Majesty knows is the same which the witnesses call the Blue Room, he does not know whether any person was with her; but it appeared odd to him, as he had formed some suspicions." The striking and important observation on this passage is, that when he first talks of the door of the drawing-room being locked, so far from his mentioning any thing of whispering being overheard, he expressly says, that he did not know that any body was with me. The passage is likewise deserving Your Majesty's most serious consideration on another ground. For it is one of those which shews that Mr. Cole, though we have four separate declarations made by him, has certainly made other statements which have not been transmitted to Your Majesty; for it evidently refers to something which he had said before, of having found the drawing-room door locked, and no trace of such a statement is discoverable in the previous examiuation of Mr. Cole, as I have received it; and I have no doubt, that in obedience to Your Majesty's commands, I have at length been furnished with the whole. I don't know indeed, that it should be matter of complaint from me, that Your Majesty has not been furnished with all the statements of Mr. Cole, because, from the sample I see of them, I cannot suppose that 1 any of them could have furnished any thing favorable to me, except indeed, that they might have furnished me with fresh means of contradicting him by himself.

"But Your Majesty will see that there have

been other statements not communicated; a circumstance of which both Your Majesty and I have reason to complaiù. But it may be out of its place further to notice that fact at present. "To return therefore to Mr. Cole;-In his third declaration, dated the 30th of January, there is not a word about Mr. Lawrence. In his fourth and last, which is dated on the 23rd of February, he says, "the person who was alone "with the lady at late hours of the night (twelve "and one o'clock,) and whom he left sitting up "after he went to bed, was Mr. Lawrence, which "happened two different nights." Here is likewise another trace of a former statement which is not given; for no such person is mentioned before, in any that I have been furnished with.

"Your Majesty then here observes, that, after having given evidence in two of his declarations, respecting Mr. Lawrence by name, in which he mentions nothing of locked doors, and after having in another declaration, given an account of a locked door, but expressly stated that he knew not whether any one was with me within it, and said nothing about whispering being overheard, but, impliedly at least, negatived it :-in the deposition before the Commissioners, he puts all these things together, and has the hardihood to add to them that remarkable circumstance, which could not have escaped his recollection at the first, if it had been true, "of his having on the same night, in which he found 66 me and Mr. Lawrence alone, after the ladies "were gone to bed, come again to the room,

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"where he thought Mr. Lawrence must have retired, and found the door locked, and "heard the whispering;" and then again he gives another instance of his honesty, and upon the same principle on which he took no notice of the man in the great coat, he finds the door locked, hears the whispering, and then he silently and contentedly retires.

"And this witness, who thus not only varies in his testimony, but contradicts himself in such important particulars, is one of those who cannot be suspected of an unfavorable bias, and whose veracity is not to be questioned, and whose evidence must be credited till decidedly contradicted.

"These observations might probably be deemed sufficient upon Mr. Cole's deposition, as far as it respects Mr. Lawrence; but I cannot be satisfied without explaining to Your Majesty all the truth, and the particulars respecting Mr. Lawrence, which I recollect.

"What I recollect then is as follows. He began a large picture of me and my Daughter towards the latter end of the year 1800, or the beginning of 1801. Miss Garth and Miss Hayman were in the house with me at the time. The picture was painted at Montague House. Mr. Lawrence mentioned to Miss Hayman, his wish to be permitted to remain some few nights in the house, that by rising early he might begin painting on the picture, before the Princess Charlotte (whose residence being at that time at Shooters Hill, she was enabled to come early) or myself,

came to sit. It was a similar request to that which had been made by Sir William Beechy, when he painted my picture. And I was sensible of no impropriety, when 1 granted the request to either of them. Mr. Lawrence occupied the same room which had been occupied by Sir William Beechy;-it was at the other end of the house from my apartment.

"At that time Mr. Lawrence did not dine with me; his dinner was served in his own room. After dinner he came down to the room where I and my ladies generally sat in an eveningsometimes there was music, in which he joined, and sometimes he read poetry. Parts of Shakespeare's plays I particularly remember, from his reading them very well; and sometimes he played chess with me. It frequently may have happened that it was one or two o'clock before I dismissed Mr. Lawrence and my ladies. They, together with Mr. Lawrence, went out of the same door, up the same staircase, and at the same time. According to my own recollection I should have said, that, in no one instance, they had left Mr. Lawrence behind them alone with me. But I suppose it did happen once, for a short time since, Mr. Lawrence so recollects it, as Your Majesty will perceive from his deposition, which I annex. He staid in my house two or three nights together; but how many nights in the whole, I do not recollect. The picture left my house by April, 1801, and Mr. Lawrence never slept in my house afterwards. That picture now belongs to Lady Townshend.

He has since completed another picture of me; and about a year and a half ago, he began another, which remains at present unfinished. I believe it is near a twelvemonth since I last sat to him.

"Mr. Lawrence lives upon a footing of the greatest intimacy with the neighbouring families of Mr. Lock and Mr. Angerstein; and I have asked him sometimes to dine with me to meet them. While I was sitting to him at my own house, I have no doubt I must have often sat to him alone; as the necessity for the precaution of having an attendant, as a witness to protect my honor from suspicion, certainly never occurred to me. And upon the same principle, I do not doubt that I may have sometimes continued in conversation with him, after he had finished painting. But when sitting in his own house, I have always been attended with one of my ladies. And indeed, nothing in the examinations states the contrary. One part of Mrs. Lisle's examination seems as if she had had a question put to her, upon the supposition that I had been left alone with Mr. Lawrence at his own house; to which she answers, that she had indeed left me there, but that she thinks she left Mrs. Fitzgerald with me.

"If an inference of an unfavorable nature, could have been drawn from my being left there alone; was it, Sire, taking all that care which might be wished to guard against such an inference, on the part of the Commissioners, when they omitted to send for Mrs. Fitzgerald, to have