Obrazy na stronie
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devise schemes to attack a woman a thousand ways, and contrive ten thousand obstacles to her defence. But the right honorable gentleman talks of this as being only an exclusion from a common assembly. Is it then nothing that her nephews, that her future son-in-law the prince of Orange, who has so announced himself to her, her near relation the king of Prussia, the emperor of Russia, the immortal Blucher, the companion of her father in arms, is it nothing that they should remark the absence of the princess of Wales, and to be told it is for reasons undefined, and of which the regent alone continues the judge? Sir, under these circumstances, such infliction is worse than loss of life, it is loss of reputation, blasting to her character, fatal to her fame. But this thing we hear to day, no man now dares to say that she is guilty. All the charges, says - the honorable getleman, were irresistibly upset. It is our duty to extend our view to the whole object, to look at it in all points of view to which it reaches. I ask, would the king have consented that the marriage of the princess Charlotte of Wales should have taken place in private, to have been smuggled in a corner? No, the parliament will, and all the nation will call that this marriage shall be public, and that the princess of Wales shall be there, the state becoming her rank and station. Now, as to an event which sooner or later must happen, I mean the demise of the crown, is the princess of

Wales to be crowned? She must be crowned, who doubts it? One hears it whispered abroad, a coronation is not necessary. I believe it is. Will the honorable gentleman say it is not? He dares not say so, crowned she must be, unless there be some dark base plot at work, some black act yet to do; unless the parliament consent hereafter to be made a party to some nefarious transaction. If it is their intention to try the question of divorce let them speak out, if such their meaning be.

"Let better counsel be given to the regent, and undo what has passed: people do this every day: it is the tribute paid by fiery passions to conviction and returning reason. Sir R. Walpole prided himself in the reconciliation he effected between George I. and the then prince of Wales; it was a conciliating minister did this; happy would it be if our ministers would follow his example. One would have thought if ever there was a period when it was an object to represent the royal family as united, this was now that period. The people maintain that family not only for state and show, but for their examples of moral and domestic virtues: what the king so uniformly shewed, and what have endeared him to his people, more than any other circumstances of his reign. Let it not then be said that the emperor of Russia finds no person whom the law does not protect, who is exposed to outrage and insult; and that person the

wife of the prince regent. Now, sir, if the right honorable gentleman has not a doubt of the princess of Wales having a right to appear at court, the use of which she has consented at present to wave, I have only to add, that if she find no protection in this house, the last refuge of the destitute and oppressed, it is to be hoped she will be advised to assert her right, and, however reluctantly, to dare the advisers of the regent directly to execute their intentions."

Mr. Tierney wished the subject not to be pressed now, in the hope that by the next drawing-room the prince regent would be advised to change his resolution with respect to the princess. On this suggestion Mr. Methuen withdrew his motion.

There is something remarkably prophetic in Mr. Whitbread's speech; but that gentleman erred, when he said "she must be crowned:" the coronation of a queen depends on the will of the king.

At the very time when the nuptials of the heiress of the English throne with the hereditary prince of Orange were intended to be solemnized, the intelligence of its rupture created universal astonishment. The cause was stated to have been the aversion of the princess to quit her native land. The prince of Orange, in order to parry the royal fair one's objection, engaged only to take her over for a short time to Holland, with a view to shew

her to the Dutch, pledging his word of honor as a prince and a gentleman that he would himself return with her in a fortnight, and never ask her to go again. In this the princess appeared at first to acquiesce, and the marriage settlements were nearly drawn. A large sum of money was on the way from Holland in order to purchase jewels; the carriages also were ordered, and the day fixed for the 1st of August. Suddenly, however, the princess expressed doubts as to the security tendered to her that she should not be obliged to reside longer than she wished in Holland, and demanded that a clause should be inserted in the marriage contract, prohibiting her ever quitting this kingdom on any account, or for any time, however short. To this condition the princely suitor had not the power to consent, as he was already engaged to the Dutch to take the princess among them for a short time; but still pledged himself as a man of honor to return to England with her after her first introduction to his nation. This not being thought sufficient, the contract was broken off.

The indignity of being excluded from court, and above all, her separation from her beloved daughter, induced the princess of Wales to become a voluntary exile; though her departure from England, at such a crisis, was deemed impolitic by some, as it afforded opportunities of doubting her

future conduct. The following are copies of the letters which passed between her royal highness, lord Liverpool and Mr. Whitbread, immediately previous to her royal highness's embarkation for the continent, and which will afford a clue to the motives in which her royal highness was influenced in her departure from this country.

Letter from her Royal Highness to Lord Liverpool, first Minister to the Prince Regent, dated Connaught house, 25th July, 1814.

"The princess of Wales requests lord Liverpool to lay before the Prince Regent the contents of this letter.

"Actuated by the most urgent motive, that of restoring tranquillity to the prince regent, as well as to secure the peace of mind of which she has been for so many years deprived, the princess of Wales, after mature reflection, has resolved to return to the Continent. This resolution ought not to surprise the ministers of the prince regent, considering the trouble and disagreeable experience of the princess for so long a time; and still more, after the indignity and mortification to which she has been exposed, by being withheld from receiving her nearest relations, and the most intimate friends of the late duke of Brunswick her illustrious father. "The princess is extremely anxious that the prince regent should be informed of the motives,

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