late, and in another have been completely defeated. My best efforts are not wanting for the restoration of the relations of peace and amity between the two countries; but, until this object can be attained without sacrificing the maritime rights of Great Britain, I shall rely upon your cordial support in a vigorous prosecution of the war. Gentlemen of the house of commons, I have directed the estimates for the services of the ensuing year to be laid before you; and I enter tain no doubt of your readiness to furnish such supplies as may enable me to provide for the great interests committed to my charge, and afford the best prospect of bringing the contest in which his majesty is engaged to a successful termination. My lords, and gentlemen, The approaching expiration of the charter of the East India company renders it necessary that I should call your early attention to the propriety of providing effectually for the future government of the provinces of India. of the indemnity held out to the deluded by the wisdom and bene volence of parliament. I trust I shall never have occasion to lament the recurrence of atrocities so repugnant to the British character; and that all his majesty's subjects will be impressed with the conviction, that the happiness of individuals and the welfare of the state equally depend upon a strict obedience to the laws, and an attachment to our excellent constitution. In the loyalty of his majesty's people, and in the wisdom of parliament, I have reason to place the fullest confidence. The sarne firmness and perseverance which have been manifested on so many and such trying occasions will not, I am persuaded, be wanting, at a time when the eyes of all Europe, and of the world, are fixed upon you. I can assure you, that in the exercise of the great trust reposed in me, I have no sentiments so near my heart as the desire to promote, by every means in my power, the real prosperity and lasting happiness of his majesty's subjects. FROM THE PRINCESS OF WALES TO THE PRINCE REGENT, In considering the variety of interests which are connected with LETTER this important subject, I rely on your wisdom, for making such an arrangement as may best promote the prosperity of the British posses sions in that quarter, and at the same time secure the greatest advantages to the commerce and revenue of his majesty's dominions. I have derived great satisfaction from the success of the measures which have been adopted for suppressing the spirit of outrage and insubordination which had appear ed in some parts of the country, and from the disposition which has been manifested to take advantage "Sir, It is with great reluctance that I presume to obtrude myself upon your royal highness, and to solicit your attention to matters which may, at first, appear rather of a personal than a public nature. If I could think them so-if they related merely to myself-I should abstain from a proceeding which might give uneasiness, or interrupt the more weighty occupations of your royal highness's time. should continue, in silence and retirement, to lead the life which has I been been prescribed to me, and console myself for the loss of that society and those domestic comforts to which I have so long been a stranger, by the reflection that it has been deemed proper I should be afflicted without any fault of my own-and that your royal highness knows. "But, sir, there are considerations of a higher nature than any regard to my own happiness, which render this address a duty both to myself and my daughter. May I venture to say-a duty also to my husband, and the people committed to his care? There is a point beyond which a guiltless woman cannot with safety carry her forbearance. If her honour is invaded, the defence of her reputation is no longer a matter of choice; and it signifies not whether the attack be made openly, manfully, and directly or by secret insinuation, and by holding such conduct towards her as countenances all the suspicions that malice can suggest. If these ought to be the feelings of every woman in England who is conscious that she deserves no reproach, your royal highness has too sound a judgment, and too nice a sense of honour, not to perceive, how much more justly they belong to the mother of your daughter-the mother of her who is destined, I trust at a very distant period, to reign over the British empire. "It may be known to your royal highness, that during the continuance of the restrictions upon your royal authority, I purposely refrained from making any representations which might then augment the painful difficulties of your exalted station. At the expiration of the restrictions, I still was inclined to delay taking this step, in the hope that I might owe the redress I sought to your gracious and unsolicited condescension. I have waited, in the fond indulgence of this expectation, until, to my inexpressible mortification, I find that my unwillingness to complain, has only produced fresh grounds of complaint; and I am at length compelled, either to abandon all regard for the two dearest objects which I possess on earth, mine own honour, and my beloved child, or to throw myself at the feet of your royal highness, the natural protec tor of both. "I presume, sir, to represent to your royal highness, that the sepa ration, which every succeeding month is making wider, of the mother and the daughter, is equally injurious to my character and to her education. I say nothing of the deep wounds which so cruel an arrangement inflicts upon my feelings, although I would fain hope that few persons will be found of a disposition to think lightly of these. To see myself cut off from one of the few domestic enjoyments left me-certainly the only one upon which I set any value, the society of my child-involves me in such misery, as I well know your royal highness could never inflict upon me if you were aware of its bitterness. Our intercourse has been gradually diminished. A single interview, weekly, seemed suffi. ciently hard allowance for a mother's affections. That, however, was reduced to our meeting once a fortnight; and I now learn that even this most rigorous interdiction is to be still more rigidly enforced. "But while I do not venture to intrude my feelings as a mother upon your royal highness's notice, I must be allowed to say, that in the eyes of an observing and jealous world, this separation of a daughter from from her mother, will only admit of one construction-a construction fatal to the mother's reputation. Your royal highness will also pardon me for adding, that there is no less inconsistency than injustice in this treatment. He who dares advise your royal highness to overlook the evidence of my innocence, and disregard the sentence of complete acquittal which it produced; or is wicked and false enough still to whisper suspicions in your ear, betrays his duty to you, sir, to your daughter, and to your people, if he counsels you to permit a day to pass without a further investigation of my conduct. I know that no, such calumniator will venture to recommend a measure which must speedily end in his utter confusion. Then let me implore you to reflect on the situation in which I am placed without the shadow of a charge against me-without even an accuser-after an inquiry that led to my ample vindication-yet treated as if I were still more culpable than the perjuries of my suborned traducers represented me, and held up to the world as a mother who may not enjoy the society of her only child. "The feelings, sir, which are natural to my unexampled situation, might justify me in the gracious judgment of your royal highness, had I no other motives for addressing you but such as relate to myself. But I will not disguise from your royal highness what I cannot for a moment conceal from myself, that the serious, and it soon may be, the irreparable injury which my daughter sustains from the plan at present pursued, has done more in overcoming my re. luctance to intrude upon your royal highness, than any sufferings of my own could accomplish; and if for her sake I presume to call away your royal highness's attention from the other cares of your exalted station, I feel confident I am not claiming it for a matter of inferior importance either to yourself or your people. My appeal, "The powers with which the constitution of these realms vests your royal highness in the regula tion of the royal family, I know, because I am so advised, are ample and unquestionable. sir, is made to your excellent sense and liberality of mind in the exercise of those powers; and I willingly hope that your own parental feelings will lead you to excuse the anxiety of mine for impelling me to represent the unhappy consequences which the present system must entail upon our beloved child. "It is impossible, sir, that any one can have attempted to persuade your royal highness, that her character will not be injured by the perpetual violence offered to her strongest affections-the studied care taken to estrange her from my society, and even to interrupt all communication between us! That her love for me, with whom, by his majesty's wise and gracious arrangements, she passed the years of her infancy and childhood, never can be extinguished, I well know, and the knowledge of it forms the greatest blessing of my existence. "But let me implore your royal highness to reflect how inevitably all attempts to abate this attach ment, by forcibly separating us, if they succeed, must injure my child's principles-if they fail, must destroy her happiness. "The plan of excluding my daughter from all intercourse with the world, appears to my humble judgment peculiarly unfortunate. She who is destined to be the sove reign of this great country, enjoys none of those advantages of society which are deemed necessary for imparting a knowledge of mankind to persons who have infinitely less occasion to learn that important lesson; and it may so happen, by a chance which I trust is very remote, that she should be called upon to exercise the powers of the crown, with an experience of the world more confined than that of the most private individual. To the extraordinary talents with which she is blessed, and which accompany a disposition as singularly amiable, frank, and decided, I will ingly trust much; but beyond a certain point the greatest natural endowments cannot struggle against the disadvantages of circumstances and situation. It is my earnest prayer, for her own sake, as well as her country's, that your royal highness may be induced to pause before this point be reached. "Those who have advised you, sir, to delay so long the period of my daughter's commencing her intercourse with the world, and for that purpose to make Windsor her residence, appear not to have regarded the interruptions to her education which this arrangement occasions; both by the impossibility of obtaining the attendance of proper teachers, and the time unavoidably consumed in the frequent journeys to town which she must make, unless she is to be secluded from all intercourse even with your royal highness and the rest of the royal family. To the same unfortunate counsels I ascribe a circumstance in every way so distressing both to my parental and religious feelings, that my daughter has never yet enjoyed the benefit of confirmation, although above a year older than the age at which all the other branches of the royal family have partaken of that solemnity. May I earnestly conjure you, sir, to hear my entreaties upon this serious matter, even if you should listen to other advisers on things of less near concernment to the welfare of our child? "The pain with which I have at length formed the resolution of addressing myself to your royal highness is such as I should in vain attempt to express. If I could adequately describe it, you might be enabled, sir, to estimate the strength of the motives which have made me submit to it. They are the most powerful feelings of affection, and the deepest impressions of duty towards your royal highness, my beloved child, and the country, which I devotedly hope she may be preserved to govern, and to show, by a new example, the liberal affection of a free and generous people to a virtuous and constitutional monarch. "I am, sir, with profound respect, and an attachment which nothing can alter, Your royal highness's most devoted and most affectionate Consort, cousin, and subject, (Signed) CAROLINE LOUISA. "Montague-house, Jan. 14, 1813." A copy of the report of the ho: nourable the privy council, having been laid before the prince regent, was transmitted to her royal highness by viscount Sidmouth on the evening of the day on which the above letter was, sent; and lord Harrowby replied to her royal highness, by letter, to this effect: The report is as follows:To his royal highness the prince regent. The members of his majesty's most honourable privy council: council: viz. his grace the archbishop of Canterbury, &c. &c.; having been summoned by command of your royal highness, on the 19th of February, to meet at the office of viscount Sidmouth, secretary of state for the home department, a communication was made by his lordship to the lords then present, in the following terms: 65 My lords,-I have it in command from his royal highness the prince regent, to acquaint your lord ships, that a copy of a letter from the princess of Wales to the prince regent having appeared in a public paper, which letter refers to the proceedings that took place in an inquiry instituted by command of his majesty, in the year 1806, and contains among other matters, certain animadversions upon the manner in which the prince regent has exercised his undoubted right of regulating the conduct and education of his daughter the princess Charlotte; and his royal highness having taken into his consideration the said letter so published, and adverting to the directions heretofore given by his majesty, that the documents relating to the said inquiry should be sealed up, and deposited in the office of his majesty's principal secretary of state, in order that his majesty's government should possess the means of resorting to them if necessary: his royal highness has been pleased to direct, that the said letter of the princess of Wales, and the whole of the said documents, together with the copies of other letters and papers, of which a schedule is annexed, should be referred to your lordships, being members of his majesty's most honourable privy council, for your consideration: and that you should report to his royal highness your opinion, whether, under all the circumstances of the case, it be fit and proper that the intercourse between the princess of Wales, and her daughter the, princess Charlotte, should continue to be subject to regulations and restrictions." "Their lordships adjourned their meetings to Tuesday, the 23d of February; and the intermediate days having been employed in perusing the documents referred to them, by command of your royal highness, they proceeded on that and the following day to the further consideration of the said documents, and have agreed to report to your royal highness as follows: "In obedience to the commands of your royal highness, we have taken into our most serious consideration the letter from her royal highness the princess of Wales to your royal highness, which has appeared in the public papers, and has been referred to us by your royal highness, in which letter the princess of Wales, amongst other matters, complains that the intercourse between her royal highness, and her royal highness the princess Charlotte, has been subjected to certain restrictions. "We have also taken into our most serious consideration, together with the other papers referred to us by your royal highness, all the documents relative to the inquiry instituted in 1806, by command of his majesty, into the truth of certain representations, respecting the conduct of her royal highness the princess of Wales, which appear to have been pressed upon the attention of your royal highness, in con sequence of the advice of lord Thurlow, and upon grounds of public duty; by whom they were transmitted to his majesty's consi deration; |