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they are stated in the Report. And the criminatory parts of these declarations, if viewed without reference to those traces of malice and resentment, with which the declarations* of Sir John and Lady Douglas abound; if abstracted from all these circumstances, which shew the extreme improbability of the story, the length of time which my accusers had kept my alleged guilt concealed, the contradictions observable in the declarations of the other witnesses, all which I submit to your Majesty, are to an extent to cast the greatest discredit upon the truth of these declarations;-abstracted, I say, from these circumstances, the criminatory parts of them were unquestionably such, as to have placed your majesty under the necessity of directing some Inquiry concerning them. But that those, who had the opportunity of reading the long and malevolent narration of Sir John and Lady Doug las, should not have hesitated before they gave any credit to it, is matter of the greatest astonishment

to me.

The improbability of the story, would of itself, I should have imagined (unless they believed me to be as insane as Lady Douglas insinuates,) have been sufficient to have staggered the belief of any unprejudiced mind. For to believe that story, they were to begin with believing that a person guilty of so foul a crime, so highly penal, so fatal to her honour, her station, and her life, should gratuitously, and uselessly, have confessed it. Such a person under the necessity of concealing her pregnancy, * See Appendix (B.)

fmight have been indispensably obliged to confide her secret with those, to whom she was to look for assistance in concealing its consequences. But Lady Douglas, by her own account, was informed, by me of this fact, for no purpose whatever. She makes me, as those who read her declarations cannot fail to have observed, state to her, that she should, on no account, bé entrusted with any part of the management by which the birth was to be concealed. They were to believe also, that, anxious as I must have been to have concealed the birth of any such child, I had determined to bring it up in my own house; and what would exceed, as I should imagine, the extent of all human credulity, that I had determined to suckle it myself:† that I had laid my plan, if discovered, to have imposed it upon his Royal Highness as his child. Nay, they' were to believe, that I had stated, and that Lady Douglas had believed the statement to be true, that I had in fact attempted to suckle it, and only gave up that part of my plan, because it made me nervous, and was too much for my health. And, after all this, they were then to believe, that having made Lady Douglas, thus unnecessarily, the confidante, of this most important and dangerous secret ; having thus put my character, and my life in her hands, I sought an occasion, wantonly, and without provocation, from the mere fickleness, and wilfulness of my own mind, to quarrel with her, to insult her openly and violently in my own house, to * See Appendix (B) p. 61. Ibid. p. 61. Ibid. p. 76.

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endeavour to ruin her reputation; to expose her in infamous and indecent drawings enclosed in letters to her husband. The letters indeed are represented to have been anonymous, but, though anonymous, they are stated to have been written with my own hand, so undisguised in penmanship and style, that every one who had the least acquaintance with either, could not fail to discover them, and, (as if it were through fear, lest it should not be sufficiently plain, from whom they came,) that I had sealed them with a seal, which I had shortly beforc used, on an occasion of writing to her husband. All this they were to believe upon the declaration of a person, who, with all that loyalty and attachment which she expresses to your Majesty, and his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, with all her obligation to the whole Royal Family, (to whom she expresses herself to be bound by ties of respectful regard and attachment which nothing can ever break ;) with all her dread of the mischievous consequences of the country, which might arise, from the disputed succession to the Crown, on the pretensions of an illigimate child of mine, nevertheless continued, after this supposed avowal of my infamy, and my crime, after my supposed acknowledgment of the birth of this child, which was to occasion all this mischief, to preserve, for near a twelvemonth, her intimacy and apparent friendship with me. Nay for two years more, after that intimacy had ceased, after that friendship had been broken off, by my alleged misbehaviour to her,

continued still faithful to my secret, and never disclosed it till (as her declaration states it) "The "Princess of Wales recommended a fresh torrent "of outrage against Sir John; and Sir John disco"vered that she was attempting to undermine his " and Lady Douglas's character."

Those, then, who had the opportunity of seeing the whole of this Narrative, having had their jealousy awakened by these circumstances to the improbability of the story, and to the discredit of the informer, when they came to observe, how maliciously every circumstance that imagination could suggest, as most calculated to make a woman contemptible and odious, was scraped and heaped up together in this Narrative, must surely have had their eyes opened to the motives of my accusers, and their minds cautioned against giving too easy a credit to their accusation, when they found my conversation to be represented as most loose, and infamous; my mind uninstructed and unwilling to learn; my language, with regard to your Majesty and the whole of your Royal Family, foully disrespectful and offensive; and all my manners and habits of life most disgusting, I should have flattered myself, that I could not have been, in character, so wholly unknown to them, but that they must have observed a spirit, and a colouring at least in this representation, which must have proved much more against the disposition, and character of the informers, and the quality of *See Appendix, p. 9.

their information, than against the person who was the object of their charge. But when, in addition, to all this, the Declaration states,* that I had, withrespect to my unfortunate and calamitous separa-› tion from His Royal Highness, stated that I bad acknowledged myself to have been the aggressor, from the beginning, and myself alone; and when it further states, that if any other woman had so played and sported with her husband's comfort and popularity, she would have been turned out of his house, or left alone in it, and have deservedly forfeited her place in society; and further still, when, alleging that I had once been desirous of procuring a separation from His Royal Highness, and had pressed former Chancellors to accomplish this purpose, it flippantly adds, that "The Chancellor may now, perhaps, be able to grant her request.” The malicious object of the whole must surely have, been most obvious.

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For supposing these facts to have been all true; supposing this infamous and libellous description of my character had been nothing but a correct and faithful representation of my vices, and my infamy, would it not have been natural to have asked why they were introduced into this Declaration? What effect could they have had upon the charge of crime, and of Adultery, which it was intended to establish? If it was only, in execution of a painful duty, which a sense of loyalty to your Majesty,

*See Appendix, (B) p. 65. † Appendix (B) p. 59, the note.

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