Star.
London, England, 1820-09-14 00:00:00

THE EVENING STAR.

LONDON.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1820.
THE FUNDS.
PRICE or STOCKS THIS DAT AT ONZ 09OLOCK
S per Cent. Cons. 673/8 % 1/4
5 per Cent. Navy 103% 102%8
India Stock 215 214—Ditto Bonds 19s. 20s.
South Sea Stock 74% 1/4
Exchequer Bills, (243.) 2s. 3s.
Omnium 23/s 1/4 I,4—Cons. fer Acct. 67% % 1/2.

The effect produced by the evidence against the
QUEEN is indeed passing strange. We have avowed I
our own opinion to be, that it has raised instead of
lowered her MAJESTY in the estimation of the coun-
try ; and were we to allow to her prosecutors the ut-
most latitude in the interpretation of the public opi-
nion, the greatest admission they could demand from
us would be, that public opinion on the subject is
•suspended. But what is that but another why of
saying that they have failed in establishing their
case. Opinion suspended! For what? Are they
mad enough to imagine that the QUEEN'S De-
lo:cc will furnish anything in support of the case
against her? And if that does not throw up some-
thing new in their favour, where, in the name cf
wonder, is it to come from ? They have closed their
case—irrevocably closed it ; and if they have not
made out their accusations against her MAJESTY ,
now, we say, without fear of contradiction, that they
will never make them out. Nay, we will say more.,
After the years spent in preparing their proofs, after
the enormous means of procuration which wet e
placed at their disposal, after having everything at
their command which could possibly help them to
the getting up of this grand national drama—time,
money, influence, authority—to fail—to get damned
after all this—is to us a convincing proof that it was,
a case they never could make out.
To justify the conduct of his MAJESTY'S Govern-
ment in this business, the evidence ought to have
been of such a nature as to spew, beyond the possi-
bility of a doubt, that there was an imperious State
necessity calling for the prosecution. It was from the
first admitted, on all hands, that unless this could be
shewn, the measure was without apology. Every
consequence that could be anticipated from the pro-
secution was lamentable, and it was never pretended
that anything brit the apprehension of consequences
still more injurious to the national character from
bushing up the matter, could warrant Ministers in
pursuing the course they adopted.—Now, has any
such imperious State necessity, any case of necessity
at all been proved? We fearlessly say, there has not.
The existing state of the public opinion on the sub-
ject proves this to be the fact—
Since no case has been, or can now be made out
to the satisfaction of the Public, it is as clear as day
that there never could have been any just ground
for tiouLling the Public on the subject. The shame
imputed to the QUEEN was said to have been of such
flaming notoriety, that the national honour required
that notice should be taken of it ; it was a fanza cla-
mosa, calling as strongly on behalf of the Crown for
some statutory protection, as ever the honour of the
British Peerage called for the Statute of Scant/alum
Magnatum, in the time of RICHARD 11. But nothing
at all like this has been proved. The circumstances
countenancing a suspicion of guilt on the part of the
QUEEN, turn out to have been in the knowledge only
of a few obscure individuals widely scattered over
the face of the earth ; and ghat is curious (we en-

treat the particular attention of our Readers to this
point), when these individuals were asked when and
to whom they told their bits of story before, the
almost invariable answer was, that the first time- they
told them was to some emissary of the Milan Com-
mission, and that they had never mentioned thorn
to any other body before or since.
If the slander then did get public, who, we ask,
were the tale-bearers? Who else could they be but
the emissaries of the Milan Commission themselves,
to whom alone the circumstances vk ere confided ?
If there was any prevailing calumny, it must have
owed all its prevalence to the very men, and their
patrons, who now seek to convert the "giant lie" of
their own fabrication, into a plea of State necessity,
for a proceeding which is likely to." stink in the nos-
trils of mankind for ever •