was placed in his hands, of moving an ad their ancient and indisputable right, gentlemen had better go home to their re-journment whenever he thought proper; spective counties. Sir J. Newport trusted that the hon. member would exercise the power which and that he would not be deterred by the threats of any man, however high in authority, from doing his duty. He also Royal Highness, or that she was delivered of any child in the year 1802; nor has any thing appeared to us which would warrant the belief that she was pregnant in that year, or at any other period within the compass of our enquiries. The identity of the child now with the Princess, its parents, age, the place and date of its birth, the time and circumstance of its being first taken under her Royal Highness's protection, are all established by such a concurrence both of positive and circumstantial evidence as can in our was due to the informations, and thereby enabling your Majesty to decide what further conduct to adopt concerning them. On this review, therefore, of the matters thus alleged, and of the course hitherto pursued upon them, we deemed it proper, in the first place, to examine those persons in whose declarations the occasion for this enquiry had originated; because, if they, on being examined on oath, had retracted or varied their assertions, all necessity of further investigation might possibly have been precluded. We accordingly first examined on oath the princi-judgment leave no question on this part of pal informants, sir John Douglas, and Charlotte his wife, who both positively swore, the former to his having observed the fact of the pregnancy of her Royal Highness, and the latter to all the important particulars contained in her former declaration, and above referred to. Their examinations are annexed to this Report, and are circumstantial and positive. The most material of these allegations, into the truth of which we have been directed to enquire, being thus far supported by the oath of the parties from whom they had proceeded, we then felt it to be our duty to follow up the enquiry, by the examination of such other persons as we judged best able to afford us information as to the facts in question. We thought it beyond all doubt, that in the course of enquiry many particulars must be learnt which would be necessarily conclusive on the truth or falsehood of these declarations, so many persons must have been witnesses to the appearance of an actual existing preg-quiry. We do not, however, feel ournancy; so many circumstances must have been attended upon a real delivery, and difficulties so numerous and insurmountable must have been involved, in any attempt to account for the infant in question, as the child of another woman, if it had been in fact the child of the Princess, that we entertained a full and confident expectation of arriving at complete proof, either in the affirmative or negative, on this part of the subject. This expectation was not disappointed. We are happy to declare our perfect conviction that there is no foundation whatever for believing that the child now with the Princess of Wales is the child of her the subject. That child was beyond all doubt born in Brownlow-street-hospital, on the 11th day of July, 1802, of the body of Sophia Austin, and was first brought to the Princess's house in the month of November following. Neither should we be more warranted in expressing any doubt respecting the alleged pregnancy of the Princess, as stated in the original declara. tion, a fact so fully contradicted, and by so many witnesses, to whom, if true, it must in various ways be known, that we cannot think it entitled to the smallest credit. The testimonies on these two points are contained in the annexed depositions and letters. We have not partially abstracted them in this Report, lest by an unintentional omission we might weaken their effect; but we humbly offer to your Majesty this our clear and unanimous judgment upon them, formed upon full deliberation, and pronounced without hesitation, on the result of the whole en selves at liberty, much as we should wish it, to close our Report here. Besides the allegation of the pregnancy and delivery of the Princess, those declarations, on the whole of which your Majesty has been pleased to command us to enquire and report, contain, as we have already remarked, other particulars respecting the conduct of her Royal Highness, such, as must, especially considering her exalted rank and station, necessarily give occasion to very unfavourable interpretations. From the various depositions and proofs annexed to this Report, particularly from the examinations of Robert Bidgood, William Cole, Frances Lloyd, and Mrs. Lisle, your begged leave to remind the House, that when his late right hon. friend (Mr. Fox) was exhausted by his attention to public duties, those very gentlemen who now objected to the question of adjournment had repeated it fourteen or fifteen times in the Majesty will perceive that several strong circumstances of this description have been positively sworn to by witnesses, who cannot, in our judgment, be suspected of any unfavourable bias, and whose veracity, in this respect, we have seen no ground to question. On the precise bearing and effect of the facts thus appearing, it is not for us to decide these we submit to your Majesty's wisdom; but we conceive it to be our duty to report on this part of the enquiry, as distinctly as on the former facts, that as on the one hand the facts of pregnancy and delivery are to our minds satisfactorily disproved; so on the other hand we think that the circumstances to which we now refer, particularly those stated to have passed between her Royal Highness and captain Manby, must be credited until they shall receive some decisive contradiction; and if true, are justly entitled to the most serious consideration. We cannot close this Report without humbly as suring your Majesty, that it was on every account our anxious wish to have executed this delicate trust with as little publicity as the nature of the case would possibly allow, and we entreat your Majesty's permission to express our full persuasion, that if this wish has been disappointed, the failure is not imputable to any thing unnecessarily said or done by us; all which is most humbly submitted to your Majesty. (Signed) July 14, 1806, (A true Copy) same night. If the House persisted in excluding strangers from their gallery, the public would consider parliament as a se cret tribunal, which sought to shelter itself from public opinion. Mr. Yorke said, in explanation, that the submitted to the consideration of your Majesty, on the subject of those charges against her royal highness the Princess of Wales. In the stage in which this business is brought under their consideration they do not feel themselves called upon to give any opinion as to the proceeding itself, or to the mode of investigation in which it has been thought proper to conduct it. But adverting to the advice which is stated by his royal highness the Prince of Wales to have directed his conduct, your Majesty's confidential servants are anxious to impress upon your Majesty their conviction, that his Royal Highness could not, under such advice, consistently with his public duty, have done otherwise than lay before your Majesty the Statement and Examination, which were submitted to him upon this subject. After the most deliberate consideration, however, of the evidence which has been brought before the Commissioners, and of the previous examinations, as well as of the answer and observations which have been submitted to your Majesty upon them, they feel it necessary to declare their decided concurrence in the clear and unanimous opinion of the Commissioners confirmed by that of all your Majesty's late confidential servants, that the two main charges alledged against her royal highness the Princess of Wales, of pregnancy and delivery, are completely disERSKINE. proved, and they further submit to your SPENCER. Majesty their unanimous opinion, that all GRENVILLE. the other particulars of conduct brought ELLENBOROUGH. in accusation against her Royal Highness, MINUTE OF COUNCIL, April 22, 1807.- to which the character of criminality can Present, The Lord Chancellor (Eldon,) tradicted or rest upon evidence of such a be ascribed, are either satisfactorily con the Lord President (Camden,) the Lord Privy Seal (Westmoreland,) the nature, and which was given under such Duke of Portland, the Earl of Chat- circumstances, as render it, in the judgham, Earl Bathurst, Viscount Cas.ment of your Majesty's confidential sertlereagh, Lord Mulgrave, Mr. Secre- vants, undeserving of credit. tary Canning, Lord Hawkesbury. Your Majesty's confidential servants have, in obedience to your Majesty's commands, most attentively considered the original Charges and Report, the Minutes of Evidence, and all the other papers ( VOL. XXIV. ) 1. BECKET. Your Majesty's confidential servants, therefore, concurring in that part of the opinion of your late servants, as stated in their Minute of the 25th January, that there is no longer any necessity for your Majesty being advised to decline receiving the Princess into your royal presence, (4 C) reason assigned for moving the question of adjournment was what he complained of, and not the question itself. Mr. Canning said, that he had shewn his disapprobation of the question of adjournment by voting against it, as he should do again if driven to that neces humbly submit to your Majesty, that it is essentially necessary, in justice to her Royal Highness, and for the honour and interests of your Majesty's illustrious family, that her royal highness the Prin cess of Wales should be admitted, with as little delay as possible, into your Majesty's royal presence, and that she should be received in a manner due to her rank and station, in your Majesty's court and family. Your Majesty's confidential servants likewise beg leave to submit to your Majesty, that considering that it may be ne. cessary that your Majesty's government should possess the means of referring to the true state of this transaction, it is of the utmost importance that these docu. ments, demonstrating the ground on which your Majesty has proceeded, should be preserved in safe custody; and that for that purpose the originals, or authentic copies of all these papers, should be sealed up and deposited in the office of your Majesty's principal Secretary of State. LETTER from the PRINCE of WALES to the PRINCESS Of Wales. MADAM-As lord Cholmondeley informs me that you wish I would define in writing the terms upon which we are to live, I shall endeavour to explain myself upon that head with as much clearness and as much propriety as the nature of the subject will admit. Our inclinations are not in our power, nor should either of us be held answerable to the other, because nature has not made us suitable to each other. Tranquil and Tranquil and comfortable society is, however, in our power. Let our intercourse, therefore, be restricted to that; and I will distinctly subscribe to the condition which you required through lady Cholmondeley, that even in the event of any accident happen. ing to my daughter, which I trust Providence in its mercy will avert, I shall not infringe the terms of the restriction, by proposing at any period a connection of a more particular nature. I shall now finally close this disagreeable correspondence, trusting that, as we have completely explained ourselves to each other, the rest of our lives will be passed in uninter sity. He would not decide on the propriety of the motion for clearing the gal lery on this occasion, but this he would say, that it was one of those privileges which must be maintained without any qualification, or it would lose its essence altogether. He considered the present rupted tranquillity-I am, Madam, with great truth, very sincerely yours, (Signed) GEORGE, P. Windsor Castle, April 30, 1796. The PRINCESS OF WALES'S Answer. The avowal of your conversation with lord Cholmondeley, neither surprizes nor offends me. It merely confirmed what you have tacitly insinuated for this twelvemonth. But after this, it would be a want of delicacy, or rather an unworthy meanness in me, were I to complain of those conditions which you impose upon your self. I should have returned no answer to your letter, if it had not been conceived in terms to make it doubtful whether this arrangement proceeds from you or from me; and you are aware that the credit of it be longs to you alone. You The letter which you announce to me at the last, obliges me to communicate to the King, as to my sovereign and my father, both your avowal and my answer. will find inclosed the copy of my letter to the King. I apprize you of it, that I may not incur the slightest reproach of dupli city from you. As I have at this moment no protector but his Majesty, I refer my. self solely to him upon this subject; and if my conduct meets his approbation, I shall be, in some degree at least, consoled. I retain every sentiment of gratitude for the situation in which I find myself, as Princess of Wales, enabled by your means to indulge in the free exercise of a virtue dear to my heart-I mean charity. It will be my duty likewise to act upon another motive-that of giving an example of patience and resignation under every trial. Do me the justice to believe that I shall never cease to pray for your happiness, and to be-Your much devoted May 6, 1796. CAROLINE. The indisposition of the Princess Charlotte commenced previous to the fete at Carlton-house, and afterwards increasing, her Royal Highness was necessarily ob liged to defer her return to Windsor. In motion for adjournment as impolitic, though it was a right which he had often exercised to the manifest impediment of the public business, considering it to be the only arms of a minority against an overwhelming majority. Any attempt to limit the power of clearing the gallery would destroy their independence with the public, and any attempt on the other hand to enter into a disquisition upon the motives or discretion of members, would Consequence of this, the Princess of Wales, on the 8th of February, addressed herself to lord Liverpool, desiring that he would communicate to the Prince Regent her Royal Highness's intention to visit the Princess Charlotte at Warwick-house, not anticipating the possibility of a prevention on the part of the Prince Regent, under the circumstances of the Princess Charlotte's confinement from illness. Lord Liverpool replied, that he was happy to announce the Princess Charlotte so much better, that her Royal Highness would be able to visit the Princess of Wales at Kensington-palace on the following Thursday, 11th February. On that morning, how ever, at the moment of the Princess of Wales stepping into her carriage, she received information that Princess Charlotte was refused coming. Upon this, the Princess of Wales again addressed lord Liverpool to know the reason, none having been assigned, for the Princess Charlotte's being thus suddenly prohibited from giving the meeting to her royal mother, and when and how soon her Royal Highness might expect to see the Princess Charlotte. To this enquiry the Princess of Wales received the following reply from lord Liverpool: Fife House, Feb. 14, 1813. Lord Liverpool has the honour to inform your Royal Highness, that in consequence of the publication in The Morning Chronicle of the 10th instant, of a Letter addressed by your Royal Highness to the Prince Regent, his Royal Highness thought fit, by the advice of his confidential servants, to signify his commands that the intended visit of the Princess Charlotte to your Royal Highness on the following day, should not take place. Lord Liverpool is not enabled to make any further communication to your Royal Highness on the subject of your Royal Highness's note. destroy their independence within themselves. Mr. Stewart Wortley explained his motive in moving an adjournment on a former occasion not to be a wish to have an audience hear his speech. Lord Castlereagh trusted that the House would never be called upon to deliberate on the right of moving the question of adjournment. The mode, however, in which that right had now been exercised, was To this Letter the Princess of Wales commanded lady Anne Hamilton, her lady in waiting, to reply as follows to lord Liverpool: Montague House, Blackheath, Lady Anne Hamilton is commanded by her royal highness the Princess of Wales to represent to lord Liverpool, that the insidious insinuation, respecting the publication of the letter addressed by the Princess of Wales, on the 14th of January, to the Prince Regent, conveyed in his lordship's reply to her Royal Highness, is as void of foundation, and as false as all the former accusations of the traducers of her Royal Highness's honour in the year 1806. Lady A. Hamilton is further com manded to say, that dignified silence would have been the line of conduct the Princess would have preserved upon such insinuation (more than unbecoming lord Liverpool), did not the effect arising from it operate to deprive her Royal Highness of the sole real happiness she can possess in this world-that of seeing her only child. And the confidential servants of the Prince Regent ought to feel ashamed of their conduct towards the Princess in avowing to her Royal Highness their advice to the Prince Regent, that upon unauthorized and unfounded suppositions a mother and daughter should be prevented from meeting-a prohibition positively against the law of nature.-Lady Anne Hamilton is commanded further to desire lord Liverpool, to lay this paper before the Prince Regent, that his Royal Highness may be aware into what error his confidential servants are leading him, and will involve him, by counselling and sig nifying such commands. Here ended the correspondence. The cabinet meetings and proceedings succeeded almost immediately; but touching the nature, the form, and the object of pressly because the gallery was cleared, and, therefore, he was himself determined that the gallery should be in that state whenever he brought forward his motion. Mr. Bennet rose to inquire whether if he withdrew his motion for an adjournment, the motion for clearing the gallery would be also withdrawn? Mr. Osborne said, that the hon. member had better move at once that the standing order should be rescinded. Mr. Whitbread thought the enforcement of the standing order, in this instance, un those proceedings, the Princess of Wales being left to conjecture, her Royal Highness, on the 27th of February, addressed the subjoined letter to the earl of Har-seasonable, though he considered that rowby : Copy of a LETTER addressed by the Feb. 27, 1813. The Princess of Wales has received reports from various quarters of certain proceedings lately held by his Majesty's privy council, respecting her Royal Highness; and the Princess has felt persuaded that these reports must be unfounded, because she could not believe it possible that any resolution should be taken by that most honourable body in any respect affecting her Royal Highness, upon statements which she has had no opportunity of answering, explaining, or even seeing. The Princess still trusts, that there is no truth in these rumours; but she feels it due to herself to lose no time in protesting against any resolution affecting her Royal Highness which may be so adopted. The noble and right hon. persons who are said to have been selected for these proceedings, are too just to decide any thing touching her Royal Highness, without affording her an opportunity of laying her case before them. The Princess has not had any power to choose the judges before whom any enquiry may be carried on; but she is perfectly willing to have her whole conduct enquired into by any persons who may be selected by her accusers. The Princess only demands that she may be heard in defence or in explanation of her conduct, if it is at tacked; and that she should either be treated as innocent, or proved to be guilty. Lord Harrowby replied to the effect, that a copy of the Ministers' Report, laid before the Prince Regent, had been transmitted that same evening to the Princess of Wales, by the viscount Sidmouth. order essential to the independence of the House. It had happened to him to have something that fell from him in debate, the gallery cleared in consequence of but he had not thought it necessary to declare-immediately to declare, that he would speak no more. He would therefore recommend the same line to the hon. gentleman, and either to renew his motion at once, or to move that the Report which he had read should be laid on the table. Mr. Cochrane Johnstone felt anxious to comply with the wishes of the House, and therefore gave notice that he should bring forward his motion to-morrow. Mr. Cochrane Johnstone having thus refused, under the circumstances in which the House was placed, to bring on his motion, and lord Castlereagh having declined to give any explanation, unless some motion was before the House, or to originate any proceeding himself, the House of course adjourned, there being nothing to occupy its attention. HOUSE OF COMMONS. Friday, March 5. BRECKNOCK AND ABERGAVENNY CANAL BILL.] Mr. Wood moved the second reading of a Bill for amending a clause in the Brecknock and Abergavenny Canal Act. He stated, that in 1793, an Act passed, authorising the excavation of a Canal, from the town of Brecknock, to Pontypool, in Monmouthshire. By that Act, persons possessed of coal or lime pits, within eight miles of the Canal, were permitted to form rail ways, in any direction, on either side of it, without the consent of the proprie. tors of those lands over which they might pass. Certain individuals were anxious that this clause might be amended, and the powers granted by it, altered. Although veral land owners petitioned now |
