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 exécute 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 con.fidential 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 Inquiry, of as extended a continuance as that which has just terminated. -- "Can it be said that the proceedings of the four noble Lords, or Your Majesty's confidential servants, have been so lenient and considerate toward's me, and my feelings, as to induce a suspicion that I have been too favorably dealt with by them? And that the advice which has 66 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 véry reverse of this to be the case that I have every reason to complain of the inexplicable delay which so long withheld that advice. And the whole character of the observations with which they accompanied it, marks the reluctance with which they yielded to the necessity of giving it. For Your Majesty's confidential servants advise Your Majesty, "that it is no longer necessary for you to decline receiving me "into your royal presence.' If this is their opinion and their advice now, why was it not their opinion and their advice four months ago, from the date of my answer? Nay, why was it not their opinion and advice, from the date even of the original Report itself? For not only had they been in possession of my answer for above sixteen weeks, which at least furnished them with all the materials on which this advice at length was given; but further, Your Majesty's confidential servants are forward to state, that after having read my observations, and the affidavits which they annexed to them, they agree in the opinions (not in any single opinion upon any particular branch of the case, but in the opinions generally) which were submitted to Your Majesty, in the original Report of the four Lords. If, therefore, (notwithstanding their concurrence in all the opinions contained in the Report) they have nevertheless given to Your Majesty their advice, "that is no longer necessary for you to decline receiving me;"what could have prevented their offering that advice, even from the 14th of July, the date of the original Report itself? Or what could have warranted the withholding of it, even for a single moment? Instead, therefore, of any trace being observable, of hasty, precipitate, and partial determination in my favor, it is impossible to interpret their conduct and their reasons together, in any other sense, than as amounting to an admission of Your Majesty's confidential servants themselves, that I have, in consequence of their withholding that advice, been unnecessarily and cruelly banished from your royal presence, from the 14th of July, to the 28th of January, including a space of above six months; and the effect of the interposition of the Prince, is to prolong my sufferings and my disgrace, under the same banishment, to a period perfectly indefinite. "The principle which will admit the effect of such interposition now, may be acted upon again; and the Prince may require a further prolongation, upon fresh statements, and fresh charges, kept back possibly, for the purpose of being from time to time, conveniently interposed, to prevent for ever the arrival of that hour, which, displaying to the world the acknowledgment of unmerited sufferings and disgrace, may, at the same time, expose the true malicious and unjust quality of the proceedings which have been so long carried on against me. "This unseasonable, unjust, and cruel interpo sition of His Royal Highness, as I must ever deem it, has prevailed upon Your Majesty to recall, to my prejudice, your gracious purpose of receiving me, in pursuance of the advice of your servants. Do I then flatter myself too much, when I feel assured, that my just entreaty, founded upon the reasons which I urge, and directed to counteract only the effect of that unjust interposition, will induce Your Majesty to return to your original determination? "Restored, however, as I should feel myself, to a state of comparative security as well as credit, by being at length permitted, upon Your Majesty's gracious re-consideration of your last determination, to have access to Your Majesty; yet, under all the circumstances under which I should now receive that mark and confirmation of Your Majesty's opinion of my innocence, my character would not, I fear, stand cleared in the public opinion, by the mere fact of Your Majesty's reception of me. This revocation of Your Majesty's gracious purpose, has flung an additional cloud about the whole proceeding, and the inferences drawn in the public mind from this circumstance, so mysterious, and so perfectly inexplicable upon any grounds. which are open to their knowledge, has made, and will leave, so deep an impression to my prejudice, as scarce any thing short of a public exposure of all that has passed, can possibly efface. "The publication of all these proceedings to the world then, seems to me, under the present circumstances, (whatever reluctance I feel against |