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this wish has been disappointed, the failure is not imputable to any thing unnecessarily said or done by us.

"All which is most humbly submitted to your Majesty.

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Immediately on the receipt of the report, her Royal Highness addressed the following letter to the King:

"Blackheath, Aug. 12. 1806. "SIRE,With the deepest feelings of gratitude to your Majesty, I take the first opportunity to acknowledge having received, as yesterday only, the report from the Lords' Commissioners, which was dated from the 14th of July. It was brought by Lord Erskine's footman, directed to the Princess of Wales; besides a note enclosed, the contents of which were, that Lord Erskine sent the evidences and report by commands of his Majesty. I had reason to flatter myself that the Lords' Commissioners would not have given in the report, before they had been properly informed of various circumstances, which must, for a feeling and delicate-minded woman, be very unpleasant to have spread, without having the means to exculpate herself. But I can in the face of the Almighty assure your Majesty that your daughter-in-law is innocent, and her conduct unquestionable; free from all the indecorums, and improprieties which are imputed to her at present by the Lords' Commissioners, upon the evidence of persons, who speak as falsely as Sir John and Lady Douglas themselves. Your Majesty can be sure that I shall be anxious to give the most solemn denial in my power to all the scandalous stories of Bidgood and Cole; to make my conduct to be cleared in the most satisfactory way for the tranquillity of your Majesty, for the honor of your illustrious family, and the gratification of your afflicted daughter-in-law. In the mean time I can safely trust your Majesty's gracious justice to recollect, that

the whole of the evidence on which the Commissioners have given credit to the infamous stories charged against me, was taken behind my back, without my having any opportunity to contradict or explain any thing, or even to point out those persons who might have been called, to prove the little credit which was due to some of the witnesses, from their connection with Sir John and Lady Douglas; and the absolute falsehood of parts of the evidence, which could have been completely contradicted. Oh! gracious King, I now look for that happy moment, when I may be allowed to appear again before your Majesty's eyes, and receive once more the assurance from your Majesty's own mouth that I have your gracious protection; and that you will not discard me from your friendship, of which your Majesty has been so condescending to give me so many marks of kindness; and which must be my only support, and my only consolation, in this country. I remain with sentiments of the highest esteem, veneration, and unfeigned attachment, Sire, your Majesty's most dutiful, submissive, and humble daughter-in-law and subject,

"To the King."

(Signed)

"CAROLINE."

On the 17th August the Princess of Wales again wrote to his Majesty, requesting to be furnished with authenticated copies of the report, and of the declarations and depositions on which it proceeded. This request was complied with, and the papers were submitted to her Royal Highness's legal advisers, Lord Elden, Mr. Perceval, and Sir Thomas Plumer. On the 2d of October she transmitted to the King a long and elaborate letter, drawn up, of course, by her professional friends, in which the charges brought against her, and the evidence upon which they rested, were separately commented upon.

After remarking, that the extravagance of the malice of Sir John and Lady Douglas had defeated itself, she stated that there" still remained imputations, strangely sanctioned, and countenanced by the report," respecting which she could not

remain silent without incurring the most fatal consequences to her honour and character. Against the substance of the proceeding itself, and the manner in which it was conducted, she considered herself bound to protest. The report, it was observed, proceeded upon ex parte examination, without af fording her an opportunity of explaining or defending. Her conduct had been made the subject of investigation; but the cause of this she did not learn until the investigation had actually taken place, and then she found that the charge against her was high treason, committed in the foul crime of adultery. In this communication her Royal Highness dwelt with great force of argument, on the extreme improbability of Lady Douglas's affirmation respecting her pregnancy. We give the following extract from this document, without abbreviation, because it contains her Royal Highness's reply to that particular portion of the evidence (namely, the depositions of Cole and Bidgood,) upon which the Commissioners now dwelt, when they stated, that, independent of her imputed pregnancy, "there were other particulars respecting the conduct of her Royal Highness which must necessarily give occasion to very unfavourable interpretations."

"The imputations which I collect to be considered as cast upon me by these several witnesses, are, too great familiarity and intimacy with several gentlemen; Sir Sydney Smith, Mr. Lawrence, Captain Manby, and I know not, whether the same are not meant to be extended to Lord Hood, Mr. Chester, and Captain Moore.

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Upon the evidence which respects Sir Sydney Smith, I would request your Majesty to understand, that with respect to the fact of Sir Sydney Smith's visiting frequently at Montague House, both with Sir John and Lady Douglas, and without them; with respect to his being frequently there, at luncheon, dinner, and supper; and staying with the rest of the company till twelve, one o'clock, or even sometimes later; if these are some of the facts which must give occasion to unfavourable interpretations, and must be credited till they are contradicted;' they are facts, which I never can contradict,

for they are perfectly true. And I trust it will imply the confession of no guilt, to admit that Sir Sydney Smith's conversation, his account of the various and extraordinary events, and heroic achievements in which he had been concerned, amused and interested me; and the circumstance of his living so much with his friends, Sir John and Lady Douglas, in my neighbourhood on Blackheath, gave the opportunity of his increasing his acquaintance with me.

"It happened also that about this time I fitted up, as your Majesty may have observed, one of the rooms in my house after the fashion of a Turkish tent. Sir Sydney furnished me with a pattern for it, in a drawing of the tent of Murad Bey, which he had brought over with him from Egypt. And he taught me how to draw Egyptian arabesques, which were necessary for the ornaments of the cieling: this may have occasioned, while that room was fitting up, several visits, and possibly some, though I do not recollect them, as early in the morning as Mr. Bidgood mentions. I believe also that it has happened more than once that, walking with my ladies in the Park, we have met Sir Sydney Smith, and that he has come in, with us, through the gate from the Park, My ladies may have gone up to take off their cloaks, or to dress, and have left me alone with him; and, at some one of these times it may very possibly have happened that Mr. Cole and Mr. Bidgood may have seen him, when he has not come through the waiting-room, nor been let in by any of the footmen. But I solemnly declare to your Majesty that I have not the least idea or belief that he ever had a key of the gate into the Park, or that he ever entered in or passed out at that gate, except company with myself and my ladies. As for the circumstance of my permitting him to be in the room alone with me; if suffering a man to be so alone is evidence of guilt, from whence the Commissioners can draw any unfavourable inference, I must leave them to draw it. For I cannot deny that it has happened, and happened frequently; not only with Sir Sydney Smith, but with many, many others; gentlemen who have visited me; tradesmen who have come to

in

receive my orders; masters whom I have had to instruct me, in painting, in music, in English, &c. that I have received them without any one being by. In short, I trust I am not confessing a crime, for unquestionably it is a truth, that I never had an idea that there was any thing wrong, or objectionable, in thus seeing men, in the morning; and I confidently believe your Majesty will see nothing in it from which any guilt can be inferred. I feel certain that there is nothing immoral in the thing itself; and I have always understood, that it was perfectly customary and usual for ladies of the first rank, and the first character, in the country, to receive the visits of gentlemen in a morning, though they might be themselves alone at the time. But, if, in the opinions and fashions of this country, there should be more impropriety ascribed to it, than what it ever entered into my mind to conceive, I hope your Majesty, and every candid mind, will make allowance for the different notions which my foreign education and foreign habits may have given me.”

Without desiring to make any injurious comments upon this portion of the Princess of Wales' justification, we cannot help expressing our conviction, that, as a "widowed wife" she was bound to observe a more than ordinary circumspection of conduct. Her situation was peculiarly delicate, and required, on her part, a more than common attention to even the minutia of propriety and decorum. It cannot be contended, that even a "foreign education," which her Royal Highness pleads in extenuation of these acknowledged improprieties, is an adequate excuse for the breach of those forms, without an attention to which no virtue, however exalted, can hope to escape imputation and calumny. It is impossible for any man of honour to contend, that a wife, in the very peculiar situation of the Princess of Wales, could receive the constant visits of particular gentlemen, early and late, and suffer herself to be seen alone with them, (however her own conscience might acquit her,) without laying herself open to misrepresentation and calumny.

After replying at some length to the evidence of Cole, Bid

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