course of this Inquiry, whatever observations I may be compelled to make upon any of them, I trust, I never shall forget what is due to Officers in high station and employment under your Majesty. No apology, therefore, can be required for any reserve in my expressions towards them. But if, in vindicating my innocence against the injustice and malice of my enemies, I should appear to your Majesty not to express myself with all the warmth and indignation, which innocence, so foully calumniated, must feel, your Majesty will, I trust, not attribute my forbearance to any insensibility to the grievous injuries I have sustained; but will graciously be pleased to ascribe it to the restraint I have imposed upon myself, lest in endeavouring to describe in just terms the motives, the conduct, the perjury, and all the foul circumstances which characterize, and establish the malice of my accusers, I might use language, which, though not unjustly applied to them, might be improper to be used by me, to any body, or unfit to be employed by any body, humbly, respectfully, and dutifully addressing your Majesty.

That a fit opportunity has occurred for laying open my heart to your Majesty, per haps, I shall, hereafter, have no reason to lament. For more than two years, I had been informed, that, upon the presumption of some misconduct in me, my behaviour had been made the subject of investigation, and my neighbours' servants had been examined concerning it. And for some time, I had received mysterious and indistinct intimations, that some great mischief was meditated towards me. And, in all the circumstances of my very peculiar situation, it will not be thought strange, that however conscious I was, that I had no just cause of fear, I should yet feel some uneasiness on this account. With surprise certainly, (because the first tidings were of a kind to excite surprise,) but without alarm, I received the intelligence, that, for some reason, a formal investigation of some parts of my conduct had been advised, and had actually taken place. His Royal Highness the Duke of Kent, on the 7th of June, announced it to me. He announced to me,-the Princess of Wales, in the first communication made to me, with respect to this proceeding, the near approach of two Attornies (one of them, I since find, the Solicitor employed by Sir John Douglas), claiming to enter my dwelling, with a warrant, to take away one half of my household, for immediate examination upon a charge against myself. Of the nature of that charge, I was then uninformed. It now appears, it was the charge of High Treason, committed in the infamous crime of adultery. His Royal Highness, I am sure, will do me the justice to represent to your Majesty, that I betrayed no fear, that I manifested no symptoms of conscious guilt, that I sought no excuses to prepare, or to tutor, my servants for the examination which they were to undergo. The only request which I made to his Royal Highness was, that he would have the goodness to remain with me till my servants were gone; that he might bear witness, that I had no conversation with them before they went. In truth, Sire, my anxieties, under a knowledge that some serious mischief was planning against me, and while I was ignorant of its quality and extent, had been so great, that I could not but rejoice at an event, which seemed to promisę me an early opportunity of ascertaining what the malice of my enemies intended against me.

It has not been, indeed, without impatience the most painful, that I have passed the interval, which has since elapsed. When once it was not only known to me, but to the world (for it was known to the world) that Inquiry of the gravest nature had been instituted into my conduct, I looked to the conclusion, with all the eagerness that could belong to an absolute conviction, that my innocence, and my honour, to the disgrace and confusion of my accusers, would be established; and that the groundless malice, and injustice of the whole charge would be manifested to the world, as widely

as the calumny had been circulated. I knew that the result of an ex parte Inquiry, from its very nature, could not, unless it fully asserted my entire innocence, be in any degree just. And I had taught myself most firmly to believe, that it was utterly impossible, that any opinion, which could, in the smallest degrée, work a prejudice to my honour and character, could ever be expressed in any terms, by any persons, in a Report upon a solemn formal Inquiry, and more especially to your Majesty, without my having some notice, and some opportunity of being heard. And I was convinced, that, if the Proceeding allowed me, before an opinion was expressed, the ordinary means which accused persons have, of vindicating their honour and their innocence, my honour and my innocence must, in any opinion, which could then be expressed, be fully vindicated, and effectually established. What then, Sire, must have been my astonishment, and my dismay, when I saw, that notwithstanding the principal accusation was found to be utterly false, yet some of the witnesses to those charges which were brought in support of the principal accusation,-witnesses, whom, any person, interested to have protected my character, would easily have shewn, out of their own mouths, to be utterly unworthy of credit, and confederates in foul conspiracy with my' false accusers, are reported to be "free from all suspicion of unfavourable bias ;" their veracity, "in the judgment of the Commissioners, not to be questioned;" and their infamous stories, and insinuations against me, to be "such as deserve the most serious consideration, and as must be credited till decisively contradicted."

The Inquiry, after I thus had notice of it, continued for above* two months. I venture not to complain, as if it had been unnecessarily protracted. The important duties, and official avocations of the Noble Lords, appointed to carry it on, may naturally account for, and excuse, some delay. But however excusable it may have been, your Majesty will easily conceive the pain and anxiety, which this interval of suspense, has occasioned; and your Majesty will not be surprised, if I further represent, that I have found a great aggravation of my painful sufferings, in the delay which occurred in communicating the Report to me. For though it is dated on the 14th July, I did not receive it, notwithstanding your Majesty's gracious commands, till the 11th of August. It was due, unquestionably, to your Majesty, that the result of an Inquiry, commanded by your Majesty, upon advice which had been offered, touching matters of the highest import, should be first, and immediately, communicated to you. The respect and honour due to the Prince of Wales, the interest which he must necessarily have taken in this Inquiry, combined to make it indisputably fit, that the result should be, forthwith, also stated to his Royal Highness. I complain not, therefore, that it was too early communicated to any one: I complain only, (and I complain most seriously, for I felt it most severely) of the delay in its communication to me.

Rumour had informed the world, that the Report had been early communicated to your Majesty, and to his Royal Highness. I did not receive the benefit, intended for me by your Majesty's gracious command, till a month after the Report was signed. But the same rumour had represented me, to my infinite prejudice, as in possession of the Report during that month and the malice of those, who wished to stain my honour, has not failed to suggest all that malice could infer, from its remaining in that possession so long unnoticed. May I be permitted to say, that if the Report acquits me, my innocence entitled me to receive from those to whom your Majesty's commands had been given, an immediate notification of the fact that it did acquit me. That if it condemned me, the weight of such a sentence should not have been left to settle in any mind, much less upon your Majesty's, for a month, before I could even begin to prepare an

The time that the Inquiry was pending, after this notice of it, is here confounded with the time which elapsed before the Report was communicated to her Royal Highness. The Inquiry itself only lasted to the 14th or 16th of July, which is but between five and six weeks from the 7th of June.

answer, which, when begun, could not speedily be concluded; and that, if the Report could be represented as both acquitting, and condemning me, the reasons which sug gested the propriety of an early communication in each of the former cases, combined to make it proper and necessary in the latter.

And why all consideration of my feelings was thus cruelly neglected; why I was kept upon the rack, during all this time, ignorant of the result of a charge, which affected my honour and my life; and why, especially in a case, where such grave matters were to continue to be "credited, to the prejudice of my honour," till they were "decidedly contradicted," the means of knowing what it was, that I must, at least, endeavour to contradict, were witholden from me, a single unnecessary hour, I know not, and I will not trust myself in the attempt to conjecture.

On the 11th of August, however, I at length received from the Lord Chancellor, a packet containing copies of the Warrant or Commission authorising the Inquiry; of the Report-and of the Examinations on which the Report was founded. And your Majesty may be graciously pleased to recollect, that on the 13th I returned my grateful thanks to your Majesty, for having ordered these papers to be sent to me.

Your Majesty will readily imagine that, upon a subject of such importance, I could not venture to trust only to my own advice; and those with whom I advised, suggested, that the written Declaration or Charges upon which the Inquiry had proceeded, and which the Commissioners refer to in their Report, and represent to be the essential foundation of the whole proceeding; did not accompany the Examinations and Report; and also that the papers themselves were not authenticated. I therefore venture to address your Majesty, upon these supposed defects in the communication, and humbly requested that the copies of the papers, which I then returned, might, after being examined and authenticated, be again transmitted to me; and that I might also be furnished with copies of the written Declarations so referred to in the Report. And my humble thanks are due for your Majesty's gracious compliance with my request. On the 29th of August I received, in consequence, the attested copies of those Declarations, and of a Narrative of his Royal Highness the Duke of Kent; and a` few days after, on the 3d of September, the attested copies of the Examinations which were taken before the Commissioners,

The Papers which I have received are as follow:

The Narrative of his Royal Highness the Duke of Kent*, dated 27th of Dec. 1805. A Copy of the written Declaration of Sir John and Lady Douglas, dated December 3, 1805.

A Paper containing the written Declarations, or Examinations, of the persons hereafter enumerated ;-The title to these Papers is, "For the purpose of confirming the Statement made by Lady Douglas, of the circumstances mentioned in her Narrative. The following examinations have been taken, and which have been signed by the several persons who have been examined:"

Two of Sarah Lampert ;-one, dated Cheltenham, 8th January, 1806,-and the other, 29th March, 1806.

One of William Lampert, baker, 114, Cheltenham, apparently of the same date with the last of Sarah Lampert's.

Four of William Cole, dated respectively, 11th January, 14th January, 30th January, and 23d February, 1806.

One of Robert Bidgood, dated Temple, 4th April, 1806.

One of Sarah Bidgood, dated Temple, 23d April, 1806; and

Que of Frances Lloyd, dated Temple, 12th May, 1806.

* See Appendix (B).

1806.

1806. No.

The other Papers and Documents which accompanied the Report, are,* No. 29 May, 1. King's Warrant or Commission. 23 June, 17. Deposition of E. Gosden. 1 June, 2. Deposition of Lady Douglas.

of Betty Townley. of T. Edmeades.

of S. G. Mills. of H. Fitzgerald.

1 July, 22. Letter from Lord Spencer to

23

18.

3

4

Loid Gwydir. 23. Letter from Lord Gwydir to Lord Spencer.

Answers.

25. Further deposition of R. Bidgood.

26. Deposition of Sir F. Millman. of Mrs. Lisle.

27.

28. Letter from Sir F Millman, to the Lord Chancellor. 29. Deposition of Lord Cholmonde.ey.

14 - 30. The Report.

By the Copy which I have received of the Commission, or Warrant, under which the Inquiry has been prosecuted, it appears to be an instrument under your Majesty's Sign Manual, not countersigned, not under any seal.—It recites, that an Abstract of certain written Declarations, touching my conduct (without specifying by whom those Declarations were made, or the nature of the matters, touching which they had been made, or even by whom the Abstract had been prepared,) had been laid before your Majesty ; into the truth of which it purports to authorise the four Noble Peers, who are named in it, to inquire and to examine upon oath, such persons as they think fit; and to report to your Majesty the result of their Examination. By referring to the written Declarations, it appears that they contain allegations against me, amounting to the charge of High Treason, and also other matters, which, if understood to be, as they seem to have been acted and reported upon by the Commissioners, not as evidence confirmatory (as they are expressed to be in their title) of tlie principal charge, but as distinct and substantive subjects of examination, cannot, as I am advised, be represented, as in law, amounting to crimes. How most of the Declarations referred to were collected, by whom, at whose solicitation, under what sanction, and before what persons, Magistrates or others, they were made, does not appear. By the title, indeed, which all the written Declarations, except Sir John and Lady Douglas's bear, viz. "That they had been taken for the purpose of confirming Lady Douglas's Statement," it may be collected, that they had been made by her, or at least by Sir John Douglas's procurement. And the concluding passage of one of them, I mean the fourth Declaration of W. Cole, strengthens this opinion, as it represents Sir John Douglas, accompanied by his Solicitor, Mr. Lowten, to have gone down as far as Cheltenham for the examination of two of the witnesses whose declarations are there stated. I am, however, at a loss to know, at this moment, whom I am to consider, or whom I could legally fix, as my false accuser. From the circumstance last mentioned, it might be inferred that Sir John and Lady Douglas, or one of them, is that accuser. But Lady Douglas, in her written Declaration, so far from representing the information which she then gives, as moving voluntarily from herself, expressly states that she gives it under the direct command of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, and the papers leave me without in*See Appendix (A).

formation, from whom any communication to the Prince originated, which induced him to give such commands.

Upon the question, how far the advice is agreeable to law, under which it was recommended to your Majesty, to issue this Warrant or Commission, not countersigned, nor under seal, and without any of your Majesty's advisers, therefore, being on the face of it, responsible for its issuing, I am not competent to determine. And undoubtedly considering that the two high legal authorities, the Lord Chancellor, aud the Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, consented to act under it, it is with the greatest doubt and diffidence, that I can bring myself to express any suspicion of its illegality. But if it be, as I am given to understand it is, open to question, whether, cousistently with law, your Majesty should have been advised to command, by this Warrant or Commission, persons (not to act in any known characters, as Secretaries of State, as Privy Councillors, as Magistrates otherwise empowered; but to act as Commissioners, and under the sole authority of such Warrant,) to inquire (without any authority to hear and deter. mine any thing upon the subject of those Inquiries), into the known crime of High Treason, under the sanction of oath, to be administered by them, as such Commissioners, and to report the result thereof to your Majesty. If, I say, there can be any question upon the legality of such a Warrant or Commission, the extreme hardship, with which it has operated upon me, the extreme prejudice which it has done to my character, and to which such a proceeding must ever expose the person who is the object of it, obliges me, till I am fully convinced of its legality, to forbear from acknowledging its authority; and, with all humility and deference to your Majesty, to protest against it, and against all the proceedings under it.

If this, indeed, were matter of mere form, I should be ashamed to urge it; but the actual hardships and prejudice which I have suffered by this proceeding are most obvious; for, upon the principal charge against me, the Commissioners have most satisfactorily, and "without the least hesitation," for such is their expression, reported their opinion of its falsehood. Sir John and Lady Douglas, therefore, who have sworn to its truth, have been guilty of the plainest falsehood; yet, upon the supposition of the illegality of this Commission, their falsehood must, as I am informed, go unpunished. Upon that supposition, the want of legal authority in the Commissioners to inquire and to administer an oath, will render it impossible to give to this falsehood the character of perjury; but this is by no means the circumstance which I feel the most severely. Beyond the vindicating of my own character, and the consideration of providing for my future security, I can assure your Majesty, that the punishment of Sir John and Lady Douglas would afford me no satisfaction. It is not therefore with regard to that part of the charge, which is negatived, but with respect to those which are sanctioned by the Report, those which, not aiming at my life, exhaust themselves upon my character, and which the Commissioners have in some measure sanctioned by their Report, that I have the greatest reason to complain. Had the Report sanctioned the principal charge, constituting a known legal crime, my iuno. cence would have emboldened me, at all risques (and to more no person has ever been exposed from the malice and falsehood of accusers) to have demanded that trial, which could legally determine upon the truth or falsehood of such charge. Though I should even then indeed have had some cause to complain, because I should have gone to that trial under the prejudice necessarily raised against me by that Report; yet, in a proceeding before the just, open, and known tribunals of your Majesty's kingdom, I should have had a safe appeal from the resuit of an ex parte investigation; an investigation which has exposed me to all the hardships of a secret Inquiry, without giving me the benefit of secrecy; and to all the severe consequences of a public investigation,