Montague-house, Jan. 29, 1807. Sire,I hasten to acknowledge the receipt of the paper, which, by your majesty's direction, was yesterday transmitted to me by the lord chancellor, and to express the unfeigned happiness, which I have derived from one part of it. I mean that which informs me that your majesty's confidential servants have at length thought proper to communicate to your majesty their advice, "that it is no longer necessary for your majesty to decline receiving me into your royal presence."

And I therefore humbly hope that your majesty will be graciously pleased to receive, with favour, the communication of my intention to avail myself, with your majesty's permission, of that advice, for the purpose of waiting upon your majesty on Monday next, if that day should not be inconvenient; when I hope again to have the happiness of throwing myself, in filial duty and affection, at your majesty's feet.

Your majesty will easily conceive that I reluctantly name so distant a day as Monday, but I do not feel myself sufficiently recovered from the measles, to venture upon so long a drive at an earlier day. Feeling, however, very anxious to receive again as soon as possible that blessing, of which I have been so long deprived, if that day should happen to be in any degree inconvenient, I humbly entreat and implore your majesty's most gracious and paternal goodness, to name some other day, as early as possible, for that purpose. I am, &c. (Signed) C. P.

To the king.

Windsor Castle, Jan. 29, 1807. The king has this moment re

ceived the princess of Wales's letter, in which she intimates her intention of coming to Windsor on Monday next; and his majesty, wishing not to put the princess to the inconvenience of coming to this place so immediately after her illness, hastens to acquaint her that he shall prefer to receive her in London upon a day subsequent to the ensuing week, which will also better suit his majesty, and of which he will not fail to to apprize the prin

cess.

(Signed) GEORGE R.

To the princess of Wales.

Windsor Castle, Feb. 10, 1807. As the princess of Wales may have been led to expect, from the king's letter to her, that he would fix an early day for seeing her, his majesty thinks it right to acquaint her, that the prince of Wales, upon receiving the several documents which the king directed his cabinet to transmit to him, made a formal communication to him, of his intention to put them into the hands of his lawyers; accompanied by a request, that his majesty would sus pend any further steps in the business, until the prince of Wales should be enabled to submit to him the statement which he proposed to make. The king therefore considers it incumbent upon him to defer naming a day to the princess of Wales, until the further result of the prince's intention shall have been made known to him.

(Signed) GEORGE R.

To the princess of Wales.

Montague-house, Feb. 12, 1807. Sire,-I received yesterday, and with inexpressible pain, your majesty's last communication. The duty of stating, in a representation to your majesty, the various grounds

upon

upon which I feel the hardship of my case, and upon which I confidently think that, upon a review of it, your majesty will be disposed to recal your last determination, is a duty I owe to myself: and I can not forbear, at the moment when I acknowledge your majesty's letter, to announce to your majesty that I propose to execute that duty without delay.

After having suffered the punishment of banishment from your ma⚫ jesty's presence for seven months, pending an inquiry which your majesty had directed, into my conduct, affecting both my life and my honour-after that inquiry had, at length, terminated in the advice of your majesty's confidential and sworn servants, that there was no longer any reason for your majesty's declining to receive me; if after your majesty's gracious communication, which led me to rest assured that your majesty would appoint an early day to receive me;-if after all this, by a renewed application on the part of the prince of Wales, upon whose communication the first inquiry bad been directed, I now find that that punishment, which has been inflicted, pending a seven months in quiry before the determination, should, contrary to the opinion of your majesty's servants, be continued after that determination, to await the result of some new proceeding, to be suggested by the lawyers of the prince of Wales; it is impossible that I can fail to assert to your majesty, with the effect due to truth, that I am, in the consciousness of my innocence, and with a strong sense of my unmerited sufferings,

Your majesty's much injured subject and daughter-in-law, C.P. To the king.

Montague-house, Feb. 16, 1807. Sire, By my short letter to your majesty of the 12th instant, in answer to your majesty's communication of the 10th, I notified my intention of representing to your majesty the various grounds, on which I felt the hardship of my case; and a review of which, I confidently hoped, would dispose your majesty to recal your determination to adjourn, to an indefinite period, my reception into your royal presence; a determination, which, in addition to all the other pain which it brought along with it, affected me with the disappointment of hopes which I had fondly cherished with the most perfect confidence, because they rested on your majesty's gracious assurance.

Independently, however, of that communication from your majesty, I should have felt myself bound to have troubled your majesty with much of the contents of the present letter.

Upon the receipt of the paper which, by your majesty's commands, was transmitted to me by the lord chancellor, on the 28th of last month, and which communicated to me the joyful intelligence, that your majesty was "advised, that it was no longer necessary for you to decline receiving me into your royal presence," I conceived myself necessarily called upon to send an immediate answer to so much of it as respected that intelligence. I could not wait the time which it would have required to state those observations, which it was impossible for me to refrain from making at some period, upon the other important particulars which that paper contained. Accordingly, I answered it immediately; and as your majesty's gracious and instant reply of last Thursday

Thursday fortnight announced to me your pleasure that I should be received by your majesty on a day subsequent to the then ensuing week, I was led most confidently to assure myself that the last week would not have passed without my having received that satisfaction. I therefore determined to wait in patience, without further intrusion upon your majesty, till I might have the opportunity of guarding myself from the possibility of being misunderstood, by personally explaining to your majesty, that, whatever observations I had to make upon the paper so communicated to me on the 28th ult., and whatever complaints respecting the delay, and the many cruel circumstances which had attended the whole of the proceedings against me, and the unsatisfactory state in which they were at length left by that last communication, they were observations and complaints which affected those only, under whose advice your majesty had acted, and were not, in any degree, intended to intimate even the most distant insinuation against your majesty's justice or kindness.

That paper established the opinion, which I certainly had ever confidently entertained, but the justness of which I had not before any, document to establish, that your majesty had, from the first, deemed this proceeding a high and important matter of state, in the consideration of which your majesty had not felt yourself at liberty to trust to your own generous feelings, and to your own royal and gracious judgment. I never did Believe that the cruel state of anxiety in which I had been kept ever since the delivery of my answer, (for at least sixteen weeks) could be at all attributable to your ma

jesty; it was most unlike every thing which I had ever experienced from your majesty's condescension, feeling, and justice; and I found, from that paper, that it was to your confidential servants I was to ascribe the length of banishment from your presence, which they at last advised your majesty it was no longer necessary should be continued. I perceive, therefore, what I always believed, that it was to them, and to them only, that I owed the protracted continuance of my sufferings and of my disgrace; and that your majesty, considering the whole of this proceeding to have been instituted and conducted under the grave responsibility of your majes ty's servants, had not thought pro per to take any step or express any opinion upon any part of it, but such as was recommended by their advice. Influenced by these sentiments, and anxious to have the opportunity of conveying them, with the overflowings of a grateful heart, to your majesty, what were my sensations of surprise, mortification, and disappointment, on the receipt of your majesty's letter of the 10th inst., your majesty may conceive, though I am utterly unable to express.

That letter announces to me,

that his royal highness the prince of Wales, upon receiving the seve ral documents which your majesty directed your cabinet to transmit to him, made a personal communication to your majesty of his intention to put them into the hands of his lawyers, accompanied by a request, that your majesty would suspend any further steps in the business, until the prince of Wales should be enabled to submit to your majesty the statement which he proposed to make; and it also announces to me that your majesty therefore

therefore considered it incumbent on you to defer naming a day to me, until the further result of the prince of Wales's intention should have been made known to your majesty,

This determination of your majesty, on this request made by his royal highness, I humbly trust your majesty will permit me to entreat you, in your most gracious justice, to reconsider. Your majesty, I am convinced, must have been surprised at the time, and prevailed upon by the importunity of the prince of Wales, to think this determination necessary, or your majesty's generosity and justice would never have adopted it. And if I can satisfy your majesty of the unparalleled injustice and cruelty of this interposition of the prince of Wales at such a time and under such circumstances, I feel the most perfect confidence that your majesty will hasten to recal it.

I should basely be wanting to my own interest and feelings, if I did not plainly state my sense of that injustice and cruelty; and if I did not most loudly complain of it. Your majesty will better perceive the just grounds of my complaint, when I retrace the course of these proceedings from their commence

ment.

The four noble lords, appointed by your majesty to inquire into the charges brought against me, in their report of the 14th of July last, after having stated that his royal highness the prince of Wales had had laid before him, the charge which was made against me by lady Douglas, and the declaration in support of it, proceed in the following manner:

"In the painful situation in which his royal highness was placed by

these communications, we learnt that his royal highness had adopted the only course which could, in our judgment, with propriety be followed. When informations such as these had been thus confidently alleged and particularly detailed, and had been in some degree supported by collateral evidence, applying to other facts of the same nature, (though going to a far less extent,) one line only could be pursued.

66

Every sentiment of duty to your majesty, and of concern for the public welfare, required that these particulars should not be withheld from your majesty, to whom more particularly belonged the cognizance of a matter of state, so nearly touching the honour of your majesty's royal family, and, by possibility, affecting the succession of your majesty's crown.

"Your majesty had been pleased, on your part, to view the subject in the same light. Considering it as a matter which, on every account, demanded the most immediate investigation, your majesty had thought fit to commit into our hands the duty of ascertaining, in the first instance, what degree of credit was due to the information, and thereby enabling your majesty to decide what further conduct to adopt respecting them."

His royal highness then, pursu ing, as the four lords say, the only course, which could in their judgment, with propriety, be pursued, submitted the matter to your majesty. Your majesty directed the inquiry by the four noble lords.The four lords in their report upon the case, justly acquitted me of all crime, and expressed (I will not wait now to say how unjustly) the credit which they gave, and the

consequence they ascribed to other matters, which they did not, however, characterize as amounting to any crime. To this report I made my answer. That answer, together with the whole proceedings, was referred by your majesty, to the same four noble lords, and others of your majesty's confidential servants. They advised your majesty, amongst much other matter, (which must be the subject of further observations) that there was no longer any reason why you should decline receiving me.

Your majesty will necessarily conceive that I have always looked upon my banishment from your royal presence, as, in fact, a punishment, and a severe one too. I thought it sufficiently hard, that I should have been suffering that punishment, during the time that this inquiry has been pending, while I was yet only under accusation, and, upon the principles of the just laws of your majesty's kingdom, entitled to be presumed to be innocent, till I was proved to be guilty. But I find this does not appear to be enough, in the opinion of the prince of Wales. For now, when after this long inquiry, into matters which required immediate investigation, I have been acquitted of every thing which could call for my banishment from your royal presence-after your majesty's confidential servants have thus expressly advised your majesty that they see no reason why you should any longer decline to receive me into your presence;-after your majesty had graciously notified to me, your determination to receive me at an early day, his royal highness interposes the demand of a new delay; desires your majesty not to take any step; desires you not to act

upon the advice which your own confidential servants have given you, that you need no longer decline seeing me ;-not to execute your intention and assurance, that you would receive me at an early day;-because he has laid the documents before his lawyers, and intends to prepare a further statement. And the judgment of your majesty's confidential servants, is, as it were, appealed from by the prince of Wales, (whom, from this time at least, I must be permitted to consider as assuming the character of my accuser);-the justice due to me is to be suspended, while the judgment of your majesty's sworn servants is to be submitted to the revision of my accuser's counsel; and I, though acquitted in the opinion of your majesty's confidential servants, of all that should induce your majesty to decline seeing me, am to have that punishment, which had been inflicted upon me during the inquiry, continued after that acquittal, till a fresh statement is prepared, to be again submitted, for aught I know, to another in quiry, of as extended a continuance as that which has just terminated.

Can it be said that the proceed ings of the four noble lords, or of your majesty's confidential servants, have been so lenient and considerate towards me and my feelings, as to induce a suspicion that I have been too favourably dealt with by them? and that the advice which has been given to your majesty, that your majesty need no longer decline to receive me, was hastily and partially delivered? I am confident that your majesty must see the very reverse of this to be the case-that I have every reas son to complain of the inexplicable delay which so long withheld that

advice.