them, however much such virtues may aggravate their enormity. No such letter, therefore, in any construction of it, no renunciation of conjugal affection or duties, could ever palliate them. But whether conduct free from all crime, free from all indelicacy, (which I maintain to be the character of the conduct to which Mrs. Lisle's observations apply,) yet possibly not so measured, as a cautious wife, careful to avoid the slightest appearance of not preferring her husband to all the world, might be studious to observe; whether conduct of such description, and possibly, in such a sense, not becoming a married woman, could be justly deemed, in my situation, an offence in me, I must leave to Your Majesty to determine.

"In making that determination, however, it will not escape Your Majesty to consider, that the conduct which does or does not become a married woman, materially depends upon what is, or is not known by her to be agreeable to her husband. His pleasure and happiness ought unquestionably to be her law; and his approbation, the most favorite object of her pursuit. Different characters of men, require different modes of conduct in their wives; but when a wife can no longer be capable of perceiving from time to time, what is agreeable or offensive to her husband, when her conduct can no longer contribute to his happiness, no longer hope to be rewarded by his approbation, surely to examine that conduct by the standard of what ought, in

770

THE ROYAL WANDERER; OR,

general, to be the conduct of a married woman, is altogether unreasonable and unjust.

"What then is my case? Your Majesty will do me the justice to remark, that in the above letter of the Prince of Wales, there is not the most distant surmise, that crime, that vice, that indelicacy of any description, gave occasion to his determination; and all the tales of infamy and discredit, which the inventive malice of my enemies has brought forward on these charges, have their date, years and years, after the period to which I am now alluding. What then, let me repeat the question, is my case? After the receipt of the above letter, and in about two years after my arrival in this country, I had the misfortune entirely to lose the support, the countenance, the protection of my husband.-I was banished as it were, into a sort of humble retirement, at a distance from him, and almost estranged from the whole of the Royal Family. I had no means of having recourse, either for society or advice, to those, from whom my inexperience could have best received the advantages of the one, and with whom I could most becomingly have enjoyed the comforts of the other; and if in this retired, unassisted, and unprotected state, without the check of a husband's authority, without the benefit of his advice, without the comfort and support of the society of his family, a stranger to the habits and fashions of the country, I should, in any instance, under the influence of foreign habits and foreign educa

tion, have observed a conduct, in any degree deviating from the reserve and severity of British manners, and partaking of a condescension and familiarity, which that reserve and severity would, perhaps, deem beneath the dignity of my exalted rank, I feel confident, (since such deviation will be seen to have been ever consistent with perfect innocence,) that not only Your Majesty's candour and indulgence, but the candour and indulgence, which, notwithstanding the reserve and severity of British manners, always belong to the British public, will never visit it with severity or

censure.

"It remains for me now to make some remarks upon the further contents of the paper, which was transmitted to me by the Lord Chancellor, on the 28th ultimo. And I cannot in passing, omit to remark, that that paper has neither title, date, signature, nor attestation; and unless the Lord Chancellor had accompanied it with a note, stating, that it was copied in his own hand from the original, which his Lordship had received from Your Majesty, 1 should have been at a loss to have perceived any single mark of authenticity belonging to it; and as it is, I am wholly unable to discover what is the true character which does belong to it. It contains indeed, the advice which Your Majesty's sẹrvants have offered to Your Majesty, and the message, which, according to that advice, Your Majesty directed to be delivered to me.

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Considering it therefore, wholly as their act, Your Majesty will excuse and pardon me, if,

deeply injured as I feel myself to have been by them, I express myself with freedom upon their conduct. I may speak, perhaps, with warmth, because I am provoked by a sense of gross injustice; I shall speak certainly with firmness and with courage, because I am emboldened by a sense of conscious innocence.

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"Your Majesty's confidential servants say, they agree in the opinions of the four Lords," and they say this, "after the fullest consideration of my observations, and of the affidavits which were annexed to them." Some of these opinions, Your Majesty will recollect, are, that " William Cole, Fanny Lloyd, Robert Bidgood, and Mrs. Lisle, are witnesses who cannot," in the judgment of the four Lords, "be suspected of any unfavourable bias ;" and " whose veracity, in this respect, they had seen no ground to question;" and "that the circumstances to which they speak, particularly as relating to Captain Manby, must be credited until they are decisively contradicted." Am 1 then to understand Your Majesty's confidential servants to mean, that they agree with the four Noble Lords, in these opinions? Am I to understand, that after having read, with the fullest consideration, the observations which I have offered to Your Majesty ; after having seen William Cole there proved to have submitted himself, five times at least, to private, unauthorized, voluntary examinations, by Sir John Douglas's Solicitor, for the express purpose of confirming the statement of Lady Douglas, (of that Lady Douglas, whose statement and deposition, they are convinced to be so

malicious and false, that they propose to institute such prosecution against her, as Your Majesty's law officers may advise, upon a reference, now at length, after six months from the detection of that malice and falsehood, intended to be made)-after having seen this William Cole, submitting to such repeated voluntary examinations for such a purpose, and though he was all that time a servant on my establishment, and eating my bread, yet never once communicating to me, that such examination was going on;-am am I to understand, that Your Majesty's confidential servants agree with the four Lords in thinking, that he cannot, under such circumstances, be suspected of unfavorable bias? That after having had pointed out to them the direct, flat contradiction between the same William Cole and Fanny Lloyd, they nevertheless agree to think them both (though in direct contradiction to each other, yet both witnesses, whose veracity they see no ground to question? After having seen Fanny Lloyd directly and positively contradicted, in an assertion most injurious to my honor, by Mr. Mills and Mr. Edmeades, do they agree in opinion with the four noble Lords, that they see no ground to question her veracity ?-After having read the observations on Mr. Bidgood's evidence; after having seen that he had the hardihood to swear, that he believed Captain Manby slept in my house, at Southend, and to insinuate that he slept in my bed-room, 'after having seen that he founded himself on this most false fact, and