public, from the 7th of June in the last year.-I say known to the public, because it was on that day that the Commisioners, acting, as I am to suppose, (for so they state in their Report) under the anxious wish, that their trust should he executed with as little publicity as possible, authorized that unnecessary insult and outrage upon me, as I must always consider it, which, however intended, gave the utmost publicity and exposure to the existence of these charges-I mean the sending two attornies, armed with their Lordships' warrant, to my house, to bring before them, at once, about one half of my household for examination. The idea of privacy, after an act, so much calculated, from the extraordinary nature of it, to excite the greatest attention and surprise, your Majesty must feel to have been impossible and absurd; for an attempt at secrecy, mystery, and concealment, on my part, 'could, under such circumstances, only have been construed into the fearfulness of guilt.

It will appear also, that from that time, I heard nothing authentically upon the subject till the 11th of August, when I was furnished, by your Majesty's commands, with the Report. The several papers necessary to my understanding the whole of these charges, in the authentic state in which your Majesty thought it proper, graciously to direct, that I should have them, were not delivered to me till the beginning of September. My answer to these various charges, though the whole subject of them was new to those whose advice I had recourse to,

long as that answer was necessarily obliged to be, was delivered to the Lord Chancellor, to be forwarded to Your Majesty, by the sixth of October; and, from the 6th of October to the 28th of January, I was kept in total ignoranee of the effect of that answer. Not only will all this delay be apparent, but it will be generally shewn to the world how Your Majesty's servants had, in this important business, treated your daughter-in-law, the Princess of Wales; and what measure of justice she, a female, and a stranger in your land, has experienced at their hands.

Undoubtedly against such a proceeding I have ever felt, and still feel, an almost invincible repugnance. Every sentiment of delicacy, with which a female mind must shrink from the act of bringing before the public such charges, however conscious of their scandal and falsity, and however clearly that scandal and falsity may be manifested by the answer to those charges ;-the respect still due from me, to persons employed in authority under your Majesty, however little respect I may have received from them;-my duty to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales;my regard for all the members of your august Family;-my esteem, my duty, my gratitude to your Majesty,-my affectionate gratitude for all the paternal kindness, which I have ever experienced from you;-my anxiety, not only to avoid the risk of giving any offence or displeasure to your Majesty, but also to fly from every occasion of creating the slightest sentiment of un

easiness in the mind of your Majesty, whose happiness it would be the pride and pleasure of my life to consult and to promote; and these various sentiments have compelled me to submit, as long as human forbearance could endure, to all the unfavourable inferences which were, through this delay, daily increasing in the public mind. What the strength and efficacy of these motives have been, Your Majesty will do me the justice to feel, when you are pleased, graciously, to consider how long I have been contented to suffer those suspicions to exist against my innocence, which the bringing before the public of my accusation and my defence to it, would so indisputably and immediately have dispelled.

The measure, however, of making these proceedings public, whatever mode I can adopt (considering especially the absolute impossibility of suffering any partial production of them, and the ne cessity that, if for any purpose any part of them should be produced, the whole must be brought before the public) remains surrounded with all the objections which I have enumerated; and nothing could ever have prevailed upon me, or can now even prevail upon me to have recourse to it, but an imperious sense of indispensible duty to my future safety, to my present character and honour, and to the feelings, the character, and the interests of my child. I had flattered myself, when once this long proceeding should have terminated, in my reception into Your Majesty's presence, that that circum

stance alone would have so strongly implied my innocence of all that had been brought againt me, as to have been perfectly sufficient for my honour and my security; but accompanied, as it now must be, with the knowledge of the fact, that Your Majesty has been brought to hesitate upon its propriety, and accompanied also with the very unjustifiable observations, as they appear to me, on which I shall presently proceed to remark; and which were made by your Majesty's servants, at the time when they gave you their advice to receive me; I feel myself in a situation, in which I deeply regret that I cannot rest, in silence, without an immediate reception into your Majesty's presence; nor, indeed, with that reception, unless it be attended by other circumstances, which may mark my satisfactory acquittal of the charges which have been brought against me.

It shall at no time be said, with truth, that I shrunk back from these infamous charges; that I crouched before my enemies. and courted them, by my submission into moderation? No, I have ever boldly defied them. I have ever felt and still feel, that, if they should think, either of pursuing these accusations, or of bringing forward any other which the wickedness of individuals may devise, to affect my honour; (since my conscience tells me, that they must be, as base and groundless as those brought by Lady Douglas,) while the witnesses to * the innocence of my conduct, are all living, I should be able to disprove them all; and, whoever may

be my accusers, to triumph over their wickedness and malice. But should these accusations be renewed; or any other be brought forward, in any future time, death may, I know not how soon, remove from my innocence its best security, and deprive me of the means of my justification, and my defence.

There are therefore other measures, which I trust your Majesty will think indispensable to be taken, for my honour, and for my security. Amongst these, I most humbly submit to your Majesty my most earnest entreaties that the proceedings, inclu. ding not only my first answer, and my letter of the 8th of December, but this letter also, my be directed by your Majesty to be so preserved and deposited, as that they may, all of them, securely remain permanent authentic documents and memorials, of this accusation and of the manner in which I met it; of my defence, as well as of the charge. That they may remain capable at any time, of being resorted to, if the malice which produced the charge originally, shall ever venture to renew it.

Beyond this, I am sure your Majesty will think it but proper and just, that I should be restored, in every respect, to the same situation, from whence the proceedings, under these false charges, have removed me. That, besides being graciously received, again, into the bosom of your Majesty's Royal Family, restored to my former respect and station amongst them, your Majesty will be graciously pleased, either to exert your influence, with