pies of whose depositions we have hereunto annexed; and in further execution of the said commands, we now most respectfully submit to your Majesty the Report of these Examinations as it has appeared to us: but we beg leave at the same time humbly to refer your Majesty for more complete information to the Examinations themselves, in order to correct any error of judgment into which we may have unintentionally fallen, with respect to any part of this business. On a reference to the above-mentioned Declarations as the necessary foundation of all our proceedings, we found that they consisted in certain statements which had been laid before his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, respecting the conduct of her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales; that these statements not only imputed to her Royal Highness great impropriety, and indecency of behaviour, but expressly asserted, partly on the ground of certain alleged declarations from the Princess's own mouth, and partly on the personal observations of the informants, the following most important facts; viz. That her Royal Highness had been pregnant in the year 1802, in consequence of an illicit intercourse; aud that she had in the same year been secretly delivered of a male child, which child had ever since that period been brought up by her Royal Highness in her own house, and under her immediate inspection. "These allegations thus made, had, as we found, been followed by declarations from other persons, who had not indeed spoken to the important facts of the pregnancy or delivery of her Royal Highness, but had stated other particulars in themselves extremely suspicious, and still more So when connected with the assertions already mentioned. In the painful situation in which his Royal Highness was placed by these. communications, we learnt that his Royal Highness had adopted the only course which could, in our judgment, with propriety be followed; when informations such as these had been thus condently alleged, and particularly detailed, and had been in some degree supported by Collateral evidence, applying to other points of the same nature (though going to a far less extent), one line could only be pursued. Every sentiment of duty to your Majesty, and of concern for the public welfare, required that these particulars should not be withheld from your Majesty, to whom more particularly belonged the cognizance of a matter of State so nearly touching the honour of your Majesty's Royal Family, and by possibility affecting the Succession of your Majesty's Crown. Your Majesty had been pleased, on your part, to view the subject in the same light. Considering it as a matter which in every respect demanded the most immediate investigation, your Majesty had thought fit to commit into our hands the duty of ascertaining, in the first instance, what degree of credit was due to the informations, and thereby enabling your Majesty to decide what further conduct to adopt concerning them. On this view, 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 declaration the occasion for this inquiry 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 pricipal 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 the all-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 inquire, 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 Inquiry 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 inquiry 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 pregnancy; so many circumstances must have been attendant 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 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 inquiries. 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 judgment leave no question on this part of 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 Declaration, a fact so fully contradieted, 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, contained in the annexed Depositions and Letters, we have not partially abstracted in this Report, lest by any 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 inquiry. We do not, however, feel ourselves at liberty, much as we should wish it, to close our Report here. Besides the allegations of the pregnancy and delivery of the Princess, those declarations, on the whole of which your Majesty has been pleased to command us to inquire 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 examination of Robert Bidgood, William Cole, Frances Lloyd, and Mrs. Lisle, your 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 Inquiry, 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 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 assuring 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) ERSKINE, GRENVILLE, SPENCER, ELlenborouch. July 14, 1806. (A true Copy)- I. BECKET. PRINCESS OF WALES's Letter to the KIND. "SIRE, Imprest with the deepest sentiments of gratitude for the countenance and protection which I have hitherto uniformly received from your Majesty, I approach you with a heart undismayed, upon the occasion so awful and momentous to my character, my honour, and my happiness. I should, indeed (under charges such as have now been brought against me), prove. myself undeserving of the continuance of that countenance and protection, and altogether unworthy of the high station which I hold in your Majesty's family, if I sought for any partiality, for any indulgence, for any thing more than what is due to me in justice. My entire confidence in your Majesty's virtues assures me that I cannot meet with less. "The situation which I bave been so happy as to hold in your Majesty's good opinion and esteem, my station in your Majesty's august Family, my life, my honour, and, through mine, the honour of your Majesty's Family,have been attacked. Sir John and Lady Douglas have attempted to support a direct and precise charge, by which they have dared to impute to me the enormous guilt of High Treason, committed in the foul act of Adultery. In this charge the extravagance of their malice has defeated itself. The Report of the Lords Commissioners, acting under your Majesty's Warrant, has most fully cleared me of that charge. "But there remain imputations, strangely sanctioned and countenanced by that Report, on which I cannot remain silent without incurring the most fatal cousequences to my honour and character: for it states to your Majesty, that the cir cumstances detailed against me must be credited till they are decisively contradicted.' To contradict with as much de. cision as the contradiction of an accused can convey-to expose the injustice and malice of my enemies-to shew the utter impossibility of giving credit to their testimony-and to vindicate my own inno cence, sence, will be the objects, Sire, of this Letter. "In the course of my pursuing these objects, I shall have much to complain of, in the substance of the proceeding itself, and much in the manner of conducting it. "That any of the charges should ever have been entertained upon testimony so little worthy of belief, which betrayed in every sentence the malice in which it originated; that, even if they were entertained at all, your Majesty should have been advised to pass by the ordinary legal modes of inquiry into such high crimes, and to refer them to a Commission, open to all the objections which I shall have to state to such a mode of inquiry; that the Commissioners, after having negatived the principal charge of substantive crime, should have entertained considerations of matter that amounted to no legal offence, and which were adduced, not as substantive charges in themselves, but as matters in support of the principal accusation; that, through the pressure and weight of their official occupations, they did not,perhaps could not,-bestow that attention on the case, which, if given to it, must have enabled them to detect the villainy and falsehood of my accusers, and their foul conspiracy against me, and must have preserved my character from the weighty imputation which the authority of the Commissioners has for a time cast upon it; but, above all, that they should, upon this ex parte examination, without hearing one word that I could urge, have reported to your Majesty an opinion on these matters, so prejudicial to my ho nour, and from which I can have no appeal to the laws of the country (because the charges, constituting no legal offence, cannot be made the ground of a judicial inquiry): these, and many other circumstances connected, with the length of the proceedings, which have cruelly aggravated to my feeling the pain necessarily attendant upon this inquiry, I shall not be able to refrain from stating aud urging as matters of serious lamentation at least, if not of well-grounded complaint. "In commenting upon any part of the circumstances which have occurred in the course of this inquiry, whatever observations I may be compelled to make upon any of them, I trust I shall never forget what is due to Officers in high station and employment under your Majesty. No apology, therefore, can be required for any reserve in my expressions towards them. But if, in vindicating my innocence against the injustice and malice of my enemies, I should appear to your Majesty not to express myself with all the warmth and indignation which innocence so foully calumniated must feel, your Majesty will, I trust, not attribute my forbearance to any insensibility to the grievous injuries I have sustained, but will graciously be pleased to ascribe it to the restraint I have imposed upon myself, lest, in endeavouring to describe in just terms the motives, the conduct, the perjury, and all the foul circumstances which characterize and establish the malice of my accusers, I might use language which, though not unjustly applied to them, might be improper to be used by me to any body, or unfit to be employed by any body, humbly, respectfully, and dutifully addressing your Majesty. That a fit opportunity has occurred for laying open my heart to your Majesty, perhaps I shaft hereafter have no reason to lament: for more than two years I had been informed, that, upon the presumption of some misconduct in me, my behaviour had been the subject of investigation, and my neighbours' servants had been examined concerning it; and for some time I had received mysterious and indistinct intimations, that some great miscbief was meditated towards me: and, in all the circumstances of my very peculiar situation, it will not be thought strange, that however conscious I was that I had no just cause for fear, I should yet feel some uneasiness on this account. With surprise certainly (because the first tidings were of a kind to excite surprise), but without alarm, I received the intelligence, that, for some reason, a formal investigation of some parts of my conduct had been advised, and had taken place. "His Royal Highness the Duke of Kent, on the 7th of June, 1806, announced it to me. He announced to me, the Princess of Wales, the near approach of two Attornies (one of them, I since find, the Solicitor employed by Sir John Douglas), claiming to enter my dwelling with a warrant to take away one-half of my household, for immediate examination upon a charge against myself. Of the nature of that charge I was then uninformed. It now appears it was the charge of High Treason, committed in the infamous crime of Adultery. His Royal Highness will, I am sure, do me the justice to represent to your Majesty, that I betrayed no fearthat I manifested no symptoms of couscious guilt-that I sought no excuses to prepare or to tutor my servants for the examination which they were to undergo. The only request which I made to His Royal Highness was, that he would have the goodness to remain with me till the servants were gone, that he might bear witness that I had no conversation with them before they went. In truth, Sire, my anxieties, under a knowledge that some serious mischief was planning against me, and while I was ignorant of its quality and extent, had been so great, that I could could not but rejoice at an event which seemed to promise me an early opportunity of ascertaining what the malice of my enemies intended against me. It has not been, indeed, without impatience the most painful, that I have passed the interval which has since elapsed. When it was not only known to the world (for it was known to the world) that inquiry of the gravest nature had been instituted into my conduct, I looked to the conclusion with all the eagerness that could belong to an absolute conviction that my innocence and my honour, to the disgrace and confusion of my accusers, would be established, and that the groundless malice and injustice of the whole charge would be manifested to the world, as widely as the calumny had been circulated. I knew that the result of an ex parte inquiry, from its very nature, could not, unless it fully asserted my entire innocence, be in any degree just; and I had taught myself more firmly to believe, that it was utterly impossible that any opinion which could in the smallest degree work a prejudice to my honour and character, could even be expressed, in any terms, by any persons, in a Report upon a solemn formal Inquiry, and more especially to your Majesty, without my having some notice and some opportunity of being heard; and I was convinced, that, if the proceeding allowed me, before an opinion was expressed, the ordinary means which accused persons have of vindicating their honour, and their opinion, which could then be expressed, be fully vindicated and effectually established. What then, Sire, must have been my astonishment and my dismay, when I saw that, notwithstanding the principal accusation was found to be utterly false, yet some of the witnesses to those charges which were brought in support of the principal accusation-witnesses whom any person interested to have protected my character would easily have shewn, out of their own mouths, to be utterly unworthy of credit, and confederates in joint conspiracy with my false accusers-are reported to be free from all suspicion of unfavourable bias; their veracity, in the judgment of the Commissioners, not to be questioned;' and their infamous stories and insinuations against me to be such as deserve the most serious consideration,' and as such to be credited till decisively contradicted.' "The Inquiry, after I thus had notice of it, continued for above two months. I venture not to complain, as if it had been unnecessarily protracted. The important duties and official avocations of the Noble Lords appointed to carry it on, may naturally account for and excuse some delay. however excusable it may have been, your Majesty will conceive the pain and anxiety But, which the interval of suspense has occasioned; and your Majesty will not be surprised if I further represent, that I have found a great aggravation of my painful sufferings, in the delay which occurred in communicating the Report to me; for, though it is dated on the 14th of July, I did not receive it till the 11th of August, notwithstanding your Majesty's gracious commands. It was due unquestionably to your Majesty, that the result of an Inquiry commanded by your Majesty, upon advice which had been offered, touching matters of the highest import, should be first and immediately communicated to you. The respect and honour due to the Prince of Wales, the interest which he must necessarily have taken in this Inquiry, combined to make it indispensably fit that the result should be forthwith also stated to his Royal Highness. I complain not, therefore, that it was too early communicated to any one. I complain only, and I complain most seriously (for I felt it most seriously), of the delay in its communica tion to me. "Rumour has informed the world, that the Report had been early communicated to your Majesty and to his Royal Highness. I did not receive the benefit intended for me by your Majesty's most gracious command, till a month after the Report was signed. But the same rumour has represented me, to my infinite prejudice, as in possession of the Report during that month; and the malice of those who wish to stain my honour, has not failed to suggest all that malice could infer from its remaining in that possession so long. May I be permitted to say, that if the Report acquits me, my innocence entitles me to receive from those to whom your Majesty's commands had been given, an immediate notification of the fact that it did acquit me? Sentence should not have been left to settle in any mind, much less upon your Majesty's, for a month before I could even begin to prepare for an answer, which, when begun, could not speedily be concluded; and that if the Report could be represented as both acquitting and condemning me, the reasons which suggested the propriety of an early communication in each of the former cases, combined to make it proper and necessary in the latter. "And why all consideration of my feelings was then cruelly neglected-why I was kept upon the rack, during all this time, ignorant of the result of a charge which affected my honour and my lifeand why, especially in a case where such graver matters were to continue to be credited to the prejudice of my honour, till they were decidedly contradicted, the means of knowing what it was, that I might at least endeavour to contradict, were withholden from me a single unneces sary sary hour, I know not, and I will not trust myself in the attempt to conjecture. "On the 11th of August, however, I at length received from the Lord Chancellor, a packet, containing copies of the Warrant or Commission authorizing the Inquiry, of the Report, and of the Examinations on which the Report was founded; and your Majesty may be graciously pleased to recollect, that on the 13th I returned my grateful thanks to your Majesty for having ordered these papers to be sent me. Your Majesty will readily imagine, that, upon a subject of such importance, I could not venture to trust only to my own advice; and those with whom I advised, suggested, that the Declaration or Charge upon which the Inquiry had proceeded, and which the Commissioners refer to in their Report, and represent to be the essential foundation of the whole proceedings, did not accompany the Examination and the Report, and also that the Papers themselves were not authenticated. " I ventured, therefore, to address your Majesty upon the supposed defect in the communication ; and humbly requested that the Copies of the Papers which I then Feturned, might, after being examined and authenticated, be again transmitted to me; and that I might also be furnished with the Copies of the written Declarations, so referred to in the Report; and my humble thanks are due for your Majesty's compliance with my request. On the 29th of August I received, in consequence, the attested copies of those Declarations, and of a Narrative of his Royal Highness the Duke of Kent; and a few days afterwards, on the 3d of September, the attested Copies of the Examinations which were taken before the Commissioners. 66 By the copy of the Commission, a warrant which I have received, under which the Inquiry has been prosecuted, it appears to be an instrument under your Majesty's Sign Manual, not countersigned, not under any seal. It recites, that an abstract of certain within declarations touching my conduct (without specifying by whom those declarations were made, or the nature of the matters touching which they had been made, or even by whom the abstract had been prepared) had been laid before your Majesty, into the truth of which it purports to authorize the four Noble Peers, who are named in it, to inquire and examine upon oath such persons as they think fit, and report to your Majesty the result of their examination. "By referring to the within Declaration, it appears that they contain allegations against me amounting to the charge of high-treason, and also other matters which, if understood to be, as they seem to have been acted and reported upon by the Commissioners, not as evidence confirma tory (as they are expressed to be in the title) of the principal charge, but as distinct and substantive subjects of examination, cannot, as I am advised, be represented as in law amounting to crimes-how most of the Declarations referred to were collected, by whom, at whose solicitation, under what sanction, and before what persons, magistrates, or others, they were made, does not appear. By the title, indeed, which all the within Declarations, except Sir John and Lady Douglas, bear, viz.That they had been taken for the purpose of confirming Lady Douglas's statement,' it may be collected that they had been by her, or at least by Sir John's procurement; and the concluding passage of one of them, I mean the fourth declaration of William Cole, strengthens this opinion, as it represents Sir John Douglas, accompanied by his solicitor, Mr. Lowten, to have gone down as far as Cheltenham, for the examination of two witnesses, whose declarations are there stated. I am, however, at a loss to know at this moment, whom I am to consider, or whom I could fix upon, as my false accuser. From the circumstance last mentioned it might be inferred that Sir John Douglas, or one of them, is the accuser. But Lady Douglas, in her within declaration, so far from representing the information which she then gives, as moving voluntarily from herself, expressly states, that she gives it under the direct command of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales; and the papers leave me without information from whom any communication to the Prince originated, which induced him to give such commands. "Upon the question, how far the advice is agreeable to law under which it was recommended to your Majesty to issue this warrant or commission, not countersigned, nor under seal, and without any of your Majesty's advisers, therefore, being on the face of it responsible for its issuing, I am not competent to determine. And undoubtedly, as the two high legal authorities, the Lord Chancellor, and the Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, consented to act under it, it is with the greatest doubt and diffidence that I can bring myself to express my suspicion of its illegality. But if it be, as I am given to understand it is, open to question, whether, consistently with law, your Majesty should have been advised to command, by this warrant or commission, persons not to act in any known character, as Secretaries of State, as Privy Councillors, as Magistrates otherwise empowered, but to act as Commissioners, and under the sole authority of such warrants, to inquire without any authority, to hear and determine any thing upon the subject of those inquiries, into the known crime of high treason, under the sanction of |