to the awful visitation of Providence, and that his Serene Highness may yet live to enjoy many years of health and happiness in the merited esteem and respect of a nation, endeared to him by the strongest ties of affection.

Nov. 9, 1817.

I am, my Lord,

Your Lordship's humble servant,

CHAS. JEMMITT, Town Clerk.

To the Hon. Baron de Hardenbroke.”

The following is the answer to the address:Claremont, Nov. 11, 1817.

SIR,

I have submitted to the Prince Leopold your letter of the 9th instant.

I am commanded by the Prince to request you will express to the Corporation of Kingston his Serene Highness's warmest thanks for the feeling they have shewn in his calamities.

The Prince Leopold, suffering under a grief that admits of no alleviation, is still sensible to those assurances of true affection so feelingly manifested by the Corporation of Kingston. He remembers, and at the same time is anxious to record, how much the Princess has been gratified by frequent and unquestionable proofs of their attachment to her Royal Highness, and he can say how highly and earnestly her Royal Highness valued it.

The Prince Leopold, in commanding me to express his gratification, in this instance, of real participation and interest in his grief, feels that he fulfils also what would have been the Princess's desire, in affording the Corporation of Kingston his assurance how constantly her Royal Highness regarded and desired their welfare and happiness.

I have the honour to be, Sir,

Your obedient humble Servant,

BARON HARDENBROKE.

To Charles Jemmett, Esq., Town Clerk,
Kingston."

As the intelligence of the death of our beloved Princess spread throughout France, it continued every where to excite the liveliest sympathy in our affliction. All the English vessels in the different French ports lowered their colours; and wherever an Englishman was to be seen, his sable garments and downcast looks manifested his full participation in the grief which shrouded his native home. Letters from the Grand Head-quarters at Cambray mentioned, that on the news arriving there, it spread universal grief and dismay in the English army. The generals, the officers of all ranks, and the private soldiers, were seen to shed tears of affliction when they were informed of the sad event. What funeral oration could be more affecting ?-The opera in Paris was deserted by every Englishman, and all our countrymen there put themselves into mourning -a becoming conduct which could not fail to impress foreigners with an exalted notion of the moral character of Britons. One of the Paris papers, recurring to the melancholy topic, paid the following just tribute to the feelings which the people of England manifested on this occasion:

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England offers to us, at this moment, the spectacle of a nation deeply impressed with the salutary doctrines of legitimate succession. The general sorrow which the death of the Princess Charlotte has excited, is an example worthy the

contemplation of those turbulent and unquiet spirits, who affirm that persons should be reckoned as nothing, and that it is only to things we ought to attach ourselves. Yes; it may be so, according to a rash and arrogant philosophy; but the friends of humanity, the friends of their country, reason differently; and, independently of the lofty character which princes have in their eyes, they view them as the protectors of nations, and the surest guarantees of their institutions. The English journals are filled with the most touching lamentations, inspired by their sorrow for the loss which the country has sustained. She was the expectancy and rose of the fair state,' they exclaim; thus uniting, in a single phrase, patriotic affections with those which are produced by the fate of youth and beauty, so unexpected. Happy are the people who thus appre ciate the virtues of their princes! Faction will strive in vain to produce agitation among them; and, in the sort of union which now subsists between governments, this circumstance is not indifferent to the repose of the world."

The French journals, in the language they held on this mournful occasion, did homage to the sensibility by which our countrymen are characterized as a humane and gallant race. They wept with us over the urn of youth and beauty-they felt for our unfeigned and universal grief that grief which vibrated through seventeen millions of human beings, as if their

blood had circulated from a single heart, and their tears were shed from the same fountain. But, perhaps, these generous foreigners were not familiar with the deepest source of our concern. They saw in the people of England at this moment," the spectacle of a nation deeply impressed with the salutary doctrines of legitimate succession." They would see, if they understood the English character, something more than mere solicitude for the interests of legitimate succession. Of legitimacy, taken in the opposite sense to usurpation, we are amongst the warmest friends, because peace, and order, and civilized improvement, and social comfort, are generally found amongst it attributes. But in the present instance, greatly as we regret the failure of the regular descent, we cannot help thinking that the rupture of such a link will be regretted as much for the material of which it is formed, as for the place which it occupied. The loss of an heir apparent or presumptive, who had lived all his life-time in the north of Germany for instance, and whom we had never seen or known, might create, under certain circumstances, a strong sensation through this kingdom: but it would be a feeling of alarm or anxiety. It would engross our calculations but not our affections. It would bear no tinge of sorrow nor of tenderness; it would not pervade all ranks, nor level all distinctions of character and party. The shops would not be deserted, nor the churches crowded-the votaries of plea

sure would still forget the hand that chastened them, and pursue the mad game which they had spontaneously suspended. The poor would not spare, as they actually do, from their necessities, wherewithal to purchase the decent" suits of woe." All this is yet a mystery to foreign nations. They have their system of morals-we have ours-They know not the true cords that bind us to our sovereigns-that the principles of an Englishman are the preceptors of his heart; and that if we mourn our lost Princess as they see we mourn, it is as well for her virtues as her birth. Of what might be the natural influence of those virtues upon the minds of an affectionate and admiring people, there can be but one opinion. They were precisely the qualities which would most contribute to the improvement of society amongst us: and they were displayed in a point of view the most favourable to their beneficial operation. She was not only good, but happy. There was nothing in her fortune to diminish the force of her example. She was not merely a pattern of domestic worth and female excellence; but she held out to the wives and daughters of England the most powerful incitements, and tempting rewards, to the performance of every moral duty; for she proved to them, by the manifest and indissoluble connexion between the actions and enjoyments of every hour of her existence, that

"Virtue is happiness below."