mistaken conjecture with respect to the fact. But from the lord chancellor's communication to my solicitor, and from the time which has elapsed, I am led to conclude, that your majesty had directed the copy of my letter to be laid before the commissioners, requiring their advice upon the subject; and, possibly, their official occupations, and their other duties to the state, may not have as yet allowed them the opportunity of attending to it. But your majesty will permit me to observe, that however excusable this delay may be on their parts, yet it operates most injuriously upon me; my feelings are severely tortured by the suspense, while my character is sinking in the opinion of the public.

It is known that a report, though acquitting me of crime, yet imputing matters highly disreputable to my honour, has been made to your majesty ; that that report has been communicated to me; that I have endeavoured to answer it; and that I still remain, at the end of nine weeks from the delivery of my answer, unacquainted with the judgment which is formed upon it. May I be permitted to observe upon the extreme prejudice which this delay, however to be accounted for by the numerous important occupations of the commissioners, produces to my honour? The world, in total ignorance of the real state of the facts, begin to infer my guilt from it. I feel myself already sinking in the estimation of your majesty's subjects, as well as of what remains to me of my own family, into (a state intolerable to a mind conscious of its purity and innocence) a state in which my honour appears at least equivocal, and my virtue is suspected. From this state I humbly enTreat your majesty to perceive that I can have no hope of being rest ore until either your majesty's favourable opinion shall be graciously notified to the world, by receiving me again

into the royal presence, or until the full disclosure of the facts shall expose the malice of my accusers, and do away every possible ground for unfavoura ble inference and conjecture.

The various calamities with which it has pleased God of late to afflict me, 1 have endeavoured to bear, and I trust I have borne, with humble resig. nation to the Divine will. But the effect of this infamous charge, and the delay which has suspended Its final termination, by depriving me of the consolation which I should have received from your majesty's presence and kindness, have given a heavy addition to them all; and surely my bitterest enemies could hardly wish that they should be increased. But on this topic, as possibly not much affecting the justice, though it does the hardship, of my case, I forbear to dwell.

Your majesty will be graciously pleased to recollect, that an occasion of assembling the royal family and your subjects, in dutiful and happy commemoration of her majesty's birthday, is now near at hand. If the increased occupations which the approach of parliament may occasion, or any other cause, should prevent the commissioners from enabling your majesty to communicate your pleasure to me before that time, the world will infallibly conclude, (in their present state of ignorance,) that my answer must have proved unsatisfactory, and and that the infamous charges have been thought to be but too true.

These considerations, sire, will, I trust, in your majesty's gracious opi. nion, rescue this address from all imputation of impatience. For your majesty's sense of honourable feeling will naturally suggest, how utterly impossible it is that I, conscious of my own innocence, and believing that the malice of my enemies has been com pletely detected, can, without aban doning all regard to my interests, my

To the king.

C. P.

Jan. 28, 1807. The lord chancellor has the honour to present his most humble duty to the Princess of Wales, and to transmit to her royal highness the accompanying message from the king; which her royal highness will observe he has his majesty's commands to communicate to her royal highness,

The lord chancellor would have done himself the honour to have waited personally upon her royal highness, and have delivered it himself, but he considered the sending it sealed as more respectful and acceptable to her royal highness. The lord chancellor received the original paper from the king yesterday, and made the copy now sent in his own hand.

fidential servants the proceeding and papers relative to the written declarations, which had been before his majesty, respecting the conduct of the Princess of Wales, has been apprized by them, that, after the fullest consideration of the examinations taken on the subject, and of the observations and affidavits brought forward by the Princess of Wales's legal advisers, they agree in the opinions, submitted to his majesty in the original report of the four lords, by whom his majesty directed that the matter should, in the first instance, be enquired into; and that, in the present stage of the business, upon a mature and deliberate view of this most important subject in all its parts and bearings, it is their opinion, that the facts of this case do not warrant their advising that any further step should be taken in the business by his majesty's government, or any other proceedings instituted upon it, except such only as his majesty's law servants may, on reference to them, think fit to recommend, for the prosecution of Lady Douglas, on those parts of her depositions which may appear to them to be justly liable thereto.

In this situation, his majesty is adfor vised, that it is no longer necessary him to decline receiving the princess into his royal presence.

The king sees, with great satisfaction, the agreement of his confidential servants, in the decided opinion expressed by the four lords, upon the falsehood of the accusations of pregnancy and delivery, brought forward against the princess by Lady Douglas.

On the other matters produced in the course of the enquiry, the king is advised that none of the facts or alle

of Wales.

tions, carried on in the absence of the parties interested, can be considered as legally or conclusively established.

But in those examinations, and even in the answer drawn in the name of the princess by her legal advisers, there have appeared circumstances of conduct on the part of the princess, which his majesty never could regard but with serious concern. The elevated rank which the princess holds in this country, and the relation in which she stands to his majesty and the royal family, must always deeply involve both the interests of the state, and the personal feelings of his majesty, in the propriety and correctness of her conduct. And his majesty cannot, therefore, forbear to express in the conclusion of the business, his desire and expectation, that such a conduct may, in future, be observed by the princess, as may fully justify those marks of paternal regard and affection, which the king always wishes to shew to every part of his royal family.

with your majesty's permission, of that advice, for the purpose of waiting upon your majesty on Monday next, if that day should not be inconvenient; when I hope again to have the happiness of throwing myself, in filial duty and affection, at your majesty's feet.

Your majesty will easily conceive that I reluctantly name so distant a day as Monday, but I do not feel myself sufficiently recovered from the measles, to venture upon so long a drive at an earlier day. Feeling, however, very anxious to receive again, as soon as possible, that blessing, of which I have been so long deprived, if that day should happen to be in any degree inconvenient, I humbly entreat and implore your majesty's most gracious and paternal goodness, to name some other day, as early as possible, for that purpose.

Montague-house, Jan. 29, 1807. Sire,-I hasten to acknowledge the receipt of the paper, which, by your majesty's direction, was yesterday trans. mitted to me by the lord chancellor, and to express the unfeigned happiness which I have derived from one part of it. I mean that which informs me that your majesty's confidential ser vants have at length thought proper to communicate to your majesty their advice," that it is no longer necessary for your majesty to decline receiving me into your royal presence." And I therefore humbly hope that your majesty will be graciously pleased to receive, with favour, the communication of my intention to avail myself,

I am, &c. (Signed)

C. P.

Windsor Castle, Jan. 29, 1807. The king has this moment received the Princess of Wales's letter, in which she intimates her intention of coming to Windsor on Monday next; and his majesty, wishing not to put the princess to the inconvenience of coming to this place so immediately after her illness, hastens to acquaint her that he shall prefer to receive her in London upon a day subsequent to the ensuing week, which will also better suit his majesty, and of which he will not fail to apprize the princess.

(Signed)

To the Princess of Wales.

GEORGE R.

Windsor Castle, Feb. 10, 1807. As the Princess of Wales may have been led to expect, from the king's letter to her, that he would fix an early day for seeing her, his majesty thinks it right to acquaint her, that the Prince of Wales, upon receiving the several

documents which the king directed his cabinet to transmit to him, made a formal communication to him, of his intention to put them into the hands of his lawyers; accompanied by a request, that his majesty would suspend any further steps in the business, until the Prince of Wales should be enabled to submit to him the statement which he proposed to make. The king therefore considers it incumbent upon him to defer naming a day to the Princess of Wales, until the further result of the prince's intention shall have been made known to him. (Signed)

To the Princess of Wales.

GEORGE R.

Montague-house, Feb. 12, 1807. Sire,-I received yesterday, and with inexpressible pain, your majesty's last communication. The duty of stating, in a representation to your majesty, the various grounds upon which I feel the hardship of my case, and upon which I confidently think that, upon a review of it, your majesty will be disposed to recal your last determination, is a duty I owe to myself: and I cannot forbear, at the moment when I acknowledge your majesty's letter, to announce to your majesty that I propose to execute that duty without delay.

After having suffered the panishment of banishment from your majesty's presence for seven months, pending an enquiry which your majesty had directed, into my conduct, affecting both my life and my honour;-after that enquiry had, at length, terminated in the advice of your majesty's confidential and sworn servants, that there was no longer any reason for your majesty's declining to receive me ;-if after your majesty's gracious communication, which led me to rest assured that your majesty would appoint an early day to receive me;-if after all this, by a renewed application on the

part of the Prince of Wales, upon whose communication the first inquiry had been directed, I now find that that punishment, which has been inflicted, pending a seven months enquiry before the determination, should, contrary to the opinion of your majesty's servants, be continued after that determination, to await the result of some new proceeding, to be suggested by the lawyers of the Prince of Wales; it is impossible that I can fail to assert to your majesty, with the effect due to truth, that I am in the consciousness of my innocence, and with a strong sense of my unmerited sufferings,

Your majesty's much-injured subject and daughter-in-law, C. P. To the King.

Montague house, Feb. 16, 1807. Sire, By my short letter to your majesty of the 12th instant, in answer to your majesty's communication of the 10th, I notified my intention of representing to your majesty the various grounds, on which I felt the hardship of my case; and a review of which, I confidently hoped, would dispose your majesty to recal your determination to adjourn, to an indefinite period, my reception into your royal presence; a determination, which, in addition to all the other pain which it brought along with it, affected me with the disappointment of hopes which I had fondly cherished with the most perfect confidence, because they rested on your majesty's gracious assurance.

Independently, however, of that communication from your majesty, I should have felt myself bound to have troubled your majesty with much of the contents of the present letter.

Upon the receipt of the paper which, by your majesty's commands, was transmitted to me by the lord chancelor, on the 28th of the last month,