The National Register. — London, England, 1820-09-25 00:00:00

VOr Jriatlonal Atuitittr+ _...,fin %)",-)) W" , ` ‘0 1 4• 14 602‘ Kaiml Our Ittsts, Conatitution, anti No. 1,270.—V0t. XIII.] THE QUEEN. Tan 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 caused the Ministerial wrkeiste place .in requi lion all the arts of abuse and misrepresentation— they say " the Queen demanded a trial, and she has a trial"-true, bet the Queen demanded not simply a trial, but a fair trial ; and how is it possible, where a part of the jury in both houses are the really responsible prosecutors, and where a vast propor tion of other jurors are either dependent upon, or intimately connected, by private or political obliga tions,'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 particular 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 events exists, so as to make it necessary to adopt the mode of trial by bill, though liable to such uljection just stated. We then ask, who is to judge of this necessity ? The very ministers who, by imprudently making themselves a party to the Milan commission of in quiry, made it certainly very awkward for them to 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 on 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 he thought proper.-- And in considering the question of state-nem:4 it must be asked, Is this state-necessity for " the good of the people?" for 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, composed almost wholly of thou people whO have been domestics, or labourers in employment under the party accused, and who ap pear to have been purposely made spies of her actions, and who have received at least handsome remunerations for their trouble in coining to Eng land? Is it for the good of the people that a heap of filthy and immoral evidence should be laid before the public against a Queen, tinder circum stances in which no other individual but a powerful King could judicially have his wife visited, and thus afford ground for surmise of malice in a quarter where such vice ought, above other breasts, never to exist? Is it fur the good of the public that impru dent or even criminal conduct,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 governn.ent of known law, and leaves it in the power of an administration in future to weild a similar extrJortlinary po‘t er against any one who may be particularly obnoxious to them! The rule of public good would, itmon the plea of state necessity, much more justify Lord J. Rus sell in recommendieg that government at all events MONDAY, SEPTEMBER A 5, 1820. 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 popaii supretna lea" might indeed apply, if the peace of the country could be justly pleaded as depending upon not stirring the business; and if there is even good ground Or argument on the score of the public peace, Lord J. Russell's state necessity involves only a Negative, whereas a Bill of Pains and Penalties is a positive injustice. Of two evils it is a rule that we should chuse the 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 wore of public morality, by which it is pleaded that a loose-living Queen would hurt the morals of the country (which is at least an uncertain consequence), whereas the evil to pub. lie liberty is certain; or, to let the whole thing alone? And, moreover, the appearance is likely to do away very much the effect of supposed misconduct, and bring the accused Queen more into public favour than if she had been, without dispute, ad mitted to all the honour of her station. And if, for argument's sake, it be admitted that some prosecu tion was necessary, there can be no question, that the same power which violatera government of law by an ex post facto law could al4 by %the same power have adapted this prosesution, to the &dinary forms and analogy of a judicial trial, and that a jury of Peers, with a right on both sides (viz. the prose cutors and the prosecuted) to challenge, coulcl, have been appointed (as Mr. Wilberforce has iatiniiited) in a court similar to that of a Lord High Stestard in impeachment, only with a limited numb 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, from the plain and manifest connection of the Lords with the Crown, we consider to be a position clearly untenable. A Bill is to be pulsed, if possible, by the ITis lature, to which the King is to give his assent, either by his own haod or by proxy (which is the same thing) to the degradation, debasement, and injur;• of her whom he has sworn at the altar of God to love, honour, and cherish, as his wife, and the Queen is to remain his wife thus degraded, disho noured, and uncherished by the husband. State necessity is to supersede divine obligation !—Let the sophistry of the Ministers escape from this perplexity if it can : and lastly, if they plead for an excuse the of the public , peace," we would ask them, if the powers of controul vested in the constitutional badies of the country be suffi cient, as they think, to controul the administra• tint) of the government, whether it is not much more calculated to preserve the public peace, if by ninnly remonstrations we endeavour to open the eyes of ening or deluded men, than to shock anti icritate the common sense ti . mankind by defend ing an unjust and dangerous action. It is asserted that Lord Grey declared, that if the Qaeen were guilty of the ()dimes all,;ed against II 11l 111 ,~ c 2.., [PRICE 9;d• her, she ought not to assume her station; and that this assertion of Lord Grey is a sort of coofir• motion of the original position, that the neces sity of the prosecution consists in the necessity " of the performance of (a very awkward expres. sion by the by) justice to whom? to the King? It is not pretended I To the state Thmtkasust. for the sake of doing justice to the state, aim tom,. turn the state, to violate all the known forms and principles of justice, and to subvert the constitution! Lord Grey never said nor thought this after he het fully weighed the subject, and we believe if the Bill of Pains and Penalties pass, it is more than probabld that Lord Grey will chew his thorough disgust at the proceeding, by wholly retiring from the House of Lords, while constituted as at present it is con. stituted ; and he will be followed by some, if not by all the far most estimable part of the house. In the next place, the Ministerialiiits in all the importance of dictators, declare, that Lord John Russell's proposition is dishonourable and unjust, via. 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 were fairly in his power respecting his con sort, rather than subject her to an extea-judicial and oppressive process! As to the conduct of Ministers in offering the Queen 'fifty thousand pounds a year to stay away. the Queen was quite right and praiseworthy to refuse what, if conscious of innocence, she must consider as a bribe, and betra of honour; but if the ministers were deterall‘ed hat, some strange perversion of ittellect, m' p i Alt right to them, to briug the question of t e conduct of (he Queen forward if she should return, they certainly may be considered in charity to have mad. the offer alluded to as a concession to the tranquil. lity of the country; justifiable upon the general principle of state-necessity which they profess to act upon, however absurd such plea may be, and it must be admitted that miuisters acted in this instance uuder the direction of the House of Commons, who were guilty of the principal inconsisteuey 'in nut compelling ministers to offer the Queen such terms as might have been fairly accepted, thr Lord Hut. chinson's proposition seems not to have been autho rised by ministers. As to the accusations against ministers (al. leged to be made by violent partisans) of a conapi. racy against the Queen, we must observe, that the Milan commission beans all the characters of a con. spiracy, it' the character of a conspiracy.bc . " not so obtain fair evidence, but to seek and sift privately for chat„...2s, and give witnesses undue and improper means of communicating and comparing their ac. counts with east other,.and holding out advantages, of :eying them or oney, which must operate at least in an extraordin a ry remuncrution tiir them services ;" and though ministers c Mimi be strictly called conspirators in this case, yet they appear to have countenanced a duck and unfair proceeding, and the brother of Lord Castlereagh, Lord Stewart, appears to have beendeoply responsible for transit. tions connected with tat: Milan commission. The precedent which degradation of Queen may establish respecting a King is-4Se most certainly true, for a plea of state-nec es ay 'WM' much more . justify a proceeding against nn immoral sing, if such there be, than an immoral Queen Consort, because the consequence of hie conduct must more materially injure his people. As to the probable mopes which may tend to frustrate the full operation of party feeling, it is obvious front the divisions which have already taken place, that in main points political friends-have stuck together in ; and the question' is, " Is it likely that minister , .amt %ncir known adherents ran approach a Bill %\ itn impartiality, wlitai the charac ter and petliap; lives of the mini:aers are implicated in tli.miceel-s of tile 13t11. It is nonsense to &Iv that they can ; and if they cannot, both lusticc and the constitution an:: subvaled by this ino.ic or proceed ing by bile against tha Qu en. • • / ./ • • . .~.}: t"!