the facts which could establish my guilt, that these circumstances would never have made a part of their detail? But, on the other hand, if their object was to traduce me; if, falsely attributing to his Royal Highness, sentiments which could belong to no generous bosom, but measuring his nature by their own, they thought vainly and wickedly to ingratiate themselves with him, by being the instruments of accomplishing my ruin; if, aiming at depriving me of my rank and station, or of driving me from this country, they determined to bring forward a charge of treason against me, which, though they knew in their consciences it was false, yet they might hope would serve at least as a cover, and a pretence, for such an imputation upon my character, as, rendering my life intolerable in this country, might drive me to seek a refuge in another; if, the better to effectuate this purpose, they had represented all my misfortunes as my faults, and my faults alone, drawn an odious and disgusting picture of me, to extinguish every sentiment of pity and compassion, which, in the generosity not only of Your Majesty's royal bosom, and of the members of your Royal Family, but of all the inhabitants of your kingdom, might arise to commiserate the unfortunate situation of a stranger, persecuted under a charge originating in their malice;-if for this, they flung out, that I had justly forfeited my station in society, and that a separation from my husband was, what I myself had once wished, and what the Chancellor might now, perhaps, procure for

me-or if, in short, their object was to obtain my condemnation in prejudice, inflamed by falsehood, which never could be obtained by justice informed by truth; then, the whole texture of the declaration is consistent, and it is well contrived and executed for its purpose. But it is strange, that its purpose should have escaped the detection of intelligent and impartial minds. There was enough, at least, to have made them pause, before they gave such a degree of credit to informations of this description, as to have made them the foundations of so important and decisive a step, as that of advising them to be laid before Your Majesty.

"And indeed, such seems to have been the effect which this declaration at first produced. Because if it had been believed; the only thing to have been done (according to the judgment of the Commissioners,) would have been to have laid it immediately before Your Majesty, to whom, upon every principle of duty, the communication was due. But the declaration was made on the 3rd of December, in the last year, and the communication was not made to Your Majesty till the very end of May. And that interval appears to have been employed, in collecting those other additional declarations, which are referred to in the Report, and which Your Majesty has likewise been pleased, by your gracious commands, to have communicated to

me.

"These additional declarations do not, I submit, appear to furnish much additional reason

for believing the incredible story. They were taken" for the purpose," (for they are so described, this is the title which is prefixed to them in the authentic copies, with which I have been furnished,) "for the purpose of confirming the statement made by Lady Douglas, of the circumstances mentioned in her narrative;" and they are the examinations of two persons, who appear to have formerly lived in the family of Sir John and Lady Douglas, and of several servants of my own; they are filled with the hearsay details of other servants' declarations. And one of them, W. Cole, seems to have been examined over and over again. No less than four of his examinations are given, and some of these evidently refer to other examinations of his, which are not given at all.

"These, I submit to Your Majesty, are rendered, from this marked circumstance, particularly undeserving of credit; because, in the only instance in which the hearsay statement related to one servant, was followed by the examination of the other, who was stated to have made it, (I mean an instance in which Cole relates what he had heard said by F. Lloyd,) F Lloyd does not appear to have said any such thing, or even to have heard what she is, by him, related to have said, and she relates the fact that she really did hear, stripped of all the particulars with which Cole had coloured it, and which alone made it in any degree deserving to be mentioned. Besides this, the parents of the child, which is ascribed to me by Lady Douglas, are plainly

pointed out, and a clue is afforded by which, if followed, it would have been as easy to have ascertained, that that child was no child of mine, (if indeed it ever had been seriously believed to be so) and to have proved whose child it was, before the appointment of the Commissioners, as it has been found to be afterwards.

"So far, therefore, from concurring with the Commissioners, in approving the advice, under which His Royal Highness had acted, I conceive it to have been at least cruel and inconsiderate, to have advised the transmission of such a charge to Your Majesty, till they had exhausted all the means which private Inquiry could have afforded, to ascertain its falsehood or its truth.

"And when it appears that it was not thought necessary, upon the first statement of it, as the Commissioners seem to have imagined, forthwith to transmit it to Your Majesty; but that it was retained for near six months, from the beginning of December till near the end of May; what is due to myself obliges me to state, that if there had but been, in that interval, half the industry employed to remove suspicions, which was exerted to raise them, there would never have existed a necessity for troubling Your Majesty with this charge at all. I beg to be understood as imputing this solely to the advice given to His Royal Highness. He must of necessity, have left the detail and the determination upon this business to others. And it is evident to me, from what I now know,

that His Royal Highness was not fairly dealt with; that material information was obtained, to disprove part of the case against me, which, not appearing in the declarations that were transmitted to Your Majesty, I conclude was never communicated to His Royal Highness.

"Feeling, Sire, strongly, that I have much to complain of, that this foul charge should have been so readily credited to my great prejudice, as to have occasioned that advice to be given, which recommended the transmission of it to Your Majesty, (who, once formally in possession of it, could not fail to subject it to some inquiry ;) -I have dwelt, perhaps, at a tedious length, in disputing the propriety of the Commissioners' judgment, in thus approving the course which was pursued. And, had the false charge been delayed till death had taken away the real parents of the child, which Lady Douglas charges to be mine; if time had deprived me of those servants and attendants who have been able so fully to disprove the fact of my alleged pregnancy; I know not where I could have found the means of disproving facts and charges, so falsely, so confidently, and positively sworn to, as those to which Lady Douglas has attested.

"Following, as I proposed, the course taken 1 in the Report, I next come to that part of it, to which, unquestionably, I must recur with the greatest satisfaction; because it is that part, which so completely absolves me of every possible suspicion upon the two material charges, of pregnancy and child-birth.