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

Sing,



~. ,

No. 1,270.—V0t.. XIII.]

[PRICE

94d.

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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 (al.
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.;known 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*

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