from your Majesty's presence and kindness, havé 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 pleas

to recollect, that an occasion of assembling the Royal Family and your subjects, in dutiful and happy commemoration of Her Majesty's birth-day, is now near at hand. If the increased

may occasion, or any other canse, 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 that the infamous charges have been thought but too true. These considerations, Sire, will, I trust, in your Majesty's gracious opinion, 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 completely detected, can, without abandoning all regard to my interests, my happiness, and my honour, possibly be contented to perceive the approach of such utter ruin to my character, and yet wait, with patience and in silence, till it overwhelms me. I therefore take this liberty of throwing myself again at your Majesty's feet, and entreating and imploring of your Majesty's goodness and justice, in pity for my miseries, which this delay so severely aggravates, and in justice to my innocence and character, to urge the Commissioners to an early communication of their advice.--To save your Majesty and the Commissioners all unnecessary trouble, as well as to obviate all probability of further delay, I have directed a duplicate of this letter to be prepared, and have sent one copy of it through the Lord Chancellor, aud another through Colonel Taylor to your Majesty.I am, Sire, with every sentiment of gratitude and loyalty, your Majesty's most affectionate and dutiful Daughter. C. P.

The Lord Chancellor informed my Council, that the letter should be conveyed to your Majesty on that very day; and further, was pleased, in about a week or ten days afterwards, to communicate to my Solicitor, that your Majesty had read my letter, and that it had been transmitted to his Lordship, with directions that it should be copied for the Commissioners, and that whened such copy had been taken, the original should be returned to your Majesty.- -Your Majesty's own gracious and royal mind will easily conceive what must have been my state of anxiety and sus-occupations which the approach of Parliament pense, whilst I have been fondly indulging in the hope, that every day, as it passed, would bring me the happy tidings, that your Majesty was satisfied of my innocence, and convinced of the unfounded malice of my enemies, in every part of their charge. Nine long weeks of daily expectation and suspense have now elapsed, and they have brought me nothing but disappointment. I have remained in total ignorance of what has been done, what is doing, or what is intended upon this subject. Your Majesty's goodness will, therefore, pardon me, if in the step which I now take I act upon a 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 re. main, at the end of nine weeks from the delivery of my answer, unacquainted with the judgment which is formed upon it. May I be per-in-law, servant and subject, mitted 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 last equivocal, and my virtue is suspected. From this state I humbly entreat your Majesty to perceive, that I can have no hope of being restored, 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 unfavourable inference and conjecture.The various calamities with which it has pleased God of late to afflict me, I have endeavoured to bear, and trust I have borne with humble resignation to the Divine will. But the effect of this infamous charge, and the delay which has suispended its final termination, by depriving me of the consolation which I should have received

Montague House, Dec. 8th, 1806.

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. January 28th, 1807.

To Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales.

The King having referred to his confidential Servants the proceedings 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 that subject, and of the obser vations and affidavits brought forward by the

letter of the 10th instant, your Majesty may conceive, though I am utterly unable to express. That Letter announces to me that his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, upon receiving the several documents which your Majesty di rected your Cabinet to transmit to him, made a personal communication to your Majesty of his intention to put them into the hands of his Lawyers, accompanied by a request, that your Majesty would suspend any further steps in the business, until the Prince of Wales should be enabled to submit to your Majesty the statement which he proposed to make; and it also announces to me that your Majesty therefore considered it incumbent on you to defer naming a day to me, until the further result of the Prince of Wales's intention should have been made known to your Majesty.This determination of your Majesty, on this request, made by His Royal Highness, I humbly trust your Majesty will permit me to entreat you, in your most gracious justice, to re-consider. Your Majesty, I am convinced, must have been surprised at the time, and prevailed upon by the importunity of the Prince of Wales, to think this determination necessary, or your Majesty's generosity and justice would never have adopted it. And if I can satisfy your Majesty of the unparalleled injustice and cruelty of this interposition of the Prince of Wales, at such a time, and under such circumstances, I feel the most perfect confidence that your Majesty will hasten to recal it.-—I should basely be wanting to my own interest and feelings, if I did not plainly state my sense of that injustice and cruelty; and if I did not most loudly complain of it. Your Majesty will better perceive the just grounds of my complaint when I retrace the course of these proceedings from their commencement.- -The four noble Lords, appointed by your Majesty to inquire into the charges brought against me, in their Report of the 14th of July last, after having stated that His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales had laid before him, the charge which was made against me, by Lady Douglas, and the declarations in support of it, proceed in the following manner.

Upon the receipt of the paper, which, by your Majesty's commands, was transmitted to me by the Lord Chancellor, on the 28th of last month, and which communicated to me the joyful intelligence, that your Majesty was "ad"vised, that it was no longer necessary for you "to decline receiving me into your royal pre"sence," I conceived myself necessarily called upon to send an immediate answer to so much of it as respected that intelligence. I could not wait the time which it would have required, to state those observations which it was impossible for me to refrain from making, at some period, upon the other important particulars which that paper contained. Accordingly, I answered it immediately; and, as your Majesty's gracious and instant reply of last Thursday fortnight, announced to me your pleasure, that I should be received by your Majesty on a day subsequent to the then ensuing week, I was led most confidently to assure myself, that the last week would not have passed, without my having received that satisfaction. I, therefore, determined to wait in patience, without further intrusion upon your Majesty, till I might have the opportunity of guarding myself from the possibility of being misunderstood, by personally explaining to your Majesty, that whatever observations I had to make upon the paper so communicated to me on the 28th ultimo, and whatever complaints respecting the delay, and the many cruel circumstances which had attended the whole of the proceedings against me, and the unsatisfactory state in which they were at length left by that last communication, they were observations and complaints which affected those only, under whose advice your Majesty had acted, and were not, in any degree, intended to intimate even the most distant insinuation against your Majesty's justice or kindness.--That paper established the opinion which I certainly had ever confidently entertained, but the justness of which I had not before any document to establish, that your Majesty had, from the first, deemed this proceeding a high and important matter of state, in the consideration of which your Majesty had not felt yourself at liberty to trust to your own generous feelings, and to your *"In the painful situation in which His Royown royal and gracious judgment. I never did" al Highness was placed by these communicabelieve that the cruel state of anxiety in which I "tions, we learnt that His Royal Highness had had been kept, ever since the delivery of my "adopted the only course which could, in our Answer (for at least sixteen weeks), could be at "judgment, with propriety, be followed. When all attributable to your Majesty; it was most un"informations such as these, had been thus like every thing which I had ever experienced" confidently alleged, and particularly detailed, from your Majesty's condescension, feeling, and" and had been in some degree supported by justice; and I found from that paper, that it was "collateral evidence, applying to other facts of to your confidential servants I was to ascribe the "the same nature, (though going to a far less length of banishment from your presence, which "extent,) one line only could be pursued.they, at last, advised your Majesty it was no "Every sentiment of duty to your Majesty, and longer necessary should be continued. I per-" of concern for the public welfare, required ceive, therefore, what I always believed, that it" that these particulars should not be withheld was to them, and to them only, that I owed the "from your Majesty, to whom more particularly protracted continuance of my sufferings and of" belonged the cognizance of a matter of State, my disgrace; and that your Majesty, consider- so nearly touching the honour of your Maing the whole of this proceeding to have been "jesty's Royal Family, and, by possibility, instituted and conducted under the grave re- "affecting the succession of your Majesty's sponsibility of your Majesty's servants, had not "Crown. Your Majesty had been pleased, thought proper to take any step, or express any "on your part, to view the subject in the same opinion, upon any part of it, but such as was "light. Considering it as a matter which, on recommended by their advice. Influenced by "every account demanded the most immediate these sentiments, and anxious to have the oppor- "investigation, your Majesty had thought fit tunity of conveying them, with the overflowings" to commit into our hands the duty of ascerof a grateful heart, to your Majesty, what were "taining, in the first instance, what degree of my sensations of surprise, mortification, and disappointment, on the receipt of your Majesty's

66

* Report.

too favourably dealt with by them? and that the advice which has been given to your Majesty, that your Majesty need no longer decline to receive me, was hastily and partially delivered! I am confident that your Majesty must see the very reverse of this to be the case-that I have every reason to complain of the inexplicable delay which so long withheld that advice. And the whole character of the observations with which they accompanied it, marks the reluct ance with which they yielded to the necessity of giving it. For your Majesty's confidential servants advise your Majesty, "that it is no "longer necessary for you to decline receiving "me into your Royal Presence." If this is their opinion and their advice now, why was it not their opinion and their advice four months ago, from the date of my answer? Nay, why was it not their opinion and advice from the date even of the original Report itself? For not only had they been in possession of my answer for above sixteen weeks, which at least furnished them with all the materials on which this advice was at length given, but further, your Majesty's confidential servants are forward to state, that after having read my observations, and the affidavits which were annexed to them, they agree in the opinions (not in any single opinion upon any particular branch of the case, but in the opinions generally) which were submitted to your Majesty, in the original Report of the four Lords. If, therefore (notwithstanding their concurrence in all the opinions contained in the Report), they have, nevertheless, given to your Majesty their advice," that it is no longer ne

a credit was due to the information, and there-ings, as to induce a suspicion that I have been "by enabling your Majesty to decide what fur"ther conduct to adopt respecting them." His Royal Highness then, pursuing, as the four Lords say, the only course which could, in their judgment, with propriety, be pursued, submitted the matter to your Majesty.-Your Majesty directed the Inquiry by the four noble Lords. The four Lords in their Report upon the case, justly acquitted me of all crime, and expressed (I will not wait now to say how unjustly) the credit which they gave, and the consequence they ascribed to other matters, which they did not, however, characterize as amounting to any crime.-To this Report I made my answer. That answer, together with the whole proceedings, was referred by your Majesty, to the same four noble Lords, and others of your Majesty's confidential servants. They advised your Majesty, amongst much other matter (which must be the subject of further observations), that there was no longer any reason why you should decline receiving me.- -Your Majesty will necessarily conceive that I have always looked upon my banishment from your Royal Presence, as, in fact, a punishment, and a severe one too. I thought it sufficiently hard, that I should have been suffering that punishment during the time that this Inquiry has been pending, while I was yet only under accusation, and upon the principles of the just laws of your Majesty's kingdom, entitled to be presumed to be innocent, till I was proved to be guilty. But I find this does not appear to be enough, in the opinion of the Prince of Wales. For now, when after this long Inquiry into matters which required immediate investigation, I have been ac- cessary for you to decline receiving me," quitted of every thing which could call for my what could have prevented their offering that banishment from your Royal Presence. After advice, even from the 14th of July, the date of your Majesty's confidential servants have thus the original Report itself? Or what could have expressly advised your Majesty that they see no warranted the withholding of it, even for a single reason why you should any longer decline to moment? Instead, therefore, of any trace receive me into your presence:-after your Ma- being observable, of hasty, precipitate, and jesty had graciously notified to me your determi- partial determination in my favour, it is imposnation to receive me at an early day, His Royal sible to interpret their conduct and their reasons Highness interposes the demand of a new delay; together in any other sense, than as amounting desires your Majesty not to take any step; de- to an admission of your Majesty's confidential sires you not to act upon the advice which your servants themselves, that I have, in consequence own confidential servants have given you, that of their withholding that advice, been, unneces you need no longer decline seeing me-not to sarily and cruelly banished from your Royal execute your intention, and assurance, that you Presence, from that 14th of July to the 28th of will receive me at an early day;-because he January, including a space of above six months; has laid the documents before his Lawyers, and and the effect of the interposition of the Prince, intends to prepare a further statement. And is to prolong my sufferings and my disgrace, the judgment of your Majesty's confidential ser- under the same bauishment, to a period pervants, is, as it were, appealed from by the fectly indefinite.The principle which will Prince of Wales (whom, from this time, at admit the effect of such interposition now, may least, I must be permitted to consider as as- be acted upon again; and the Prince may resuming the character of my accuser);- the jus- quire a further prolongation upon fresh statetice due to me is to be suspended, while the ments and fresh charges, kept back possibly for judgment of your Majesty's sworn servants is to the purpose of being, from time to time, conbe submitted to the revision of my accuser's veniently interposed, to prevent for ever the Counsel; and I, though acquitted in the opinion arrival of that hour, which, displaying to the of your Majesty's confidential servants, of all world the acknowledgment of my unmerited that should induce your Majesty to decline sufferings and disgrace, may, at the same time, seeing me, am to have that punishment, which expose the truly malicions and unjust quality of had been inflicted upon me during the Inquiry, the proceedings which have been so long carried continued after that acquittal, till a fresh state- on against me. This unreasonable, unjust, ment is prepared, to be again submitted, for and cruel interposition of His Royal Highness, aught I know, to another Inquiry, of as ex- as I must ever deem it, has prevailed upon your tended a continuance as that which has just Majesty to recal, to my prejudice, your gracious terminated.- -Can it be said, that the pro- purpose of receiving me, in pursuance of the ceedings of the four noble Lords, or of your Ma- advice of your servants. Do I then flatter my jesty's confidential servants, have been so le- self too much, when I feel assured, that my just nient and considerate towards me and my feel-entreaty, founded upon the reasons which I