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a judgement upon credibility of witnesses only, not upon the inconsistency alone of lady Douglas's testimony, but the real mother of this child. Ann Austin was adduced, and its birth, with every circumstance attending it, had been clearly proved to the commission. This report, too, of the commissioners, with all the evidence on which it was founded, had been referred to his majesty's then ministers; and they, upon oath, had unanimously confirmed that report. This was not all-the same report and evidence had been referred to the subsequent administration; and they in like manner, on their oaths, had unanimously declared the innocence of her royal highness. His lordship did not mean to say, that if any great doubt could be entertained by his majesty's subjects on this important and delicate question, some declaration from parliament, as to the succession, might not become necessary; but when such doubts have been so repeatedly negatived, would it not, he asked, be giving a sort of weight and authority to the evidence of lady Douglas? If the affidavits of profligate persons were thus to be sanctioned, where would be the end of such attempts? Fortunately there never was a case that could excite so little hesitation. A more monstrous proposition, than to legislate on lady Douglas's evidence, was never heard. The honcurable mover had complained that no proceedings had been instituted against sir John and lady Douglas. His lordship had to state, that the first cabinet distinctly recommended a reference to the then law officers of the crown to consider of such a prosecution; and if it had not been instituted, it did not arise from any doubt in the minds of those law

officers as to the punishment that would be brought down upon the degraded and guilty heads of sir John and lady Douglas, but it was from a wish to avoid bringing such subjects before the public. The noble lord added, that he did not wish to push the subject further; he was treading on delicate ground. He thought the only effect of the present motion would be, to make the house of commons a channel for poisoning the public mind. Upon the subject of the late letter the noble lord declined saying any thing at present, that not being before the house.

Sir S. Romilly commenced by observing, that the honourable member (Mr. Cochrane Johnstone) had indulged himself in such strong terms of censure of the administration of 1806, as to render it impossible for him to preserve silence. No impartial man who knew under what circumstances that inquiry originated, or in what manner it was conducted, would think that any blame was imputable to the persons concerned in it. Some time in the latter end of 1805, he received the commands of the prince of Wales to attend him at Carltonhouse: he accordingly waited on his royal highness, when the prince was pleased to tell him that he wished to consult him on a matter of the utmost importance to himself, to his family, and to the state; that it was at lord Thurlow's recommendation he had sent for him; and that he had selected him because he was unconnected with himself, and unconnected with politics. His royal highness then stated information he had received on the conduct of the princess, and said that it should be put down in writing, and submitted to him for his advice. After having consi

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dered it with the utmost care and anxiety, he addressed a letter to his royal highness, containing his sentiments on the matter, in December 1805. After he gave that opinion, his royal highness took every possible means to ascertain what credit was due to the parties whose testimony had been given. In the change of administration which shortly followed, he had the honour of being appointed solicitor-general; and in March 1806 he received his majesty's commands to confer with lord Thurlow on this important business. Lord Thurlow desired him to tell the prince of Wales, that the information was of a nature much too important for his royal highness not to take some steps in consequence of it. This he communicated to the prince of Wales, and in a short time afterwards the facts, as stated, were submitted to some of the king's ministers. An authority was then issued under the king's sign manual to certain members of the privy council, to take up the investigation of the whole of the case. Many meetings were held, and many witnesses were examined thereupon: and he(sir S. Romilly) was the only other per son present, besides the commissioners, at these examinations, which were conducted by the four noble lords mentioned, and he took down all the depositions. He believed that he was selected for this purpose in preference to the attorney-general, merely because it was thought, that if it should not be necessary to institute any judicial or legislative proceedings upon it, it was desirable that the utmost secrecy should be observed; that he already knew all the facts; and that it was better that they should be known to only five, in

stead of six persons, which must have been the case if the attorneygeneral had been applied to. He declared, in the most solemn manner, that no inquiry was ever conducted with more impartiality, nor was there ever evinced a greater desire to discharge justly a great public duty. He was, therefore, of opinion that the motion ought to be negatived.

Mr. Whitbread rose and said, if the motion went off, and nothing was said of this letter, the princess of Wales was most unhappily and unfortunately situated. The noble lord talked of poisoning the public mind, by publishing the case and just demands of the princess of Wales; he only knew by public rumour that the letter written by the princess of Wales, in September 1806, to the king, calling so emphatically for publicity, and a more fair tribunal, had been dictated by lord Eldon, by Mr. Perceval, and by sir Thomas Plomer, This fact had often been asserted in the presence of Mr. Perceval, and never denied by him. The last person named (sir Thomas Plomer) now sat opposite, and might deny it if he could. Whitbread put it to lord Castle reagh, if it was not known to him, that all that had been said by the honourable mover, aye more, much more, had been printed by Mr. Perceval, lord Eldon, and the cabinet of which he (the noble lord) was one, for the satisfaction, not only of England, but of Europe? He inquired if garbled accounts of this transaction were not now pub. lished to the world, under the authority of the present cabinet? Mr. Whitbread then entered into a narrative relating to the recent letter to the regent from the prin cess. This letter was twice returned

Mr.

unopened;

unopened; the princess then only required that her petition (for such it was) might be read to his royal highness. This favour was at length granted, and a cold answer was sent from the minister, stating that the prince had nothing to say. Then, after twice returning the letter unopened, and refusing to say any thing in reply when it was opened, it at last met the public eye, ministers advise the regent to summon a privy council, and then came the most extraordinary conduct on the part of lords Castlereagh and Eldon: they refer, not to the recent conduct of her royal highness, but to her conduct in 1806; and for such conduct she is to be punished, and not for any thing done by her in 1807, 1808, 1809, or any subsequent year. "Then," exclaimed Mr. Whitbread, "under what circumstances stand their famous proceedings of 1806, for which alone her royal highness is to be punished? All the witnesses against her, perjured and blasted! It is so admitted by the noble lord, and yet he and lord Eldon mix up this old hash of evidence as the only testimony that could be found to affect the princess of Wales. But was not this famous evidence in 1806 laid before the prince's legal advisers, Mr. Adam, Mr. Garrow, and Mr. Jekyll? 1 should be glad to know how the last insidious paragraph of that opinion came before the public? whether it was not so made public from authority? Again; had not the cabinet of 1807 all the evidence given in 1806 before it, and the fegal opinion of the prince's lawyers I just referred to into the bargain, when their verdict of unqualified acquittal was given? From this verdict they now seem to shrink, because the evidence is stale and

forgotten." Mr. Whitbread then read the minute of council of 1807; it was signed by lords Castlereagh and Eldon, and doubted the legality of the commission that sat upon the council in 1806-Yet (added Mr. Whitbread) these noble lords, who in 1807 doubt the legality of the proceedings of 1806, now go back to those same proceedings of 1806 as their only guide. He then read that part of the minute of 1807, that not only entirely acquits the princess of Wales of every charge of criminality brought against her by the Douglases, but exculpates her likewise from every hint of unguarded levity attributed to her by the commissioners in 1806. "Do then," said Mr. Whitbread, "do lord Castlereagh or lord Eldon mean to escape from their words? There never was a verdict of Not guilty like this. Is it to be permitted to go back to evidence given before this sentence of acquittal, and pronounce a new verdict of Guilty? Was ever woman so triumphant? Let the public recollect that no one act has passed since 1807, that the active breath of slander has dared to bring against the princess of Wales. The honourable member then read the late report, and proceeded to observe that the noble lord had tauntingly asserted that the princess of Wales had, doubtless, some legal adviser, or some friends within those walls, who would be found to advocate her cause. It had been so. She had a powerful legal adviser in that house in the late Mr. Perceval. Many too of the most able men in the country, in the house and out of it, had been her friends and advisers; among them he could name lord Eldon, sir T. Plomer, and sir William Scott. It was due to the memory of Mr. Perceval, to

state,

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state, that to his dying day he always publicly proclaimed the innocence of the princess; but as for her other surviving friends, they were mute. No doubt the princess had her legal adviser, and who would never shrink from the responsibility of the duties of his situation, or disown his being such adviser, to him who had any right to question him for himself, in performing what he did, he would not call himself the friend of the princess of Wales, but the friendof justice. Was her royal highness at least not entitled to the common courtesy belonging to her sex? Had she attempted more than had been done, in the brutal reign of Henry VIII. by the unfortunate Ann Bullen, who asked to be declared innocent, or proved to be guilty? Mr. Whitbread concluded a most animated speech amidst shouts of applause, and moved an amendment for the production of the report recently made by the individuals selected from the privy-council.

Lord Castlereagh said, he would come at once to the letter of her royal highness: and if he spoke of it with plainness, it would be as the letter of her legal advisers. Well would it have been for her, if she now had such advisers as she formerly had. In respect to the complaint that was made of the prince having refused to read her letter, it was not for the house to judge of the merits of the parties under the long and settled separation which existed. This was a matter of private arrangement, and long ago the prince had determined that no correspondence should take should take place; and he could acquaint the house that this was not the first letter which had been sent back. But this complaint was founded on a supposition that some punishment

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had been inflicted on the princess by the restraints that were placed on the intercourse between her and her daughter. He would state to the house how the case was, and then it would see that no such punishment was intended. When the princess Charlotte went to Windsor, the prince altered the arrangement under which the princess had been accustomed to see her, from once a week to once a fortnight, that less interruption of her studies might happen by frequent journeys to London, and it was not intended to require the alteration to continue longer than during the princess's residence at Windsor. This was the whole of what was magnified into a great infliction of punishment and inference of guilt, and he was sure the house would see it, as he did, to be a matter in no ways sufficient to justify the letter of her royal highness. In respect to the conduct of the prince, he did all that lay in his power to secure sound advice. He called in all the heads of the law and the church, to advise merely to one point, what restraints should be placed on the intercourse between the princess and her daughter. There never was a stronger imputation cast on any one than was cast on the prince by the legal advisers of the letter of the princess-it was an appeal to the country against their prince, and an appeal to the child against her parent. But of all the paragraphs of the letter, that which relates to the canting paragraph about the confirmation, is the most reprehensible; for, if her royal highness had ever spoken to the bishop of Salisbury, the tutor of the princess, on the subject, with a wish on her part to have the ceremony performed, he could have

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told her that it was his majesty's express wish it should not take place till the princess had attained her eighteenth year. The country, he was sure, would feel the prince had discharged his duty; and that his consultation with the council on the education of his child was a proof of his love of his people, by referring for advice to his council; and that he had shown an anxious desire to exercise the prerogative of educating his daughter, with a just sense of its great importance.

Sir Thomas Plomer spoke on the same side.

Mr. Wortley said, he felt very warmly on this occasion, as a man of honour and a gentleman, but he could not vote either for the original motion or the amendment. He must at the same time say, it was not the speech of the noble lord that induced him to come to this determination, for he had left the points which are the most material in the discussion without any answer. He considered this a most galling and disgraceful subject, no less than dragging the royal family before the house. The true question was, whether ministers had done their duty, first to their king, and secondly to their country? In his opinion, the four commissioners appointed in 1806 had gone further than they were required to do. The commission were to examine into a charge of one kind only; but from the evidence brought to support, this, they formed another, and thus exceeded their jurisdiction. If their report was only to go to the king, this circumstance would not have been material; but as it was to go to the princess, it was sure to be productive of difficulties, such as no woman could submit, without complaint, to the imputations that were cast upon her. But passing

by this report, the next to be con sidered is that of 1807, which is a complete acquittal as to every point. This the noble lord has not denied in his speech; but the ministers of that day not only acquitted her royal highness, but went further, and advised his majesty to receive the princess at court. With such a report in existence, why was it necessary now to ransack the evi dence of 1806, and to rake together the documents of that period, to found a report upon what regula tions were necessary to govern the intercourse between the princess and her daughter?-documents, in crushing which the noble lord had formerly been a party. If, instead of such an unjustifiable proceeding, his royal highness the prince regent had been advised to say, I am the father of this child, and I will act as a father is empowered to do-I am prince of these realms, and I will exercise my prerogative of educating the successor to the throne-the country would have been satisfied, in his opinion, as he did not conceive the princess was so popular as to fear that such advice would not have been universally approved of. The hon. member said, he had. as high feelings for royalty as any man; but he must say, all proceedings like these contribute to pull it down. He was very sorry we had a family who do not take warning from what is said and thought concerning them. They seemed to be the only persons in the country who were wholly regardless of their own welfare and respectability. He would not have the regent lay the flattering unction to his soul, and think his conduct will bear him harmless through all these transactions. He said this with no disrespect to him, or his family: no man was more attached

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