what is it that they say?-They speak only to such generalities as makes it difficult, at such a distance of time, to recollect facts with sufficient accuracy to contradict them. "I will begin," says the Princess, "with those which respect Sir Sidney Smith, as he is the person first mentioned in the deposition of W. Cole." W. Cole says, "that Sir Sidney Smith first visited at Montague House in 1802; that he observed that the Princess was too familiar with Sir Sidney Smith. One day, he thinks in February, he (Cole) carried into the Blue Room to the Princess some sandwiches which she had ordered, and was surprized to see that Sir Sidney was there. He must have come in from the Park. If he had been let in from Blackheath, he must have passed through the room in which he (Cole) was waiting. When he had left the sandwiches he returned, after some time, into the room, and Sir Sidney Smith was sitting very close to the Princess on the sofa. He (Cole) looked at her Royal Highness, she caught his eye, and saw that he noticed the manner in which they were sitting together, they appeared both a little confused."

R. Bidgood says also, in his deposition on the 6th of June, (for he was examined twice)" that it was early in 1802 that he first observed Sir Sidney Smith come to Montague House. He used to stay very late at night; he had seen him early in the morning there; about ten or eleven o'clock. He was at Sir John Douglas's and was in the habit, as well as Sir John and Lady Douglas, of dining or having luncheon, or supping there, every day. He saw Sir Sidney Smith one day in 1802 in the Blue Room, about 11 o'clock in the morning, which was full two hours before they expect ed ever to see company. He asked the servants why they did not let him know Sir Sidney Smith was there; the footmen told him that they had

let no person in. There was a private door to the Park, by which he might have come in if he had a key to it, and have got into the Blue Room without any of the servants perceiving him. And in his second deposition, taken on the 3d of July, he says he lived at Montague House when Sir Sidney came. Her (the Princess's) manner with him appeared very familiar; she appeared very attentive to him, but he did not suspect any thing further. Mrs Lisle says that the Princess at one time appeared to like Sir John and Lady Douglas. "I have seen Sir Sidney Smith there very late in the evening, but not alone with the Princess. I have no reason to suspect he had a key of the Park-gate; I never heard of any body being found wandering about at Blackheath."

Fanny Lloyd does not mention Sir Sidney Smith in her deposition.

Upon the whole of this evidence, then, which is the whole that respects Sir Sidney Smith in any of these depositions (except some particular passages in Cole's evidence, which are so important as to require very particular and distinct statement). I would request your Majesty to understand, that, with respect to the fact of Sir Sidney Smith's visiting frequently at Montague House, both with Sir John and Lady Douglas, and without them; with respect to his being frequently there, at luncheon, dinner, and supper; and staying with the rest of the company till twelve, one o'clock, or even sometimes later, if these are some of the facts" which must give occasion to "unfavourable interpretations, and "must be credited till they are con"tradicted;" they are facts which I never can contradict, for they are perfectly true. And I trust it will imply the confession of no guilt, to admit that Sir Sidney Smith's conversation, his account of the various and extraordinary events, and heroic

achieve

achievements in which he had been concerned, amused and interested me; and the circumstance of his living so much with his friends, Sir John and Lady Douglas, in my neighbourhood on Blackheath, gave the opportunity of increasing his acquaintance with me. It happened also that about this time I fitted up, as your Majesty may have observed, one of the rooms in my house after the fashion of a Turkish Tent. Sir Sidney furnished me with a pattern for it, in a drawing of the Tent of Murat Bey, which he had brought over with him from Egypt. And he taught me how to draw Egyptian Arabesques, which were necessary for the ornaments of the ceiling; this may have occasioned, while that room was fitting up, several visits, and possibly some, though I do not recollect them, as early in the morning as Mr Bidgood mentions. I believe also that it has happened more than once, that, waiking with my ladies in the Park, we have met Sir Sidney Smith, and that he has come in, with us, through the gate from the Park. My ladies may have gone up to take off their cloaks, or to dress, and have left me alone with him; and, at some one of these times, it may very possibly have happened that Mr Cole, and Mr Bidgood may have seen him, when he has not come through the waitingroom, nor been let in by any of the footmen. But I solemnly declare to your Majesty, that I have not the least idea or belief that he ever had a key of the gate into the Park, or that he ever entered in or passed out, at that gate, except in company with myself and my ladies. As for the circumstance of my permitting him to be in the room alone with me; if suffering a man to be so alone is evidence of guilt, from whence the Commissioners can draw any unfavourable inference, I must leave them to draw it. For I cannot deny that it has happened, and happened frequently;

not only with Sir Sidney Smith, but with many, many others; gentlemen who have visited me; tradesmen who have come to receive my orders; masters whom I have had to instruct me, in painting, in music, in English, &c. that I have received them with out any one being by. In short, I trust I am not confessing a crime, for unquestionably it is a truth, that I never had an idea, that there was any thing wrong, or objectionable, in thus seeing men, in the morning, and I confidently believe your Majesty will see nothing in it, from which any guilt can be inferred. I feel certain, that there is nothing immoral in the thing itself; and I have always understood, that it was perfectly customary and usual for ladies of the first rank, and the first character, in the country, to receive the visits of gentlemen in a morning, though they might be themselves alone at the time. But if, in the opinions and fashions of this country, there should be more impropriety ascribed to it than what it ever entered into my mind to conceive, I hope your Majesty, and every candid mind, will make allowance for the different notions which my foreign education and foreign habits may have given me.

But whatever character may be. long to this practice, it is not a prac tice which commenced after my leaving Carlton House. While there, and from my first arrival in this country, I was accustomed, with the knowledge of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, and without his ever having hinted to me the slightest disapprobation, to receive lessons from various masters, for my amusement and improvement: I was attended by them frequently, from twelve o'clock to five in the afternoon;--Mr Atwood for music, Mr Geffadiere for English, Mr Toufronelli for painting, Mr Tutoye for imitating marble, Mr Elwes for the harp. I saw them all alone; and in

deed,

deed, if I were to see them at all, I could do no otherwise than see them alone. Miss Garth, who was then sub-governess to my daughter, lived, certainly, under the same roof with me, but she could not be spared from her duty and attendance on my daughter. I desired her sometimes to come down stairs, and read to me, during the time when I drew or painted, but my Lord Cholmondely informed me this could not be. I then requested that I might have one of my bed-chamber women to live constantly at Carlton House, that I might have her at call whenever I wanted her; but I was answered that it was not customary, that the attendants of the Royal Family should live with them in town; so that request could not be complied with. But, independent of this, I never conceived that it was offensive to the fashions and manners of the country to receive gentlemen, who might call upon me in a morning, whether I had or had not any one with me; and it never occurred to me to think that there was either impropriety or indecorum in it, at that time, nor in continuing the practice at Montague House. But this has been confined to morning visits, in no private apartments of my house, but in my drawing-room, where my ladies have, at all times, free access, and as they usually take their luncheon with me, except when they are engaged with visitors, or pursuits of their own, it could but rarely occur that I could be left with any gentleman alone for any length of time, unless there were something in the known and avowed business, which might occasion his waiting upon me, that would fully account for the cir

cumstance.

I trust your Majesty will excuse the length at which I have dwelt upon this topic. I perceived, from the examinations, that it had been much inquired after, and I felt it necessary to represent it in its true light. And

the candour of your Majesty's mind will, I am confident, suggest that those who are the least conscious of intending guilt, are the least suspicious of having it imputed to them; and therefore that they do not think it necessary to guard themselves, at every turn, with witnesses to prove their innocence, fancying their character to be safe, as long as their conduct is innocent, and that guilt will not be imputed to them from actions quite indifferent.

As to what is contained in the written declarations of Mr and Mrs. Lampert, the old servants of Sir John and Lady Douglas (as from some circumstances or other respecting, I conceive, either their credit or their supposed importance) the Commissioners have not thought proper to examine them upon their oaths, I do not imagine Your Majesty would expect that I should take any notice of them. And as to what is deposed by my Lady Douglas, if your Majesty will observe the gross and horrid indecencies with which she ushers in, and states my confessions to her, of my asserted criminal intercourse with Sir Sidney Smith, Your Majesty, I am confident, will not be surprised that I do not descend to any particular observations on her deposition.One, and one only observation will I make, which, however, could not have escaped Your Majesty, if I had omitted it.-That Your Majesty will have an excellent portraiture of the true female delicacy and purity of my Lady Douglas's mind, and character, when you will observe that she seems wholly insensible into what a sink of infamy she degrades herself by her testimony against me. It is not only that it appears, from her statement, that she was contented to live, in familiarity and apparent friendship with me, after the confession which I made of my adultery (for by the indulgence and liberality, as it is called, of modern manners, the company of adul

teresses

teresses has ceased to reflect that discredit upon the characters of other women who admit of their society, which the best interests of female virtue may, perhaps, require.) But she was contented to live in familiarity with a woman, who, if Lady Doug las's evidence of me is true, was a most low, vulgar, and profligate disgrace to her sex. The grossness of

whose ideas and conversation would add infamy to the lowest, most vulgar, and most infamous prostitute. It is not, however, upon this circumstance, that I rest assured no reliance can be placed on Lady Douglas's testimony; but after what is proved, with regard to her evidence respecting my pregnancy and delivery in 1802, I am certain that any observations upon her testimony, or her veracity, must be flung away.

Your Majesty has therefore now before you the state of the charge against me, as far as it respects Sir Sidney Smith. And this is, as I understand the Report, one of the charges which, with its unfavourable interpretations, must, in the opinion of the Commissioners, be credited till decidedly contradicted.

The next person, with whom my improper intimacy is insinuated, is Mr Lawrence the painter.

The principal witness on this charge is also Mr Cole. Mr R. Bidgood says nothing about him. Fanny Llyod says nothing about him; and all that Mrs Lisle says is perfectly true, and I am neither able, nor feel interested, to contradict it. "That she remembers my sitting to Mr Lawrence for my picture at Blackheath, and in London; that she has left me at his house in town with him, but she thinks Mrs Fitzgerald was with us; and that she thinks I sat alone with him at Blackheath." But Mr Cole speaks of Mr Lawrence in a manner that calls for particular observation. He says "Mr Lawrence the painter used to go to Montague

House about the latter end of 1801, when he was painting the Princess, and he has slept in the house two or three nights together. I have often seen him alone with the Princess at 11 or 12 o'clock at night. He has been there as late as one and two o'clock in the morning. One night I saw him with the Princess in the Blue Room, after the ladies had retired. Some time afterwards, when I supposed he had gone to his room, I went to see that all was safe, and I found the Blue Room door locked, and heard a whispering in it; and I went away." Here, again, your Majesty observes, that Mr Cole deals his deadliest blows against my character by insinuation. And here, again, his insinuation is left unsifted and unexplained. I here understand him to insinuate, that, though he supposed Mr Lawrence to have gone to his room, he was still where he had said he last left him; and that the locked door prevented him from seeing me and Mr Lawrence alone together, whose whispering, however, he notwithstanding overheard.

Before, Sire, I come to my own explanation of the fact of Air Lawrence's sleeping at Montague House, I must again refer to Mr Cole's original declarations. I must again examine Mr Cole against Mr Cole; which I cannot help lamenting it does not seem to have occurred to others to have done; as I am persuaded if it had, his prevarications, and his falsehood, could never have escaped them. They would then have been able to have traced, as your Majesty will now do, through my observations, by what degrees he hardened himself up to the infamy (for I can use no other expression) of stating this fact, by which he means to insinuate, that he heard me and Mr Lawrence, locked up in this Blue Room, whispering together, and alone. I am sorry to be obliged to drag your Majesty through so long a

detail;