written declarations, communicated to his majesty by his royal highness the, prince of Wales, touching the conduct of her royal highness the princess of Wales. That the said commissioners, in pursuance of the said authority and direction, did enter into an examination of several witnesses; and that they delivered to his majesty a report of such examination, and also of their judgement on the several parts alleged against her royal highness; which report, signed by the four commissioners aforesaid, and dated on the 14th of July 1806, was accompanied with copies of the declarations, examinations, depositions, and other documents on which it was founded. That it has been stated to this house, in manner aforesaid, that the said written accusations against her royal highness expressly asserted, That her royal highness had been pregnant in the year 1802, in consequence of an illicit intercourse; and that she had in the same year been secretly delivered of a male child, which child had ever since that period been brought up by her royal highness in her own house, and under her immediate inspection.' That the report further stated, that the commissioners first examined on oath the principal informants, sir John Douglas and Charlotte his wife, who both particularly swore, the former to his having observed the fact of the pregnancy of her royal highness, and the other to all the important particulars contained in her former declaration,

declaration, and before referred to;' and that report added, that the examinations are annexed to the report, and are circumstantial and positive.' That the commissioners stated, as the result of their examination, their perfect conviction that there is no foundation what ever for believing that the child now with the princess is the child of her royal highness, or that she was delivered of any child in 1802, or that she was pregnant in that year; and that the commissioners added, That this was their clear and unanimous judgement, formed upon full deliberation, and pronounced without hesitation, on the result of the whole inquiry.' That therefore the honour of her royal highness the princess of Wales, the sacred right of the princess Charlotte of Wales, the safety of the throne, and the tranquillity of the country, do all unite in most imperious call on this house, to institute now, while the witnesses on both sides are still living, and while all the charges are capable of being clearly established or clearly disproved, an ample and impartial investigation of all the allegations, facts, and circumstances appertaining to this most important subject of inquiry.

"2d, Resolved, That an humble address be presented to the prince regent, requesting that his royal highness will be graciously pleased to order that a copy of a report, made to his majesty on the 14th day of July 1806, by the then lord chancellor, Erskine, earl Spencer, lord Grenville, and lord chief-justice Ellenborough, touching the conduct of her royal highness the princess of Wales, be laid before the house, together with the copies of certain written documents annexed to the said report."

Lord Castlereagh opposed the

motion, and began by observing upon the singular line of conduct adopted by the honourable mover, in first calling upon the house to agree with him in all the facts stated in his first resolution, and then asking for information on the same subject in his second motion: at all events, the information ought to have preceded the conclusions from it. His lordship could not conceive, from any reasons that had been given by the honourable member, that the house would entertain any serious doubt that the papers called for by the honourable mover were not at all necessary to remove any apprehension as to the successor to the throne of these kingdoms. The commissioners of 1806 had not been commissioners for the trial of the princess, but as privy counsellors, commissioners of inquiry; and the appointment of such privy counsellors for such purposes was the constant practice in all periods of the history of this country. If, however, the honourable mover was serious in his opinion that the commission of 1806 was an improper tribunal to have reviewed the conduct of the princess of Wales, did he think the house of commons a proper place to try either the princess of Wales for treason, or to sit in judgement upon the levity of her manners? It was rather extraordinary in the honourable member to call upon the house of commons to clear up the doubts on a subject, when he had expressed no doubts of his own. The two learned judges who were part of the commission, lords Erskine and Ellenborough, had entertained no doubts: they, with their skill and legal habits, had been able to trace the whole transaction to its source: it was not E 4 a judge.