The National Register.
London, England, 1820-10-01 00:00:00

THE QUEEN.

The general attention has recently been so un-
devidedly devoted to one subject, and that subject
has been treated upon in so many different ways,
that it appears to be almost exhausted, yet there
arc two or three points in the discussion connected
with the Queen, which appear by her most zeilous
advocates to have been hardly touched upon.

In the first place, if the conduct of the Queen be
all which it is alleged to be, it ought to be remem-
bered, that in the statutes relating to lewdness and
incontinence, is a particular provision, that no prose-
cution shall take place at a greater distance of time
than eight months after the offi!nce is alleged to have
been committed; and now it appears that three years
have elapsed since the time when the Queen is last
supposed to have been guilty of the adulterous in-
tercourse with which she is charged ; and we con •
ceive that this principle• of limitation, in this and
a variety of other instances, is in conformity with
the deep and sound principles of christianity, which
suppose that repentance and amendment may blot out
past offences ;—and if even the Queen had been
guilty of what she is charged with, is not a period
of three years, and especially since in the course of
that three years her only child has died, sufficient to
have brought about a change of sentiment an d con
duct ?

And why is the Queen (by a Bill of Pains and
Penalties made to supersede and annihilate law) to
be made responsible for offences after such a period,
contrary to all the principles of established law ? If
this incontinence alleged is to be considered, though
committed not within the pale • and operation of
English law, as an offence against English law, why
is the offender to be deprived of the saving clauses
of the English law ?—Surely the dreadful conse-
quences of vice committed before an individual
comes to a throne, are not such as to make it impos-
sible that no change of conduct may take place ! If
they be, what shall we say to Kings who may have
been the most profligate Princes ? And if the Queen
had all her rights as Queen, and held her drawing
rooms, no one would be obliged to go into her pre-
sence who did not chose it—it, would not be com-
pulsory : and were she ever so bad a character, it
would not be the first time that a Queen of indif-
ferent character has been heard of in the history of
nations, and who was yet let alone. It is to be
lamented that in Kings or Queens any blemish of
an extraordinary and notorious kind should be ma-
nifest; but after all, Kings and Queens are only
men and women, and have the faults of both sexes;
and it is for the general good and convenience of
human society under a monarchy, so long as that
form of government remains approved in such soci-
Lty, that respect and honours attached to situations
of supreme governors should not be removed except
in some very flagrant and extreme cases obviously
demanding degradation for the public good, upon
plain and palpable principles of law and morality, of
Felt-preservation on the part of the people, or some-
thing plainly allied to self-preservation on the part
of the government. Indeed, in society, many and

great evils are to be borne rather than risk the sta-
bility of an established system of things, or break in

. .n .
upon a sort of mysterious reverence for situation in

monarchy, where honour, and, of course, external
respect is necessary and inlicron in its existence;
and if this is a defect in the form of government (as

perhaps we are disposed to think it is), it i yet inhe-
rent in the principle Of mnarc!)y as a iiam of
government. NVe only those who pretend to
bupport and to be attached to monarchy, in the ab-
stract, in any shape, us a form of government, how
they dare to be guilty of such gross inconsistencies
as to be ready to break in upon the ordinary forms
and principles of law, for the sake of visiting the
offences of monarchy, instead of leaving them to be
visit.ld only when a ne:essity n;:t c:itrary to, but
au: et, t::c lwvv, 341 .Ipcx:or to