The Sun.
London, England, 1839-09-16 00:00:00

EVEN 1 G EDIT

ON.

hvie been exported to England. The prospects of the
harvest, especia!ly of wheat, are extremely favourable.
From Jan. 1 to June 20, 468 ships have cleared in-
ward, and 418 outward.
Very little bui:ness has been done in Ditch Stock,
and the prices have remained entirely as yesterday.
Tile latest quotation of Spanish Stock at the Ex-
change at Antwerp was 27-t.

THE LATE LADY FLORA HAST-

INGS.

(From the Morning Post.)
We have been honoured by the Marquis of Ha3t-
ligs with the ;'ollotsing interesting and inaptant corn-

muuication :

TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING ranPlo
BURLINGTON HOTEL, SEPT. 13, 1839.
Sir,—l will feel obliged by the publication, in your
journal, of the following statement and correspond-

ence :
If I am asked why I have placed these flcts before
the public, my answer is, because it is my duty,
—because I have felt that it was the only way in
which I could defeat the many prejudiced statements,
gross misrepresentations, and unblushing falsehoods
of interested persons—because I have felt that every
part of this lamentable history ought to be published,
that by so doing every falsehood might be met, and a
true and indisputable statement of facts be handed
down to posterity. I have been told, on high authority,
that if I bring this subject before the House of Lords
it will be immediately silenced as an attack upon the
Throne. Insurmountable technical difficulties prevent
my exposing in a Court of Justice the vile conduct of
those who have slandered my sister ; and but one course,
therefore, remains open to me, and that is, to publish
the accompanying correspondence.
It has been asked, why such delay has taken place ?
A. few words will answer this.
The repeated solicitations of my sister, personally
to myself, and by letter to my mother, urged me, during
the time it was deemed necessary she should con-
tinue at the Palace, to remain silent, as, to use her own
expressions, every new act of ours was visited upon
her dear mistress's and lier own unfortunate head.
I shall not attempt to heighten the picture of this
frightful tragedy. But it cannot be supposed that
any regard for the feelings of those (be their rank
and station what they may) who have sacrificed every
feeling of my family—who have trodden under foot every
Christian principle—who have outraged all delicacy,
justice, and honour—can weigh with me. That the
power of the Court may for a time protect the guilty—
that it may prevent that measure of justice which the
common law of the land holds out to the lowest subject
—that it may foster and permit to bask in its sunshine
the basest of slanderers—has alas ! been but too fully
proved. But I have yet to learn that in this free
country it can stifle the voice of truth. I have, there-
fore, determined to make the public masters of the
whole business, by publishing the entire correspondence
which has taken place on this melancholy occasion ; and
1 now cast for ever from me a subject which has been
productive of such pain and anxiety, fully confident of
finding alive in the breasts of the British nation that
justice and sympathy which has been denied me in a
higher quarter.
On the morning of the 20th of February I received,
at Donington Park, a letter from my sister, the late
Lady Flora Hastings, dated the 19th of February, in-
forming me that her honour had been most basely as-
sailed, but entering into no particulars.
On the receipt of this I hastened instantly to Lon-
don, and, on repairing to my sister, was horror-struck
by learning from her own lips, for the first time, a
partial outline of the disgusting truths which are now,
alas ! but too well-known to the public to need any
further repetition from me. She said at once, that she
felt it a duty she owed to herself, her mistress, and her
family, to submit to the inhuman trials she underwent,
in the presence of (to use her own words) her accuser,
Lady Portman, Sir James Clark, and her own maid
(whose deposition is now certified upon oath.) Sir
Charles Mansfield Clarke, long known to her family, was
also chosen by my poor sister to attend her.
I may here very properly place the statement of my
sister, Lady Flora Hastings, merely remarking that I
heard from her own lips that the examination to which
she was subjected was conducted with more than ordi-
nary disregard to delicacy and to her feelings
STATEMENT IN THE HANDWRITING OF THE LADY
FLORA HASTINGS, MARCH, 1839. SUBMITTED IN
THE FORM OF A CASE TO SIR WM. FOLLETT AND MR.

TALBOT.
" I came into waiting on the 10th of January. The
Ladies then in waiting were Lady Charlemont, Mrs.
Campbell, Miss Spring Rice, and Miss Paget. Baron-
ess Lehzen and Miss Davys are in constant waiting.
The same day, having been suffering from bilious illness
since the beginning of December, I consulted Sq.
James Clark, her Royal Highness's physician, and
placed myself under his treatment.
" At the expiration of that fortnight Lady
Harriet
Clive took Mrs. Campbell's place, and Lady Barham
Lady Charlemora's- And, a few days before the meet-
ing of Parliament, Lady Tavistock came to the Palace
to attend her Majesty on that occasion, and to the
theatres. She remained about a week or ten days.
Before she quitted, Lady Portman, Lady Caroline Bar-
rington, and Miss Murray came into waiting.
" On the 16th of February Sir James Clark came
to me, and asked me whether I were privately married,
giving, as his reason, that my figure had excited the re-
marks of the Ladies of the Palace.' On my empha-
tic denial he became excited, urged me to confess,' as
the only thing to save me,' stated his own Conviction
to agree with that of the Ladieq,' that it had occurred
to him at first, that no one could look at me and doubt
it,' and remarks even yet more coarse.
" I observed to him, that the swelling from which I
had been suffering was very much reduced, and offered
him the proof of my dresses. He replied, Well, I
don't think so. You seem to me to grow larger every
day, and so the ladies think.' He proceeded to say it
was the only supposition which could explain my ap-
pearance and state of health, or else you must have
some very bad illness.' I said that was possible, I had
thought badly of my state of health, but that his sup-
position was untrue and perfectly groundle.s. He
ended by assuring me that nothing but a medical exa-
mination could satisfy the ladies of the Palace, so deeply
were their suspicions rooted,' and that he must inform
Lady Portman, who had been his confidante,' of my
denial. He returned with a reiteration of what he
had already said, and, I think, but I will not be po-
sitive, added that it was the more imperative as the
rumour had reached her Majesty. I said, feeling per
fectly innocent, I should net shrink from any examina-
tion, however rigoroas, but that I considered it a most
indelicate and disagreeable procedure, and that I would
not be hurried into it. I said also that before any-
thing was determined, it would be requisite for me to
know the Duchess of Kent's pleasure ; and inquired if
her Royal Highness had authorised these communica-
tions to me ? To my surprise I learned that her
Royal Highness was still uninformed that the slightest
suspicion rested on me.
" It having been notified to me that it was her Ma-
jesty's pleasure that I should not appear until my cha-
racter was cleared by the means suggested, and having
obtained the permission of her Royal Highness to submit
to it, as the most instantaneous mode of refuting the ca-
lumny, I sent on Sunday, the 17th, for Sir Charles
Mansfield Clarke and Sir James Clark, and the exami-
nation took place in the presence of my accuser, Lady
Portman, and my own maid.
"In the evening Lady Portman came to me, to ex-
press her regret for having been the most violent against
me. She acknowledged that she had spoken a great
deal to the Queen on the subject, especially when she
found it was her Majesty's own idea.' She said she was
very sorry, but she would have done the same respecting
any one of whom she had the same suspicion. I said
my surprise is, that, knowing my family as she did, she
could have entertained those suspiciond."
COUNSEL'S OPINION.
(The opinion of Sir Wm. Follett atidli'Mr. Talbot
was given to the effect that the facts of the case did
not afford any ground for legal proceedings on the part
of Lady Flora Hastings or her family).

Feeling that with me alone rested the responsibility
of protecting my sister's character, and restoring her to
that place in society from which the artful villany of her
enemies bad driven her, I immediately hastened to
Lord Winchilsea, a man whose high sense of honour fully
entitles him to the confidence I felt it necessary to repose
in him. He agreed with me that the most proper course
to take would be to demand from Lord Melbourne himself
an explanation of the business. On seeing his Lordship be
declared his ignorance of the subject beyond his having
been made acquainted with reports by Lady Tavis-
tock, and his having desired the Ladies of the Court to
be quiet, he himself not placing any belief in it. I also
received from him an assurance, on his word of honour,
that no one was connected with the business BUT the
Ladies of the Court. I then declared my determina-
tion to seek an audience of her Majesty, to express iny.
horror and disgust at the whole of the transaction, and
to ask who were the originators of the plot. He urged
the business being kept as quiet as possible, for the sake
of all parties, the youth of the Queen, and the delicacy_
of the affair. He further urged my seeing the Duke of
Wellington ; and I then proceeded to Apsley House,
but was not fortunate enough to find his Grace.
I then wrote a letter to Lord Melbourne, which, wit
the correspondence that ensued, I here insert :
COQVISESPOOFNDHEANSTCIENGSSETAWNEDENLOTREIDE
itMIEARL:
BOURNE.

THE MARQUIS OP HASTINGS TO VISCOUNT MELBOURNE.
6. Burlington Hotel, Feb. 26, 1839.
" My Lord—=Having in vain waited for two days, in the
iclgght
hope of having the audience of. her Majesty which I re-
quested (if not
las aauPseteedr: atan dleabset as
in 7
asm ya
patiencematter of fbe r
one of feeling),
anxious to return to the bosom of my afflicted and insulted
family, I am forced to resort to the only means now left in
my power of recording my abhorrence and detestation of the
treatment which my sister has lately sustained, by address-
ing,- mys,-If to you as the organ through whom all things are
n w .i• Oli C •Lt 4 I. I %VII, b, gin by stating That I
retract nothing of what I said in your presence, and that