The Earl of LIMERICK also supported the clause. It would be degrading to the king and the nation to tie a woman to the king who would disgrace any situation. The Earl of ESSEX having opposed the bill, could not reconcile to himself to vote in favour of this clause. He had no doubt that at no distant period the foul conspiracy against her majesty would be developed. Lord ANSON entirely agreed with the statement of a noble earl below (earl Grey), and would vote for the divorce, in order to give the greatest possible chance of throwing out the bill (hear), a bill which imputed guilt to au innocent queen. (hear.) to retain this clause after the evidence bad warranted the second reading? He had attended mast anxiously to the reverend bench of bishops, who had inquired into the religious consideratious on this subject; and the result. convinced him that by the law of God there was no impediment to divorces in the case of adultery. Lord Ross, earl Manvers, lord Hampden, the earl of Darnley, and earl Belhaven, also supported the clause. The Earl of SHAFTESBURY, as chairman, then rose amidst loud cries of "Question, question." Having recited the clause providing for the divorce of their majesties, he prohisceeded to put the question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the clause." He then declared that he thought the Non-contents had it. A division was immediately called for. The house was accordingly cleared at about half-past twelve; it was not opened again for the admission of strangers; but at one o'clock it was announced that their lordships had adjourned, having divided thus: Earl CARNARVON would give vote in favour of this clause. He begged their lordships to consider what the consequence would be of passing a bill of degradation without divorce. The consequence did not appear to have been adverted to. They were all aware of a statute which made it high treason to violate the wife of the sovereign. They proposed to pass a bill of degradation in order to furnish public scaudal, and to protect the morality of the country (cheers). Her majesty might still remain in the kingdom, and might continue to indulge in that vice which they assumed to be proved, and any individual might commit what by the statute of Edward II. was high treason. Would any noble lord say that her prosecutors could come to that house for a second bill of pains and penalties against her majesty? If this were purely a bill of divorce, no ground whatever could be assumed for degradation but the ground of divorce on account of adultery. Were their lordships to declare, by their vote, that a person not fit to be the associate of the meanest individual in the land, was yet a fit individual to be the associate of the king? He, for ene, would never concur in such a wanton, unnecessary, premeditated insult to the king (hear, hear). Against such an insult, though sanctioned by the advisers of the crown, he would raise his voice. Contents ..... Majority in favour of the divorce clause....... 129 62 67 While straugers were excluded, we understand that Lord KING rose, and said that he should offer no apology for submitting to their lordships a clause, the insertion of which in the bill seemed a matter of course, considering that the queen was not remotely placed in the illustrious line of princes in the succession to the crown of these realms. The crown was limited to her majesty, in the event of certain persons predeceasing her, aud that by the most sacred and fundamental laws of the land. If it devolved on her, the well-known loyalty of their lordships must at once make them adopt a different view of the present question; and, looking forward to that event, they must be equally ready to provide for it. He therefore moved this clause: "And be it further enacted, by the authority aforesaid, that in case the crown of these realms shall at The Marquis of BUCKINGHAM any time descend to her said Majesty said he looked not to the effect of the Caroline Amelia Elizabeth, then, and present question on the ultimate fate in such case, this present act, and all of the bill. The only question before the matters and things contained the committee was, whether it was fit therein, shall become utterly void and Lord HOLLAND supported the clause. *f no effect, and the whole of the pre- ¦ dation on which the bill ean rest) has amble thereof shall be deemed and been satisfactorily proved. taken to be false, calumuious, and scandalous, upon the same evidence ou which it hath now been held to be Aufficiently proved." (Loud cheering, with some cries of order.) Because that adulterous intercourse has been inferred, but not proved; and in a doubtful case, in which the imputed guilt is not proved, although innocence be not established, the bes Lord COLVILLE (of Culross, in nefit of that doubt, conformably to the Scotland, and, one of the Scotch peers) | principles of British justice, must be Pose, with much warmth, to vindicate given to the defendaui, himself, and those who acted with him in favour of the bill. He said they were aspersed-they were attacked by this motion. He denied the justice of the imputation, and he felt it due to his own conscience, and that of those who voted with him in this measure, o say that they acted conscientiously in it and that they still did support the bill. After some further discussion the clause was rejected without a division. The house resumed, and the report was ordered to be read to-morrow. MINORITY IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS LORDS Hill, Rodney, Yarborough, BISHOPS of Chester, Cork, Peterborough, Glocester, St. Asaph, St. David's, Ely, Worcester. EARLS of Winchelsea, Courtown, Mount Cashel, Romney, Stamford, Brownlow, Fitzwilliam, Stanhope, Baicarras, Dartmouth, Aylesford, Verulam, Morton, Portsmouth, Caledon, Lauderdale, St. Germains, Aylesbury, Macclesfield, Lonsdale, Mount-Edgecombe, Farnham, Pomfret, Whitworth, Mayo, Shaftesbury. MARQUIS Cornwallis. DUKES of Clarence, Portland, Beaufort. ARCHBISHOPS of York and Tuam. CABINET MINISTERS. Sidmouth, Melville, Bathurst, Harrowby, Mulgrave, Liverpool, Westmorlaud, Wellington, Eldon C. Essex (first reason only), Hilsborough (first reason only), Kenyon, Orford, Somerset, Selsea, Rosebery, Morley (first reason only), Leinster, Mansfield, Enniskillen, Richmond and Lennox, Jersey (first reason only), Carrick, Graf ton (first reason only), Anson (ditto), Darlington (ditto), Belhaven (ditto). DISSENTIENT, No. II.-Because this proceeding, from its nature, cannot be assimilated to a common indictment, in which a conviction upon one count alone, out of many, is sufficient. And because, although enough has been proved in evidence to satisfy us of the existence of guilt, yet as evidence on many of the allegations has been contradicted, in some disproved, and in others is so suspicious as to be laid wholly out of the case, we are of opi nion that it is inexpedient to proceed further in this measure. Plymouth, Dynevor, Grantham, Denhigh, Clinton, (secoud reason ouly), Gage (second reason), ILchester. The following peers have also protested against the bill upon general grounds : DISSENTIENT, No. III.-William Fre derick, Lansdown, Jersey, Grey, Ply. mouth, Fitzgibbon, Albemarle, H. milton and Brandon, Duncan, Hil.borough, Wentworth (Fitzwilliam), Derby,Auson, Yarborough, Sherborne, Cowper, Audley, Kenyon, Carrick, Selsea, Foley, Ardes, Egremont, Torringtov, Suffolk and Berks, Loftus (Ely), Morley, Grauville, Richmond and Lennox, Bedford, Fortescue, Darlington, Belhaven, Grafton, Breadalbane, Auckland, Dawnay (Downe), Mendip (Clifden), Leinster, Hawke, PROTESTS AGAINST THE SECOND READ- Gosford, Romney, Roseberry, Scott ING OF THE BILL OF PAINS AND PENALTIES. DISSENTIENT, No. I. Nov. 6, 1820. Because the second reading of the bill is equivalent to a decision that adulterous intercourse (the only foun (Portland), Thauet, Hood, Ashburton, Howard of Effingham, Alvanley, Carnarvon, Dundas, Caledon, Sundridge (Duke of Argyll), Ducie, King, Ros lyn, Dacre, Calthorpe, Grantham and Ellenborough. THURSDAY, November 9. The report being banded to the Lord Chancellor, he proceeded to state to the house the amendments, in the order in which they had been made, and as they Bowstand in the following bill (as amended by the committee) entitled an act to deprive her majesty, Caroline Amelia Elizabeth, of the title, prerogatives, rights, privileges, and exemptions, of Queen Consort of this realm; and to dissolve the marriage between his Majesty and the said Caroline Amelia Elizabeth. said Bartolomeo Bergami, which con- "Whereas, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fourteen, her Majesty Caroline Amelia Elizabeth, then princess of Wales, and now queen consort of this realm, being at Milan, in Italy, engaged in her service, in a menial situation, one Bartolomeo Bergami, a foreigner of low station, who had before served in a similar capacity: and whereas, after the said B. Bergami bad so entered the service of her royal highness the said princess of Wales, a most unbecoming and degrading intimacy commenced between her said royal highness and the said Bartolomeo Bergami; and her said royal highness not only advanced the said Bartolomeo Bergami to a high situation in her royal highness's household, and received into her service many of his near relations, some of them in inferior and others in high aud confidential situations about her royal highness's person, but bestowed upon him other great and extraordinary marks of favour and distinction, and conferred upon him a pretended order of knighthood, which her royal highness had taken upon herself to institute, without any just or When the noble and learned lord lawful authority; and whereas also her came to that part in which the word saidroyal highness, whilst the said Barto-"the" was omitted in the sentence lomeo Bergami was in her service, fur-" in the various countries in which her ther unmindful of her exalted rank and royal highness visited," station, and of her duty to your majesty, and wholly regardless of her own honour and character, conducted herself towards the said Bartolomeo Bergami, both in public and private, in various places and countries which her royal highness visited, with indecent and offensive familiarity and freedom, and carried on a licentious, disgraceful, and adulterous intercourse with the Lord ELLENBOROUGH rose, and said that the word now read, the word "the," was the principal alteration which had been made in the bill. Many noble lords, and a considerable part of those right reverend persons who sat on the bench opposite to him, had voted for the second reading of this bill under the impression that it was to undergo considerable modification in the 514 DEFENCE OF THE QUEEN. Committee, particularly with respect to the divorce clause. But their lordships had now heard most of the amendments, and they contained no modification, the princ pal change made in the whole bill being the omission of the word to which he had alluded. All the members of the house who had voted for the second reading, under the belief that an essential modi-fication was to be made, being now completely disappointed in that expectation, would doubtless vote against the bill on the third reading. The Earl of LAUDERDALE wished to say a few words with regard to what had occurred on leaving out the divorce clause. Their lordships had been distinctly told by a noble lord of great experience, of the highest political talents, one of the most eminent members of that house, and a person for whom he entertained the greatest respect, that his reason for voting, with a view to keep in that clause, arose from his wish to stop the measure altogether. Now, after such a declaration, he would ask those noble lords who really objected to the clause, and who wished to remove it from the bill, but bad thus been disappointed, whether they could with propriety aid this trick and manœuvre by voting against the third reading? Was it to be expected that noble lords who had voted for the second reading were now to reverse that vote, in order to assist the views of those who, in voting for the divorce elause, had declared that their object in doing so was to throw out the bill? Earl GREY rose with great surprise, and no inconsiderable indignation at hearing the unjust, unfounded, and calumnious imputation which had been cast upon him. He had hoped that his noble friend-that that house knew him too well to render it possible that he could be accused of resorting to trick and manoeuvre to gain an object. Whether such a charge came well from the quarter in which it was made, he left it to the house to consider. But he must say, that to be accused of tricking and manoeuvring in his conduct, when he openly avowed the motive and the object of that conduct, appeared to him the most extraordinary and unauthorized charge ever made in that house. Now, with respect to the question of his vote, he must observe that nothing was more common in parliamentary practice, nothing more justifiable according to the precedents of the best of former times, and nothing more correct in principle than when a person felt a fundamental objection, either in the principle or the details of a measure, that he should endeavour to clog it in any stage with conditions calculated to produce its rejection by the house. (Hear, hear). But he had not been driven to this expedient, for, from the beginning, he had objected to the suggestion for omitting the clause. The Earl of LAUDERDALE, after what had passed, thought necessary to say a few words. If he were capable on any account of saying what could by possibility detract from the cha racter of his noble friend, it would be infinitely more painful to him than any thing that ever happefied to him in the course of his life. He had not said that his noble friend had been guilty of any unworthy trick or manœuvre. What his noble friend had done was a parliamentary trick often practised, as had been stated, even in the best of times. The Earl of LIVERPOOL said be would fairly ask their lordships whe ther, in any stage of this proceeding, he could be justly accused of holding out any expectations? He had merely stated, on the second reading of the bill, that no noble lord ought to feel precluded from voting because of any objection he might have to parts of the preamble, or to the clause of divorce, both of which would be open to discussion in the committee. He had always stated most distinctly that the preamble was, in his own opinion. most distinctly proved, and he could therefore never have held it out as his opinion that any material alteration would eventually take place in it. At the same time he perfectly agreed witha the noble lord opposite (Elleuborough), that if any noble lord had voted for the second reading of the bill, in the expectation that important alterations in the preamble would be made in the committee, which were not made, it was perfectly open to him to vote on the third reading, as if he had not voted for the second. (Hear, hear.) his observation was not meant to apply to those who had been disposed to sup Lord ELLENBOROUGH said that port the whole of the bill, and who only voted against the divorce clause from ideas of expediency or of defereuce to the feelings of others. But he had said, and he now repeated, that there were others, who had on religious grounds, voted against the divorce clause (hear). Now, he held it to be impossible for any who had voted against the divorce clause on religious grounds, not to vote against the third reading of the bill. After some observations from Lord CALTHORPE, and the Earl of DONOUGHMORE, The LORD CHANCELLOR said, that the only question before the house was, whether a word of three letters, the word "the," should stand part of the preamble or not? and he did not imagine that much, light could have been thrown on that point by the sort of canvass which had been going onfor he could call it nothing else-as to the votes on the third reading of the bill. After what had fallen from the noble earl (Grey), he thought he should be forgetful of what was due to himself, to the house, and to the country, if he did not disclaim, in the most pointed manner, having ever stooped to the unworthy practice of attempting to lead the votes of their lordships by any thing like trick or manœuvre (bear). He had never stated one single word, in the whole course of this long proceeding, respecting the power of their lordships to modify the preamble or enactments of the bill, which he would not now repeat. As to the vote of yesterday, he had felt himself bound in honour, after the declaration made by a noble lord opposite (lord Lonsdale), to pay deference to the religious prejudices entertained by that noble lord, in common with many others: although, for himself, he thought those prejudices altogether without foundation. This opinion he again, as he had done before, openly avowed. He thought the clause of divorce equally justified in a religious as in a legal sense, and, if the bill passed, that clanse ought also to pass. objection; but he would not enter into a discussion of it-now. He would reserve any discussion of the subject till the third reading. He now merely moved that that part he omittted. The LORD CHANCELLOR put the question, which was negatived without a division. Earl FITZWILLIAM said the adul terous intercourse had, in his opinion, hy no means been proved; but he called on those noble lords who held an opinion that her majesty was guilty, to limit the period, during which they alleged that she had been engaged in the criminal intercourse, to a portion of time previous to the year 1817, as no proof whatever had been brought forward of her communicating with the individual named in the bill after that period. To refuse to adopt this principle would be extreme injustice to the unfortunate accused. The Earl of CARNARVON said he rose to move an addition to the preamble, after the word "abroad," of which he had given notice formerly. He moved that, after the word "abroad," should be inserted, "and subsequently to her return refused 50,000l. a year of the public money, and the proffered homage of both honses of parliament." The LORD CHANCELLOR put the question, and said the "Not Contents" had it. Lord KING moved that the enactments of the bill should be thus altered," Aud whereas certain commissioners, who were appointed to proceed to Milan, together with one Vilmacarti, an Italian advocate, have collected a mass of false or questionable evidence; and whereas the same has, during many weeks, been detailed to the house and the public, whereby great scandal and dishonour have been brought upou your majesty's fami'y and this kingdom' therefore to manifest our deep sense of such scandalous, disgraceful, and vicious couduct on the part of the said Milan commissioners, by which they had 'violated the duty which they owed "The Duke of HAMILTON rose to to your majesty, and have rendered move an amendment upon a subject themselves unworthy of the confidence which he had before mentioned. placed in them; and to evince our It was to leave out the words "licen- just regard for the dignity of the tious, disgraceful, and adulterous in- crown, and the honour of this nation tercourse." To the words "adulterous We, your majesty's most dutiful and "intercourse” he had the most decided | loyal subjects, the lords spiritual and |