Star. — London, England, 1820-08-19 00:00:00

• -• - . -- • •• '." --71-1 . /I S-• vs • • 4. . '• • • • ‘. • -*.•••••.. • • • • 40 • 1••••• 4 ') 4 0,4 11 - ) • 40 P • I • • • NeS/1 • • • be • • --- • 1 1 - 01 .:( 1 : 4•• 4 •••7 , , I'r • 110 • • es. • . g i• • 11111 . r • - . -- - ,4 " - • •-• 11 % 1 1 -1 0 : • 14..‘ • - • (1111$ : r"... ' • • • • • • "I • • ' Au ' - " "4 =i ll l o = =22 2 oll2 ll l latittillf tier NV 11 BEA 10,448. SATURDAY, AUG, 19, • 18'20. .. _ ~~ ; ,~ _ Phleg SEVISPI-POl, THE OBSERVER OF SUNDAY MORNING, AND THE OBSERVER OF MONDAY EVENING. THE fullest particulars respecting her Majesty the QUEEN w:11 appear in The Observer of Sunday Morning. The Mewls , evening Edition of The Observer is rendered nos: desirable for Country Readers, and particularly so for per sons residing abroad. • • no tneans recommended the introduction of any -Bill , of Degradation and Divorce. Their suggestion sim ply was, that a solemn inquiry should . be entered into, for the purpose of ascertaining the truth, or • falsehoOd of the allegations against her Majesty. At any rate, the introduction of this Bill was not the act of your Lordships Committee. It was laid before your Lordships by an individual Peer, certainly a very distinguished Member of his Majesty's Govern ment, but as a Peer enjoying no tide to pre-eminence, and therefore no further privileged in the preparation of such a Bill than any other of your Lordships, who might have thought it limper to recommend such a measure, would have been. My Lords,. I will not impute any motives for this proceeding—it would be presumption on my part to do so. I will not conjec ture in what quarter this Bill really, originated. I take it for granted, however, that the Noble Lord was not the draughtsman by whom the Bill was prepared. Whether your Lordships' Usher of the Black Rod served an order on his Majesty's Attorsey.Gesseral so prepare the Bill, or in what way k:nias piodimed, know not ; but of this I'am sure, that I need make no apology to your Lordships for treating it with as much freedom as that with which I should treat the commonest Bill of Indictment that • might be found against the meanest person in the land. My Lords, when I look into the Bill for the motives of its enact ment, I find no inconvenience, no-necessity, no reason alleged for passing the Bill, except the sentiment ex isting in the mind of the Noble Lord by whoni it was introduced, a sentiment founded on written and un vouched evidence, that it was necessary your Lord ships should g manifest your deep sense of the-scan dalons, disgraceful, and vicious conduct on the part of her Majesty.' To render such an ebullition of moral zeal incumbent on your Lordships, one would I expect that some strong and distinct c use should be recited in the preamble of the measure. What do I there find ? The preamble of the Bill states, that Whereas, in the year 1814, her Majesty, Caroline 'Amelia Elizabeth, then Princess of Wales, anti now Queen Consort of these Realms, being at Milan, in Italy, engaged in her service, in a menial station, one Bartolomo Pergami, otherwise Baitolomo Bergami, a foreigner of low station, who had before served in a similar capacity ; and whereas, after the said Bar tolomo Pergami, otherwise Bartolorno Bergami, had so entered the service of her Royal Highness, the said Princess of Wales, a most unbecoming and depicading intimacy commenced between her 'Royal Highness and the said Bartolomo Pergami, otherwise hart°. 'onto Bergami : and whereas, her Royal Highness not only advanced the said Bartolomo Petgatni, otherwise-Bartolomo Bergami, to a higlPsituanon in her Royal Highness's Household, and received into her service many of his near relationn some cf them in inferior, and others in high and confidemialsituatiens about her 'Royal Highness's person, but bestowed upon him other great and extraordinary marks of fa vour and distinction, obtained for him - Orders of Knighthood and Titles of Honour, and conferred upon him a pretended Order of Knighthood, which her Royal Highness had taken upon herself to institute nitkont any just or lawful authority.' Now, my Lords, from the beginning to the end of that part of the recital which I have read, I am utterly at a loss' to discovernot merely anything 4 scandalous, dis graceful, and vicious,' on the part of her Majesty, but anything which any human being has a right to censure, or to allege as a crime either in an ordinary Court of Justice, or in this Iligh Court of Parliament. Why, then, have all these circumstances been intro. duced ?* I know that the preamble goes on to make further statements But if this Bill is to be regarded as a Bill of Indictment, why were not the strong facts on which the necessity for it was supposed to he founded, selected, and placed upon the record? Why were not all these petty and unimportant cir cumstances omitted, and the plain, honest, and intel ligible charge at once described ? Was there ever art instance in an ordinary Bill of Indictment, in which an attempt vas made to ensnare and entrap the ac cused by k.stving him is doubt of the actual and dis tinct crime of which he was supposed to be guilty? The law of England—that perfection of human wisdom,' takes care that no individual shall he charged with an offence, the nature of which he shall not have the opportunity of distinctly under standing, and thereby of preparing the means for his defence. If I indict a man for murder, I only state that he, with malice aforethought, struck the fatal blow at such a time, and in such a place. Is ever anything mere than this stated in an ordinary Bill of ? Why then, my Lords, I ask, are I year Lordships, in this solemn and important pro ceeding, to allow the nature of the charge to be ga thered frcm circumstances? In a case in which, with !reference to her defence, it is peculiarly essential to the ends of justice, that the Illustrious Person ac cused should have the clearest and most distinct no tice of the precise fact with which she is charged, why is that fact to be merely inferred from a state- Meat of circumstances? Would any man in an in dictment for murder say that • John Thomas, having been fez ten years the enemy of the murdered man, and having frequently been heard to express malice against him, and having told his confidential friends that he would be revenged of him, and having been seen at various times watching for his return from 'work at dusk, and 'having Majesty, ac companied by Lady Ann Hamilton, at this moment, about 'a quarter after eleven o'clock, entered the I house. The Peers immediately stood up. Her Ma , jestybowed, and took her seat within the Bar, close to her Counsel. After the pause thus occasioned, Mr. Denman proceeded 3.—" Never is it the practice an state in a Bill of Indictment such circumstances as those which I have just described, and which, if' I I proved, are to seive as the basis en which the ac !; cured person's guilt is to be established. On the con trary, the charge is specifically and distinctly made, I and the evidence to prove that charge, whether cir cumstential or otherwise, is re9erred until the time . , - = .• , 4u. Row many women are. then, most vire 45, most truly modest, inear4e of anything im se, vinous, or immoral, in deed or thought, who, tom greater vivacity of spirits, from less uatnral re- , serve, front that want of caution which the very con sciousness of innocence betrays them into, conduct themselves* a manner, which a woman of.a graver 'character, elf a more reserved dispositio n , b ut tot with one panicle of superior virtue, thinks too in cautious, too Unreserved, too familiar, and which, ff forced upon oath to give her opinion upon it, she Eight feel hetself, as an honest woman, bound to say-, lin opinion, was flirting!' Mrs. Lisle, it should also be observed, was, at the time of her examina tion, under the severe oppression of having, but a few days before, heard of the death of her daughter: ; I a daughter. ho had been happily married, and who 'bad lived happily with her husband' in mutual at tachment t her death. Tire- or/ circuasetantie cf kw these sitaajloa.weseld tititurally give a graver and ',Pierer cast to her cipiniong: 'lf such, my Lords, are the able - and incontrovertible remarks made upon the evidence of that most respect:tele and honour able individual to whose testimony they apply—if it Lust be adatitted that in such a case great allow ' ance ought to be made, not only for peculiar no:ions - with respect to propriety of manners; but fcr the ex isting state of spirits of the person by - whom such notions asay be entertained, what weight shall we ascribe •to• the opinion that her Majesty has in dulged in 4 indecent and offensive faisiliarity and freedom'—arr opinion, proceeding fiom nobtdy . knows whoa; and which must have been founded on infortmition passing through a variety of chan nels? My Lords, the passage which I have just read, seems to have a classical allusion to a sentence in which Hume describes the character of the un happy Anne Boleyn. The sentence is as follows: , 4 Anne, though she appears to have been entirely in nocent, aed even . virtuous in her conduct, had a cer-• tain gaiety, if not levity of character, which threw her off her guard, and made her less circumspect than her situation required. Iler education in France rendered her the mere piecine to thosefreedoms; and it was with difficulty she conformed to that strict ceremonial practised in the Court of England.' And let it be recollected, my Lords, that on the subject of familiarity,' there is something in Royalty which dispenses to the possestoss the necessity of being so alert with reference to it, as may be requisite on the part of persons of less elevated condition. They cane .not lose any rank by whatever condescension they may chew. If they give way to generous -kindness atel sensibility—if, in moments of confidence and ab- . tenci from suspicion, they indulge in their native joyousness of character, they thereby diminish loa thing of the true dignity which belongs to them. It is for persons of inferior station to feel a jealousy on this subject, to keep at a distance fiom what might be termed undue condescension, and to avoid that amiable familiarity which is inhe:cnt in all gccd minds, when at liberty to act from native Such, try Lords, is the character which was formerly attribtited to an Illustrious Person uliont I must r.ct here name. I may, however, be permiued to men tion an anecdote of that Illustrious Person, which, I ' believe, rests on the authority cf the late Lord Guiitl ford. It is said, that that I:luso:atm Persan, some years ago, so far bigot himself es to indulge in habits of familiar kindness even with persons of a rank so inferior to him-elf as waiters at t. sertis. F-cm one of those individuals a nete was addressed to that Illustrious Person, as felloe s .tei :epilog, of she Cocoa -tree, presents his cern- I -invents to his Royal Highness, &c. &c: To this his Royal Ilighecss re turned. an ane.ser, coucEel in these terins.-• THs may do very well between you and me, Sam, but it will not do with your people of high dignity. Per GGD% sake, do not speak so to Norfolk and Aber corn r-( Aloud laugh). My Lords, I beg also to re mind your Lordships, that, but a short time since, it was by no means improbable that a proposition, which, instead of enacting that her Majesty should be dethroned, and her marriage declared null and void, welsid have recognized her Majesty as Quern Consort, would have continued her in the legal en joyment of all-her rights and privileges, would have secveed tuber nn antiuity for life of fifty thousand , pounds, would have undertaken to convey her in a Royal yacht to any part-of the Continent, and waifs,' have entreated her to accept, in conjunction %shit !ter Royal Husband; the grateful ecknneledgmems of Parliament, for the facilities afforded to such an ar rangement. If In any argument the conclusion shasi appear to be false, acrd it that conclusion has been fairly drawn from the premises, then. the ptetbise.s themselves must have been false. If, therefore, ycs Lordships were within a hair's breadth of having the proposition which I have just described submitt e d for your sanction, it follewe that the charges against . her 'Majesty-are false, and that the premises im which those charges are founded cannot be true. Or, my Lords, take it the other way. How conies it..that we are here? The whole of this unfortunate affair originated in his Majesty's Message to Parliament. What was the gist of that. Message? That the Queen's arrival-in this country tendered some Parliae mentary proceeding necessary. The honour and dig. nity of the Crown, the welfare of-the State, were in no degree implicated, it seems, until her Majesty's arrival in this country. Why, then, my Lords, the preamble of the Bill ought to have ru n t h us ffe ee- Whereas in spite of the ur of i'so,eeo a-year made to her Majesty to lety away, and w her e.e, although her Majesty knees of the charges that were-to be ea hibited against her, and whereos, although a long negotiation was carried on, of a nature the n.ost fa voarable and flattering to her Majesty, she refused to become a party to her ben •clegraeation by si lently acquleicing in her exclusion from the Litar, &c. therefore be it enacted, that her Majesty shall b degraded and divorced, and that her Royal Consort shall- be at liberty to marry again. If your .Lord s the ships wish the preamble of this Bill - to speak of trial. What my Royal client has,, therefore, justly to complain of in the principle c of this Bill, is,- that it enumerates a number of doubtful circuits: . stances eaumatino from an investigation of an (spit% character, capable perhaps of answei, but assuredfy calculated to excite undue prejudice. The sill al-' legs that her Majesty has been unmindful of her exalted rank and station, and of her duty to the King . I entreat your Lo r d s hip s to rea d t h e w b e l e o f the' first page, and the first ten lines of the second page, *of the Bill. Is there a single fact there stated, which chews her Majesty to have been unmindful of her exalted rank and station, and of her duty to the King?' Not one: There is not one fact which bears that character; although there is an accumulation of facts, from which the inference may be most unfairly and "%charitably drawn. Afterwards, indeed, the Bill ptieceeds to say, and whereas her said Royal Highness, whilst the said BartolomcoPtigami, other wise liaitalomo Bergami, was in, her said service, fetal* .inntindfol of her exalted rank -- anif station, itnd of het duty to your Majesty, and wholly regard . - less of her own honour and character, conducted herself towards the said Bartolomo Pergami, other wise Bartolomo Ilergami, and in other respects, both in public and private, in the various' laces and coun tries which her Royal Highaess visited, with inde cent and offensive familiarity and freedom,' &c.-- Now, my Lords, I wish to .ask how such a charge can be made good ? What is the precise meaning Of . indecent and offensive familiacily and freedom?' And what is meant by the phrase and in other re meets i'' We have not one fact stated to us toprove that her Majesty has been at all unmindful of her exalted rank and station, and of her duty to his Ma jesty; and we arc called upon toprovide arguments Fund witnesses against a Vague charge of indecent , and o ff ensive familiarity and freedo m , and a myste rious intimation contained in the phrase ' and in other respects.' Really, it would seem as if the in dividual by whom this, accumulation of circum stances, from which :in unjust arid uncharitable in ference may be drawn, has been brought together, had previously worked himself into a determination to impute crimes of which no positive evidence ex isted, in the expectation that by chance some su borned and perjured witr.ess, tempted by the bribes, which, we know, have been liberally bestowed in the countries which her 11Neity has recently visited, might, in the course of examination, turn up, whose testimony might establish the slander, purposely left in a doubtful and ambiguous form, in the hope that it might receive: some such base and accidental con firmation. As the climax of this loose and injurious staterrent, it is declared that her Royal Highness had carried on a 'lice. tious, disgraceful, and adul ter ors intercourse with. the said Bartulomo Pergami, otherwise Marcelo= Bergami: Futely the epithet of a:isthmus' was sufficient. I, the strength of the expression increased by the addition of the words 4 licentieus and disgraceful?'—But it is further said, that this 4 licentious, di-graceful, and adulterous in tercourse continued fora long period of time during her Royal Highness's residence abroad.' No such crime, therefore, is imputed to her Majesty since her .accession to the troo to On those grounds, how ever, your Lordsi7ips are made to say in this Bill, that • to evince your just regard for the dignity of the Crown and the horiour of the Nation,' you in-. treat his Majesty that it may be enacted that her said Majesty, Caroline Amelia Elizabeth shall be de prived of the tide of Queen, and of all the prerooa tives, rights, privileges, and exemptions, appertain ing to her as Queen Consort of this realm ; and that, her said Majesty shall for ever be slisabled of using. exercising, and eojoying the same, or any of them. And then, my Lords, lams that most v:markable clause, that postscript to the letter, containing all the interest of the epistle; that most touching and personally important circumstance which is never-. tireless merely mentioned en passant, by which a sem. .tence of divorce is pronounced between the Illustri.. ous Personages immediately concerned in this trans action, and liberty thereby given to her Majesty's .Royal Consort to contract another marriage. My Lords, the circumstances described in the preamble of the Bill, and to which I have already alluded; re solve themselves principally into a charge of unbe. coming mid degrading intimacy,' and of indecent and offensive familiarity and freedom.' In speaking on this part of the subject, I wish to refer to one of the finest pieces of English composition that, in my opinion, ever flowed from the pen of any human being—l mean the letter which was written by the Princess of Wales to his late Majesty, in 1806, on the subject of the inquiries into her Royal High ness's ci nduct, which had at that time been prose cuted. My Lords, the Bill talks of I indecent and offensive familiarity and freedom.' It is obvious that the opinion of the existence of this indecent and of fensive familiarity and reedom'was originally founded on written and unvouched documents referred to va rious persons, ultimately to the Secretary of State ' and only in the fourth or fifth deg r ee s e rv in g as t h e basis of that opinion. Now, I defy any man to point put on what subject so great a variety of opinion must necessarily exist, as on the point of to what particu lar conduct the charge of indecent and offensive , fa miliarity and freedom' is justly imputable. On that subject, in the course of the inquiry in 1806, Mrs. Lisle, a Lady of the highest honour and respectabi lity, gave an opinion of the conduct of her Majesty,' then Princess of Wales. Mrs. Lisle stated, that in her opinion, her Royal Highness's conduct was 'only That term ' flirting,' 1 ought to observe, is the strongest epithet that was applied to her Royal Highness s conduct throughout tie proceedt:ng to which I allude. I will now take leave to road to your Lordships two passages from the admirable:let ter from her Majesty, then Princess a verted. Wales, to the late King, to which I have already adverted. What Mrs. Lisle exactly means by onlyjfirting conduct, what degree of impropriety of conduct she would describe by it, it is extremely difkalt, with ICI precision, to TRIAL OF THE QUEEN. TIOT'SE OF LORDS, AUGUST 18. About twelve o'clock Mr. betosaN came forward , in behalf of her MAJLSTY, and spoke as follows: H My Lords—Before I commence my observa t'ons to your Lordships, I must humbly beg leave to thank you for the favour and indulgence which I yesterday- experienced from your hands. it becomes ley duty to state to your Lordships the objections inch appear to me conclusive against the principle ef the Bill. I apprehend that it is unnecessary to car any argument to your Lordships, as to the question whether the principle of the Bill is or is not open for discussion. I apprehend that the question stands in the same degree as if the Bill were now for th.. first time introduced. If your Lordships should csnsider that I am precluded from entering into the measure as filly as if it were an -erigioal.measure, it would be a waste of time for me to proceed at I shall, therefore, go on as if no proceeding what ever had been taken heretofore—as if this were 'the first moment that tile Bill was presented for the con sideration of the House of Peers—as if in law and in fact your Lordships had notheard a single syllable of the intentions of those who: proposed it. If it he open, then, to me to enter into the principle of the Bill, it follows that the House may now consistently tale a different view of the question from what had hem taken before, without any inconvenience, and without any inconsistency. In doing so there will be no retractation on the part of your Lordships, you not be called on to retrace any step, because you have not taken any.—There will remain nothing to be nadone, because we are now on the threshold- of the .orinciple of the measure, and there I shall make my hrst stand. In looking at a Bill of such tremendous Imiuttalice, though it is impossible for any legal e r constitutional mind not to see numerous and sarong objections to the principle of it, in whatever point of view it may be examined, .yct I am free to confess, tl.at I have to contend with many technical discUlties, because I cannot see plainly the principle which lam called on to assail. lam at a loss to abstract the point at issue from a variety of particn- I trs—l can see no point--I cannot see what is the doctrine which is. taken for granted, or which is sought tube established. I cannot see the precedent which is relied on, or understand that which is now about to be made, In this proceeding I can see no light from the past, and no example for the future. I have read over and over the preamble of the and I cannot draw from it any precise or distinct I eh srge—l cannot collect the character of the measure, I or the intentions of those who framed it. Perhaps I ' should state here, that I address your Lordships un der an election, which I have been corn; elled to male. Ido not state this in the way of. complaint. Ido nut complain of that which appeared just to your Lordships; but it is necessary and ptoper at the out-' set, to state to your Lordships, that I have been com pelled to make this election, in order that we may not be bound by it, should circumstances reuder it r.ecessary for your Lordships to introduce any change it; this measure; and in that event I may state, that ray Learned Friends who appear licit to supvort the will make no objection. I should also state rnother point. In other cases common lawyers and (.vilians have been heard; but in this case her Ma j::sty, it seems, is only to be alio‘Ned the aisistance ot one common lawyer and one civilian. or two corn rion lawyers. Such, it - seems, is to be the rule on a question of this unspeakable importance—a question v.: ich involves al: the Teat principles of the corn n;on law, whirl) of the'' greatest importance to the svt4l::being of society—to the interests alike of the tioriteNici the country. Such a question, my Lords, refires the aid of talents and information much y,reateithailihine.l shall, however, proceed to state arguments, for some of which I am indebted to my Learned Friend, who would, indeed, do much more justice to them than I can. In coming before your Lordships to perform Ft important duty which my office imposes upon me, I may safely declare., that • I ft ‘el more true pride, more real heartfelt satisfartinn, in this hour of trial and of difficulty, in performing yrs- duty to her Majesty, that I would fed by par- Filing a different line—even though all the favours , of power awaited me—even though all the wealth and honours that could possibly be conferred upon a subject were to be my immediate reward.— I shall, I trust, perform my duty to her l'l::iest.y and u he Engliih Bar ; if I fail, that failure will pro ceed from the want of talent alone, and nut frera the want of zeal. In the first place, I may be permitted to inquire into the history of the ;Bill now before your Lordships. The Secret Committee which your Lordships appointed for that purpose, sat upin do cuments of an unvouched character, the very hand-. writing of which was not proved, containing alleza tans, said to proceed • from a great number of per :.3r.s in various situations of life, and residing in dif r..rent parts of Europe, charging her Ma; zesty with an aJultesous connection with a foreigner, originally in her service in a menial capacity, and attributing to her Majesty a continued series of conduct highly un becoming her Majesty's rank and station, and of the tiost licentious character.' Those charges appeared to your Lordships' Committee 'to be calculUted so s'eseply to affect not only the lionour of the Queen, bat also the dignity of the Crown, and the moral Eclia4 and honour of the coftntr, ; that, in their opi :!on, it was indispensable that they should 'become subject of a solemn inquiry, which it appeared the Committee might be best effected in the coarse of a I.2gislative proceeding, the necessity of which aotld not but mot deeply deplore.' It thus apptars fnat your Lordships' Secret Committee by -- I • _. a.... NW LI :/ .._. _ ~.:.i_~