The National Register. — London, England, 1820-09-24 00:00:00

Sing, ~. , No. 1,270.—V0t.. XIII.] [PRICE 94d. • THE QUEEN. Tel suspension of the proceedings against the Queen has not suspended the interest taken in the event of them, and the popularity of her Majesty has canoed the Ministerial writers to pia«, in requi lion all the arts of abuse and misrepresentation— .they say " the Queen demanded a trial, and she has 4 trial"-.-true, but the Queen demanded not simply trial, but s fair trial ; and how is it possible, where arrt of the jury in bOth houses are the really treapansible prosecutors, and. where a vast propor tion of other jurors are either dependent upon, or intimately connected, by private or political oblige liuns:.with that part aforesaid, that such a jury can be free from bias ? and do her enemies dare to deny that such is the situation of the parliamentary jurors? if they do,we leave them to the contempt they merit; if they do not, they must, if they vindicate such a jury, admit that circumstances necessarily calculated to produce a particukr bias, may exist in a jury 'with all propriety. In the next place, if the reason , ing of the Queen's opponents is worth anything, it must contend, in effect, that a state-necessity at all her, she ought not to assume her 'tittle's; maga this assertion of Lord Grey is a sorts of misfit. motion of the original position, that the noes sity of the prosecution, consist; in, the necessity of the perfort!tance Qfjesslice" (a very awkward !spree• sion by the by) justice to whom? to the Xing? is net pretended! To the state ? Then it must; fin. • the sake of doing justice to the state,be just to over- turn the state, to violate all the known forms and principles of justice, and to subvertlhe constitution Lord Grey never said nor thought this after he had fully eseigked Me subject, and we believe if the Bill of Pains and Penalties pass, it is more than probable that Lord Grey will chew his thorough disgust et the proceeding, by wholly retiring from the House of Lords, while constituted as at present it is coo. stituted ; and he will be fullowul by some, if not by all the far most estimable part of the house. In the neat place, the Ministerialiits in, all the importance of dictators, declare, that Lord Jaha Russell's proposition is dishonourable and unjust, viz, that nothing should be done in the business...- forsooth, dishonourable because he merely would have left the King to have exercised all the rights which wet. fairly in his power respecting his coq. sort, lather than subject her to an extra-judicial and oppressive process I As to the conduct of Minttten in offering the Queen fifty thousand pounds a year to stay away, the Queen was quite right and praiseworthy to refuse what, if couttious of innocence, she must consider as a bribe, and betrayal . of her honour; but if the minister* were determined front what, by some strange perversion of intellect, might 'appear right to them, to bring the question of the: modest of the Queen forward if she should, return, they certainly may be considered in charity to have made the offer alluded to as a concession to the tranquil. lily of the country ; justifiable upon the general principle of state-necessity which they profess to act upon? however absurd such plea mey be, and it must be admitted that ministers acted in this instead* • 'under the direction of the House of Commas; who *re guilty of the principal inconsistency set :Compelling ministers to offer the Queen such teems - as might have been fairly accepted, for Lord Hut. chinson's proposition seems' not to have been autho rised by ministers. As to the • accusations against ministers ( a l. leged to be made by violent partisans) of a conspi. may against the Queen, we must observe, that the Mills etenmission bears all the characters of a wnt• spiraey, if the character of a conspiracy be " not so obtain fair evidence, but to seek and sift privately for charges, and give witnesses undue and , improper means of communicating and comparing their ac counts with ea.t other, and holding out advantages, ;iving them Alm. or oney, which must operate ut least in an extraordinary remuneration for their services ;" and though ministers cannot be strictly called cepspirators in this case, pet therappar to have countenanced a dare and enfair proceeding, and the brother of Lord Castlereagh, Lord Stewart, appetirs to have been deeply responsible for transac tions connected with us, Milan commission. The precedent which degradation of a Queen may establish respecting a King is also most certainly true, for a plea of state-necessity will much more justify a proceeding against an immoral King, if such there be, than an immoral Queen Consort, because the consequence of his conduct must more materially injure his people. As to the probable causes which may tend to frustrate the full operiition of party feelin.,• , , it is . obvious from the divisions which have airksdj , taken place,that in main points political friends have stuck together in giinenal; and the'tfetesfiun is, *is it likely that inhviaters and tals4.;kn o w n ahli esetits can approach elitn impartiality, when the char c ter and perhaps lives of the ministers are implicated in the succepat of the Bill. It is nonsense to say 'hat they can; and if they cannot, both justice and the I. sofistitution are subverted by this mode of /mowed. ing by bill againit the Queen. events exists, sari to make it necessary to adopt the code of trial by bill, though liable to such objection just stated. We then ask, who is to judge of this ReceniSl ? 'The very ministers who, by imprudently making. themselves a party to the Milan commission of in.* , quity,nuele it certainly very ewiteard fit - • WA acknowledge the Queen as Queen Consort! But though it might be awkward for them, they might have resigned if they still thought further . steps inexpedient; or, if they really thought, as others think, that the evidence was of a nature not fit to ground a prosecution upon; even if the charges be tm the whole as true, as there are just grounds of suspicion that they are wholly false, the ministers might have told the King so, point blank, and left the King to turn them out if Le thought proper..-- And in considering the question of state-necessity it must be asked, Is this state-necessity for " the good of the people?" fur unless it centre in this, it is nonsense : and is it for the good of the people that a precedent should be established of a sort of evidence upon which to ground an extraordinary judicial proceeding. corapmed almost wholly of these people who have been domestics, or laboUrers in employment under the party accused, and who ap pear to havo been purposely matle spies of her actions, and who have received at least handsonie remunerations for their trouble in coming to Eng land? Is it for the good of the people that a Leap of filthy and immoral evidence should be laid before the public against a Queen, under circum stances in which no other individual but a powerful King could judicially have his wife visited, and thus affurd ground for surmise of malice in a quarter where such vice ought, above other breasts, never to exist ? Is it for the good of the public thi.t impru dent or even criminal coaduct,three years back,should be made the foundation of a law to punish what before was no legal offence, and establish a precedent which absolutely subverts a government of known law, and leaves it in the power of an administration in future to weild a similar extraordinary power against any one who may be particularly obnoxious to them! The rule of public good would, upon the plea of state necessity, much more justify Lord J. Rus sell iu recounnernhog that governMent at all event* L/Af • . 14 4.1 • 7u -- , tor t .; totiv Str „ • Our eottiltitittion, attb Kabul. SUNDAY, SEPTEMB E R SC 18x0• should positively have refused inquiry Into the Queen's case, even though the Queen wished for inquiry, than it can justify a statute of power to overwhelm her. " Sales pima supremo k.t ' might indeed apply, if the peace of the country coal be justly pleaded as depending upon scot stirring the business ; and if there is even good ground for argument on the score of the public peace, Lord J. Russell's state necessity involves only a *egotist , whereas a Bill of Pains and Penalties is a positive injustice. Of two evils it is i rule that we should chuse tin least; and again upon this ground we ask, which is the greater evil? to satisfy the pretended state necessity, and sacrifice the Queen by a proceeding at variance with any known law, and destroying at least a government of law; or, letting the public liberty be sacrificed beyond dispute to an alleged necessity upon the score of public morality, by 1 which it is pleaded that a loose-living Queen would hurt the morals of the country- (which is at lea* an uncertain consequence), whereas the evil to pub lic liberty is certain ; or, to let the whole thing alone? And, moreover, the appearance is likely to _do awe) , very much the eifeetof oupposedmiscondnet, and bring the accused Queen more into public &your than if she had • been, without dispute, sd aitted to all the honour of her station. And if, for argument's sake, it be admitted that some prosecu tion was necessary, there can he no question, that the same powerwhich violates a government oftari by an ea post facto law could also by the same• power have adapted this prosecution, to the ordinary forms and analogy of a judicial trial, and that a jury of Peers, with a right on both sides (vie. the prose eutors and the prosecuted) a) challenge, could have been appointed (as Mr. Wilberforce has intimated) in a court similar to that of a Lord High Steward in impeachment, only with a limited number of Peers. The Ministerial prints take upon themselves, not to prove, but to assert that the House of Lords, when in a mixed legislative and judicial, or, simply in a judicial capacity, is an unexceptionable tri bunal, and unimpeachable as to possibility of impro per bias, which, front the plain and manifest connection of the Lords with the Crown, we consider to be a position clearly untenable. A Bill is to be passed, if possible, by the legis lature, to which the King is to give his assent, either by his own hand or by proxy (which is the same thing) to the degradation, debasement, and injury of her whom he has sweat at the altar of God to love, honour, and ebtaidt, as his wife, and the Queen is to rennin hit wife thus degraded, disho noured, and nitcherialted by the husband. State necessity is to.supersede divine obligation !—Let the sophistry of **Ministers escape from this perplexity if it can : and hotly, if they plead for an excuse the " maintenance of ,the public peace," we would ask them, if th powers of controul vested in the constitutibusi bodies of the country be suffi cient, as they- thiok, tq eontroul the administra tion of the government, whether it is not much more calculated' * preserve the public peace, if by manly remonaimions we endeavour to open the eyes of erring or deluded men, than to shock and irritate the common sense of mankind by defend ing en unjust and dangerous action. It is asserted that Lord Grey declared, that if the Queen were guilty of the offences alleged against: ' • 4 • • t ^ t . 6 f4•;•66, • 1 • 4