In the full examination of these proceedings, which justice to my own character has required of me, I have been compelled to make many observations which, I fear, may prove offensive to persons in high power.-Your Majesty will easily believe, when I solemnly assure you, that I have been deeply sorry to yield to the necessity of so doing. This proceeding manifests that I have enemies enough; I could not wish unnecessarily to increase their number, or their weight. I trust, however, I have done it, I know it has been my purpose to do it, in a manner as little offensive as the justice due to myself would allow of; but I have felt that I have been deeply injured; that I have had much to complain of; and that my silence now would not be taken for forbearance, but would be ascribed to me as a confession of guilt. The Report itself announced to me, that these things, which had been spoken to by the witnesses, "great improprieties and indecencies of conduct," "necessarily occasioning most unfavourable interpretations, and deserving the most serious consideration," "must be credited till decidedly contradicted." The most satisfactory disproof of these circumstances (as the contradiction of the accused is always received with caution and distrust) rested in the proof of the foul malice and falsehood of my accusers and their witnesses. The Report announced to your Majesty that those witnesses, whom I felt to be foul confederates in a base conspiracy against me, were not to be suspected of unfavourable bias, and their veracity, in the judgment of the Commissioners, not to be questioned. Under these circumstances, Sire, what could I do? Could I forbear, in justice to myself, to announce to your Majesty the existence of a conspiracy against my honour, and my station in this country at least, if not against my life? Could I forbear to point out to your Majesty how long this intended mischief had been meditated against me? Could I forbear to point out my doubts, at least, of the legality of the Commission under which the proceeding had been had? or to point out the errors and inaccuracies into which the great and able men who were named in this Commission, under the hurry and pressure of their great official occupations, had fallen in the execution of this duty? Could I forbear to state, and to urge, the great injustice and injury that had been done to my character and my honour, by opinions pronounced against me without hearing me? And if, in the execu.. tion of this great task, so essential to my honour, I have let drop any expressions which a colder and more cautious prudence would have checked, I appeal to your Majesty's warm heart and generous feelings to suggest my excuse, and to afford my pardou, What I have said, I have said under the pressure of much misfortune, under the provocation of great and accumulated injustice. Oh! Sire, to be unfortunate, and scarce to feel at liberty to lament; to be cruelly used, and to feel it almost an offence and a duty to be silent, is a liard lot; but use had in some degree inured me to it. But to find my misfortunes and my injuries imputed to me as faults-; to be called to account upon a charge made against me by Lady Douglas, who was thought at first worthy of credit, although she had pledged her veracity to the fact of my having admitted that I was myself the aggressor in every thing of which I had to complain, has subdued all power of patient bearing; and when I was called upon by the Commissioners either to admit, by my silence, the guilt which they imputed to me, or to euter into my defence, in contradiction to it ;-no longer at liberty to remain silent, I, perhaps, have not known how, with exact propriety, to limit my expressions. In happier days of my life, before my spirit had been yet at all lowered by my misfortunes, I should have been disposed to have met such a charge with the contempt which, I trust, by this time, your Majesty thinks due to it, I should have been disposed to have defied my enemies to the utmost, and to have scorned to answer to any thing but a legal charge, before a competent tribunal but in my present misfortunes, such force of mind is gone. I ought, perhaps, so far, to be thankful to them for their wholesome lessons of humility. I have therefore entered into this long detail to endeavour to remove, at the first possible opportunity, any unfavourable impressions; to rescue myself from the dangers which the continuance of these suspicions might occasion, and to preserve to me your Majesty's good opinion, in whose kindness hitherto I have found infinite consolation, and to whose justice, under all circumstances, I can confidently appeal. Under the impression of these sentiments, I throw myself at your Majesty's feet. I know that whatever sentiments of resentment, whatever wish for redress, by the punishment of my false accusers, I ought to feel, your Majesty, as the father of a Stranger, smarting under false accusation, as the read of your illustrious. house dishonoured in me, and as the great guardian of the laws of your kingdom, thus foully attempted to have been applied to the purposes of injustice, will not fail to feel for me. At all events, I trust your Majesty will restore me to the blessing of your gracious presence, and confirm to me, by your own gracious words, your satisfactory conviction of my innocence. I am, With every sentiment of gratitude and loyalty, and dutiful Daughter-in-Law, Subject and Servant, Montague House, 2d October, 1806. 1 C. P. CHAPTER VI. SUCH is the DEFENCE which the Princess of Wales was enabled to make to one of the most foul, malignant, and wicked attempts on her life and honour that was, perhaps, ever before made on the life of any individual. That there should, in the 19th century, and in England too, have existed a well-educated female of family and of rank, so lost to every sense of honourable feeling, so destitute of every spark of gratitude, so debased as to state, in the presence of some of the highest noblemen and peers of the realm, so many facts of sheer indecency; and so abominably wicked as to attempt the life of the wife of the Heir Apparent, posterity will scarcely credit; and the name of Lady Douglas will never be mentioned but in association with infamy-in union with all that is abhorrent to the best portion of our natures, That the reader might be in full possession of every thing of real importance connected with "The Delicate Investigation," I have thought it my duty to present the most valuable of those documents in a perfect shape; and, certainly, the present is one of the most interesting portions of the domestic history of the royal family ever yet recorded, equalled only by the awful climax which the reader will have to contemplate in the subsequent pages of the present volume. The present chapter shall be devoted to a circumstantial detail of every important event arising out of the Investigation, already noticed at length, until the illustrious and suffering subject of these Memoirs was induced to leave this country, to seek repose on the continent, and some degree of relief from her unparalleled anxieties by travelling through the most interesting portions of the civilized world. The reader will naturally inquire as to the result of the long and very able letter to the late King, given in the preceding chapter. With that letter, her Royal Highness sent, also, the following truly affecting note: "SIRE, "TO THE KING. “In discharge of the duty I owe to myself, and the great duty I owe to your Majesty and your illustrious family, I have here with transmitted a statement, which I confidently trust will appear to prove me not unworthy of the protection and favour with which your Majesty has pleased to honour me. "To be restored to that favour and protection, in consequence of a conviction in your Majesty's mind of my innocence, produced by the papers I now humbly lay before your Majesty, is the first wish of my heart. "Grieved, Sire, deeply grieved as I cannot but be, that your Majesty should be exposed to so much trouble on so painful an occasion, and on my account, it is yet my humble trust that your Majesty will graciously forgive me, if extreme anxiety about my honour, and your Majesty's favourable opinion, leads me humbly to solicit, as an act of justice, that scrupulous attention on your Majesty's part to these papers, which cannot fail, I think, to produce in your Majesty's mind, a full conviction of my innocence, and a due sense of the injuries I have suffered. "One other prayer I with all possible humility and anxiety address to your Majesty, that, as I can hope for no happiness, nor expect to enjoy the benefit of that fair reputation to which I know I am entitled, till I am re-admitted into your Majesty's presence, and as I am in truth without guilt, suffering what to me is heavy punishment, whilst I am denied access to your Majesty, your Majesty will be graciously pleased to form an early determination whether my conduct and my sufferings do not authorize me to hope that the blessing of being restored to your Majesty's presence may be conferred upon, Sire, your Majesty's dutifully attached, affectionate, and afflicted daughter-in-law andsubject (Signed) "Blackheath, Oct. 2, 1806." "CAROLINE." One would have thought, that after such a decisive answer to every charge of criminality adduced against her Royal Highness; and after such an affectionate appeal by which it was accompanied, that not a day's unnecessary delay would have taken place in returning a satisfactory reply to it; that the mind of the royal sufferer might be instantly relieved as much as possible of every anxiety on the score of character, and her reputation per |