mined to bring it up in my own house; and what would exceed, as I should imagine, the extent of all human credulity, that I had determined to suckle it myself: that I had laid my plan, if discovered, to have imposed it upon His Royal Highness as his child. Nay, they were to believe that I had stated, and that Lady Douglas had believed the statement to be true, that I had in fact attempted to suckle it, and only gave up that part of my plan, because it made me nervous, and was too much for my health. And, after all this, they were then to believe, that having made Lady Douglas thus unnecessarily the confidante of this most important and dangerous secret; having thus put my character, and my life in her hands, I sought an occasion, wantonly, and without provocation, from the mere fickleness and wilfulness of my own mind, to quarrel with her, to insult her openly and violently in my own house, to endeavour to ruin her reputation, to expose her in infamous and indecent drawings, enclosed in letters to her husband. The letters indeed are represented to be anonymous, but, though anonymous, they are stated to have been written with my own hand, so undisguised in penmanship and style, that every one who had the least acquaintance with either, could not fail to discover them, and, (as if it were through fear, lest it should not be sufficiently plain, from whom they came,) that I had sealed them with a seal, which I had shortly before used, on an occasion of writing to her husband. All this they were to believe upon the declaration

of a person, who, with all that loyalty and attachment which she expresses to Your Majesty, and His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, with all her obligation to the whole Royal Family, (to whom she expresses herself to be "bound by ties of respectful regard and attachment, which nothing can ever break ;") with all her dread of the mischievous consequences to the country which might arise, from the disputed succession to the crown, on the pretensions of an illegitimate child of mine, nevertheless continued, after this supposed avowal of my infamy, and my crime, after my supposed acknowledgment of the birth of this child, which was to occasion all this mischief, to preserve, for near a twelvemonth, her intimacy and apparent friendship with me. Nay, for two years more, after that intimacy had ceased, after that friendship had been broken off, by my alleged misbehaviour to her, continued still faithful to my secret, and never disclosed it till (as her declaration states it,) "the Princess of Wales re-commenced a fresh torrent of outrage against Sir John: and Sir John discovered that she was attempting to undermine his and Lady Douglas's character."

"Those then, who had the opportunity of seeing the whole of this narrative, having had their jealousy awakened by these circumstances to the improbability of the story, and to the discredit of the informer, when they came to observe how malicious every circumstance that imagination could suggest, as most calculated to make a woman contemptible and odious, was scraped

and heaped up together in this narrative, must surely have had their eyes opened to the motives of my accusers; and their minds cautioned against giving too easy a credit to their accusation, when they found my conversation to be represented as most loose, and infamous; my mind uninstructed and unwilling to learn; my language, with regard to Your Majesty and the whole of your Royal Family, foully disrespectful and offensive; and all my manners and habits of life most disgusting. I should have flattered myself, that I could not have been, in character, so wholly unknown to them, but that they must have observed a spirit and a coloring at least in this representation, which must have proved much more against the disposition and character of the informers, and the quality of their information, than against the person who was the object of their charge. But when, in addition to all this, the declaration states that I had, with respect to my unfortunate and calamitous separation from His Royal Highness, stated that I had acknowledged myself to have been the agressor, from the beginning, and myself alone; and when it further states, that if any other woman had so played and sported with her husband's comfort and popularity, she would have been turned out of his house, or left alone in it, and have deservedly forfeited her place in society; and further still, when alleging that I had once been desirous of procuring a separation from His Royal Highness, and had pressed former Chancellors to accomplish this purpose, it flippantly adds,

that "the Chancellor may now, perhaps, be able to grant her request:"-The malicious object of the whole must, surely, have been most obvious.

"For, supposing these facts to have been all true; supposing this infamous and libellous description of my character, had been nothing but a correct and faithful representation of my vices, and my infamy, would it not have been natural to have asked, why they were introduced into this declaration? What effect could they have had upon the charge of crime, and of adultery, which it was intended to establish? If it was only in execution of a painful duty, which a sense of loyalty to Your Majesty, and obedience to the commands of the Prince of Wales, at length reluctantly drew from them, why all this malicious accompaniment? "His Royal Highness" indeed, they say, "desired that they would communicate the whole circumstances of their acquaintance with me, from the day they first spoke with me till the present time; a full detail of all that passed during our acquaintance," and "how they became known to me; it appearing to His Royal Highness, from the representation of His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex, that His Majesty's dearest interests, and those of this country, were very deeply interested in the question;" and "that he particularly commanded them, to be very circumstantial in the detail, respecting all they might know relative to the child that I affected to adopt."

"But from the whole of this it is sufficiently

apparent, that the particularity of this detail was required by His Royal Highness, in respect of matters connected with that question, in which the dearest interests of Your Majesty and this country, were involved; and not of circumstances which could have no bearing on those interests. If it had been therefore true, as I most solemnly protest it is not, that I had, in the confidence of private conversation, so far forgot all decency, loyalty, and gratitude, as to have expressed myself with disrespect of Your Majesty, which is imputed to me ;-if I had been, what I trust those who have lived with me, or ever have partaken of my society, would not confirm, of a mind so uninformed and uncultivated, without education or talents, or without any desire of improving myself, incapable of employment, of a temper so furious and violent, as altogether to form a character, which none could bear to live with, who had the means of living elsewhere;-what possible progress would all this make, towards proving that I was guilty of adultery? These, and such insinuations, as false as they are malicious, could never have proved crime in me, however manifestly they might display the malice of my accusers.

"Must it not, then, have occurred to any one who had seen the whole of this narrative, if the motive of my accusers was, as they represent it, merely that of good patriots, of attached and loyal subjects, bound, in execution of a painful duty imposed upon them by his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, to disclose, in detail, all