The National Register. — London, England, 1814-07-17 00:00:00

I THE NATIONAL R GISTER Car Ling, Constitution, an Latro. PUBLISHED AT NO. 11, NEWCASTLE-STREET ) STRAND. SUNDAY, JULY 17, 1811. Pn rer No. n 37. PRINCESS CHARLOTTE OF WALES. It is a favourite expression w'.th the Ministerial Journals that we have fallen on awful tirneq, a truism which every day ag2,ravates the condition of the people, and leaves us neither room for neutrality nor preference, without danger to our selves and injustice to the country. Under such circumstances as these; the duty which de volves upon a periodical writer is not of the most grateful nature; for, however moderately inciined, and whatever his principles be, he is acted upon as other individuals, and, un able to separate the consequences from his feel:rigs, enters at full into the system and becomes an unwilling party to the defence and recrimination that at this moment di;graces the moral character of society. But despising the names already affixed by those who seem to h tve no sense of shame, to whom honour and dishonour are alike indifferent—who N . a 1 e in their own stations are decorum which they under value in every other, we shall fearlessly declare our opi nion, careless whom we offend, so as we advance the ends of moral justice, and a.Aaken the c3untry to a knowledge of the imminent danger that impends over its dearest interests at this solemn crisis. , The line of conduct indc'ed pursued by the Ministerial Papers, requires an open and distinct ap:wal of the abhor rence we entertain of the sentiments propagated by each ; for we wi►l maintain, that if, according to the received no• Lion, the PRINCESS CIIATLOTTE is of age, and under the protection of the law, they have each of them been guilty of the grossest libe!s on that august personage, and that unless they are prosecuted, the law will be perverted, to shelter the most atrocious and unwarrantable calumnies against their future Sovereign. This is the more inexcusable, as the tone with which they sneak has the air and authority of official command—unless, indeed, it were so, would they dare to pronounce their filthy )—Are there no family disagreements without the factious interference of interested individuals ?—The highest ranks 11.1ve the same passions--the same sense of rigbt.and wrongs its the lowest. Quarrels in either sphere have an equal ten dency to alienate and incense, to destroy confidence, to weaken dependence, to uproot all the charities of life, and to withdraw sacriligeously the veil that conceals the deformi ties of the passions, the intemperance of our convivial Jump, and the luxurious debaucheries of our stimulated wetiles: Vol. VII. No. CCCSXXIII. ~ If this be the case, let us hear no more of the duties a child owes its parent, or that i parent owes its child. All these obligations are relative, and depend upon the mutual conduct of the pal ties. Nature has no link to bind the one or soften the other, if circumstances have denied the union of the affections. if ambition would insist upon compliances that tyrannize over the mind, and presume upon laying down law, to which neither the feelings or the understanding can become assenting parties—there is no rule in morals—no text that authorises such conduct—and we will he content to share the odium such doctrines must necessarily incur if we are wrong. But if this cannot be done, then let the disgrace lie with those who would impugn the tenderest ties that connect the social compact, as much by their moral beauty as their political necessity, and ‘rithout which this world would become a wilderness, and this nature of ours the disgrace and deformity of otherwise a most perfect systetn. We do not mean to defend the violence and disorder of ungovernable passions; hut those who pretend to state these as the grounds of all that has ()cern ied, and who indulge in florid contrasts, to depreciate the character of the child at the expel ce of an adulatory colouring of the character of the parrmt, forget all that is upon record, and wQuid hare others do the same. There are either strong feelings somewhere, or &Fe "Iron.; conduct. The excitement mtist have been power fill indeed that could have induced a child to quit the protection of a father; and it is the first time we ever kne'.v a mild, di;ni fied, and affectionate admonition to produce so deplorable an effect. There is, indeed, but one mode of reasoning upon it. If the PZINCE WaS urbane, as described, the conduct of the PRINCESS CHARLOTTE is inexcusable; and 'for it is useless to deny the fact) the people have nothing to lock to, from .her succession, but Rule ',without wi,..lonz. a ra domi,tion• with out dignity. We have often heard that the worse Jacob:us reside in the vicinity of Courts---that the try , st dAn2ernus enemy to royalty is royalty itself. We conicst: %ye fear !hole is too much truth in the obsetvation—tite " divinity that doth edge a king" no kngec draws the curtain between the reverence that protects the office, and the accous;table in firmities of the individual. Tithes of peace are times of ex.. anrination ; we could say much on this Part of cur topic, but ante Consequences are inevitable, and tlait es we may „.„ 7 ~~J say or • •