The National Register.
London, England, 1820-10-02 00:00:00

Till; QUEEN.

The general attention has recently been so un-
devidedly devoted to one subject, and that subject
has been treated unon in so many different ways,
that it appears to be almost exhausted, vet there
are two or three points in the discussion connected
with the Queen, which appear by her most zealous
advocates to have been hardiy 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 offence 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•
eeive 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
duet ?

And why ia the Queen (by a Bill of Pains and

Penalties made to supersede and annihilate law) to
be made responsible for offenws after such a period,
tOutrary to all the principles of established law ? If
this istoutinence 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-

sib le that no change of conduct may take place ! If
tkey 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 clime 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 ;
end 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-
ety, 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
self-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 arc to be borne rather than risk the sta-
bility of an established system of things, or bre:.k in
upon a sort of mysterious reverence for situation in
monarchy, where honour, and, of course, external
respect is necessary and inherent in its existence;
and if this is a defect in the form of government (as
perhaps we arc disposed to think it i.), it is yet inhe-
rent in the principle of monarchy us a form of
government. We only ask those who pretend to
support and to be attached to monarchy, in the ab-
stract, in any shape, as a form of government, how
they dare to Le 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
visited only when a necessity not contrary to, but
arising out of, the principles of law, and superior to