The National Register.
London, England, 1813-03-28 00:00:00

THE NATIONAL REGISTER.

_ (though going to a tar,lesi utealoqiiiite ottl
limit of duty to your Majesty, and of concern- for
\re, required that these particulars should not 127
•our Majesty, to whom more particulars-.• toloogesi
4' a matter tit. State, :wady torwhing the Entiont
's Royal Family, and, by possibility, affecting the
bileeesAOliof y our Majesty's CrOwn.
" Your Majesty hail been pleased, on your part. to view the sub-
ject in the saute light. Considerina it as a matter. which, on every
account, demanded the most immediate investigation, your Majesty •
had thought fit to commit into om hands the duty of aseertaieing,
iu the first instance, what degree of credit was due to the intrirma-
tions,-and thereay enabling your Majesty to decide 'what tardier
conduct to adopt respecting them.
His Royal Highness then, impaling, as. the four Lords say, the
only course. which could their judgment, with oroPriety, be pur-
sued, Submitted the matter to your M tjesty. Your Majesty di-
rected the inquiry by the four Noble Lords. The four Lords, in their
Re po!'t upon the case, justly acquitted me of all crime. and ex-
pressed (I will not wait now to say how unjustly) the credit which
they gave, and the consequence which they ascribed to other mat-
ters, which they did not, however, characterize as amounting to
any crime. T.' this Report I made my answer. That answer,
together with the whole proceedings, was referred by your Majesty
to the same tour Noble Lords, and othei.s of your Majesty's con-
fidential servants, They advised your Maicsty, amongst much
other matter, (which must 1w the subject of further observations),
that there was no longer any reason why you should decline reeds?.
ing
Your Majesty will necessurily conceive that T have always look-
ed upon my banishment from your Royal presetiCe, ac, iii tact, a
punishment, and a severe one too. I thought it sufficiently
bard, that I should have been sittfering that punishment,
dining the time that this Inquiry had been pending, while I was
yet only under accusation, and upon the principles of the just law
of your Majesty's kingdom, entitled to be presunied to
be ionovent, till I was proved to he guilty. Rut I find thin does
not appear to be enough in the opinion of• the Prince of %Volta.
For now, %%hen after this long inquiry into matters which resumed
immediate investigation, I have been acquitted of every thing
which could call for my banishoent from your Royal presence.
Atter your Majesty's confidential servants have thus expressly ad-
visesl your Majesty, that they see la) icason eelry you should any
longer decline to receive me into - your presence :—after your
Majesty had graciously notified to nu', your determination to se-
ceive me at an early slay, his Royal 1-lieliness interposes the demand
for a new delay,—desires your Majesty not to take any step,—
desires you not to act upon the advice which your own confidential
servants have given you, that you need no longer decline seeing ,ne
—not to execute your intention and assurance, that you • ill receive
me at an early day •,---because he has laid the documents before his
Lawyers, and intends to prepare a farther Statement. And the
judgment of your Majesty's eoefidential servants, is, as it were,
appealed from by the Prince of Wales, (whom, from this 'time, at
least, I must be permitted to consider as assuming the character
of my accuser) : -the justice due to me is to be snspentle.l, %chile
the judgment of yopr Majesty's sworn servants is to he milimitted
to my accoser's Counsel : and 1, though acquitted in the ~Finion
of your Majesty's confidential Servants of all that shouV induce yom•
Majesty to decline seeing sue, and to has that punisione..t, which
had men inflicted upon me, during the inquiry cotii•nocl, after
that arquittal,l till a fresh statement is prep.ocsf, oat' t be again
submitted, for aught I know, to another Inquiry, 'of a; extended
a couthaialice as that which has just fermi:med. -
Cast it be sad that the proceedings of the Isr.r Noble Lords, or of
your Majesty's confidential servants, have been so lenient, and coe-
siderate towards me and my fee:ings, as to induce a suspicion that
I have been too'favom•ably dealt with by-tleni and thud the wiviec
which has been given to your Majesty, that your M kie-tv ste-ttst:,
longer decline to receive nie, was haqily and ietrrialty is livered
I all confident your Majesty moat see the very reverse of this to be
the case—that I have every reason to complain
,of the inexpLealble
delay which so long withhell that advit-e : and the whole e:,araOter
of the, ohservatims with which they accompanied it, marks the re-
luctance with which they yielded to the necessity of giving it. :
• For your Majesty's c,otti lential servants advise vonr Majesty,
" that it is no longer 'neees%aty fir you to decline receiving me into
, yolir Royal presence.' tins is their opinion and their advice now,
why was it not their opinion and their. Advice four months ago, from
the date of my answer? Nay, why was it - nor theircipinion 41341
their itlitue Crow the date mq of the original.Roport itself? For

t ,

, -
not mil) lni'd theyleen in possession of my answer for above sixteen
((Wks; ivhitd..-at lasf-ftyritislied.4.liant. %%14141101w unuerials oat wide
• this advice was at length
.given';. '&0116, your Atile;t3''a cons
fidi tattal servants are forwarded to stare, that after having read them
my observations, and the affidavits which sr( re annexed to them,
they agree in the opinions Coot in-any single opinion upon any par-
ticular branch of thiw case, but in the opinions'geherally) which %%cis
submitted to yonr Majesty, in the original Report (tithe fair- Lord,.
therefore;(tiotwithstanding their concurrence in all the opiniona
contained in.the Report) they have ni;vertheless.given to your Ma-
jesty their advice, ‘.‘ that it is no lomier necessary for sou to decline
receiving me," what could have prevented Mir oflerito,- tloit advice
even from the'ntli of July, the date of the original Iteoolt itself?
Or Molt could have warranted the Withholding of it, even for a sin-
gle moment? Instead, therefore, of 'ally trace-1)61w obsurvable, of
hasty, precipitate, anclitartial.tietermination in my tavola, it is
possible to interpret their emiduet and their reasons together .in
any other sense, than as amounting to an admission of your Ma-
jesty's confidential servants themselves, that I' have, in consequence
of their withholding that advice,. been' inmecessarily. and cruelly
banished from your Royal presence, from that 14th of July, tcrtlie
28th of Jammry, including, a.spti of abovi‘.- six months ; tool the
effect of the interposition of the*Pi ince, is to prolong my sufferings,
and my disgrace, under the same banishment, to a period perfectly
indefinite.
The principle which will admit the effect of such interposition
now, may be acted upon again ;.and the Prince may require a fru--
ther prolongation. !Ton fresh statements, and fresh charges; kepi
back possibly for the purpose of being, front thne to time, conve-
niently interrsed, to preventihr ever the arrival of that hour,
disolayiug to the world the acknowledgment of my unme-
rited sufferings and disgrace, May, at the same tints, expose- the
true malicious and unjust quality of the proceedings which have
been so long carried on against use.
This unrea,miable,, unjust, and cruel interposition of his Royal
Highness, as I must ever deem it, has prevailed upon your Majesty
to reeal, to my prejudice, your gracious purpose of receiving me,
in porsuatire.of the advice ,Of tour servants. Do. r theu; flatter
myself tonninch, when I foul assured. that my just entreaty, founded
upon this reasons which I urge, and directed to counteract only the
elli.ct of that anjust interposition, will induce you Majesty to
turn to your original' determination ?
Restored, however, as I should feel myself, to a state of compa-
rative security, as well as credit, by being at length permitted,
upon your Maji.s.ty'svacious reconsideration of your last determi-
nation, to have access to your Majesty; yet, under all citation-
stances under which I should now receive that mark and contirma.
(ion of your Majesty's opinion of my innticeoce, inv character
would not, I fear, stand cleared in the pt:blic tl.e. mere
tart of your Majesty's reception of me. This revocation of your
INekty'i gracious purpose has thing an additional cloud about the
whole proceeding,and the. inferences drawn in the public mind; from
this circumstance,. so mysterious and so perlectly *inexplicable,
upon any grounds which are open to their knowledge, has made,
and will leave so deep .an impiession to my oltjtolice, as scarce
any, thing, short of a public exposure of all that has passed, can
possibly efface.
'Tice publication of all these proceedings to the world; then seems
to me, tinder the
.present circumstance, (whatever reluctance I
feel aoainst Inch a meastire, and however I regret the. hard neces-
sfty which draws me to it) to‘be almost the only remaining re-
source for the conviction of my honour and character. • The false-
hood of the accusation by no means, ail that- trill, by such
publication, appear to the credit and clearance of my character;
but the. course which the whole ptoccedines have been car-
ried on, or rather delayed, by those to whom your Majesty re-
ferred the consideration of them, will Atm, that whatever mea-
sure of
,justice I may have ultimately received at their hands..is not
to be suspected as arising front any merciful and indulgent conside-
tion of ne., of my feelings, or of my case.
It will be seen how my feelings have been harassed, aril my cha-
racter and toy honour expOsed, by the delays which have taken
vlace.in 'liege proceedings : it will be seen, that the existence of
the charge aaiOnst me had avowedly been known to the public,
from the 7th of June in the last year. I say known to tire public,
bocau,e it was. on that day the Commissioners, acting, as I snopose,
(for so they state in t..eir Report), under the anxious wish, that
that their trust should be executed with as little publicity as pose
anthorfsed that unnecessary insult and outrage *won me, as
I must always ennsiderit, which, however intended, gave
-most publicity and exposure to the existence: of these ch
man the grinding two Anomie', armed with their Lordshi

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