Star.
London, England, 1818-04-25 00:00:00

her except' in the emnrdbn terms of civility ; but on
the Bth he saw her at Almack's, where he conversed
with her, and was in consequence induced to accele-
rate the match, as he was soon to return to Vienna.—
The affidairus of Mr. MiDonnell and Lady Antrim
expressly denied any plan being formed ; but from
the arguments of his Learned Friends, it should seem
it was their wish that when a Gentleman wished to
marry a Ward of the Court,l4 should come and beg
=fission of the Court, to mate his addresses to the
. Such certainly was not the 'practice of the
Court, nor was it even agreeable to common sense ;
but it was astonishing how-Mrs. Taylor could pretend
to be ignorant of this affair, when it was well known
to all the world. The whole case shewed that Lord
Stewart had acted in a fair, open, and manly man-
ner, and having obtained & consent of the daugh-
ter, he had no alternative left but to apply to the
Count. The Learned Gentleman then concluded by
expressing his earnest hope that this would appear in
the same light to the Court, and he fondly trusted
that Lord Stewart would appear to have discharged
his duty, and that all his anxiety arose from his ho.
nour being impeached, as it had been, unjustly.
Sir ARTHUR PIGOTT, on the same side, contended
that the case should more properly have been before
the Master than in the Court, whence it would, in si
few hours, be submitted to the tribunal of the public.
It wa* singular enough to hear the Court called oo to
act Ott pure abstract philosophical principles, and not to
do as it had uniformly done. While the Court would,'
of course, receive with great indulgence what was
said by the parties, it ought to be recollected that
there were limits to •that indulgence, and that regard
to the character Of others was not to be lost, nor a
person of the high rank, character, and qualifications
of the Noble Lord to be treated with disrespect. The
Noble Lord was said to be embarrassed, and yet he
owed nothing ;he was accused of i lar habits—
but where was an instance of that ? irregular habits.—
but where was an instance of that? Whose wife or
child had he seduced ?—whose property had he in-
vaded by gaming? Detraction, in general terms,
was only to be answered by a general denial. lie had
the highest personal esteem for Mrs. Taylor, but he,
regretted she had been induced to make such allega-
tions in her affidavit. The Learn! Gentleman then,
at great length, and with much ability, went over the
affidavits, commenting strongly on several parts of
them. He contended there was no foundation for the
charge of a conspiracy against him, and censidered
the present attempt against the reference to the Mas-
ter as a novelty in the practice of the Court.
The LORD CIIANCELLORI take it that Lady An-
trim had the contents of the anonymous letters com-
municated to her by Mrs. Taylor, as I find in the af-
fidavit, she says some communication was made to
her by Mrs. Taylor, on the authority of an anony-
mous letter, dated about the sth of March, but she
says nothing about the other dates.
Mr. HORNE followed.
Sir SAMOFT: ROWLEY made an eloquent reply. He.
began by observing, that though the motion and pe-
tition were quite distinct in their nature, yet it was
impossible to separate them. Much blame had been
thrown, ajtd thrown most unjustly, on Mrs. Taylor,
for bringing this before the Court. and Mr. Hart had
even gone so far as to say, that it. had been done
solely for the purpose of injuring the young Lady,
and wounding the feelings of parties. He would re-
ply, that no one had more regard to the young Lady
than Mrs. Taylor had, for her anxiety on the present
painful occasion had injured her health. But it was
not possible to have kept this case from the public
view, as it had already attracted so much attention.
They certainly were much mistaken, who supposed
that any thing was gained by private hearings, for on
the contrary, it was well known, that reports of such
hearings went out to the world in a mutilated and
imperfect manner, as had been the case about r year
ago, respecting the care of children, where a father
was accused of having written a work containing
strong Deistical principles. This always was the case
when parties chose to hear a case in private, because
I the public were sure by some means or other to find
out what was going on. . In the present instance, it
was impossible the could have been private;
as the subject had long been the topic of public con-
versation ; but though it was heard in public, he beg-
ged leave to say, there was not the slightest blame
attached to the conduct of the young Lady. The
greatest delicacy existed on the part of Mrs. Taylor.
and as her Counsel, he had thought it unnecessa y to
say any thing relative to the personal objections
against Lord Stewart, because he conceived these the
more proper subject of inquiry before the Master.—
'ln opening the case, it would be observed, that he
had studiously avoided saying one word about them,
as would appear to all who had heard him, or read
an account of what he had said, in the Journals of
the day. From that it would appear, that no man
could possibly have conjectured what these objec-
tions were ;—but now, for the first time, they
were stated openly in Court, and, be it observed,
stated by the Counsel of Lord Stewart himself, who
first provoked the discussion, .and then threw the
odium on others. With . respect to his Lordship's
fortune, he should certainly not have alluded in
the slightest degree to if, had it not been for what
the Solicitor-General said about his being a fit match
in point of fortune for any lady in the country. His
Lordship would recollect a similar case, where Lord
Thurlow refused the order of reference to the Master
on the same grounds, and on appeal to the House of
Lords this j
udgment was affirmed. He could not
agree with his Learned Friend in supposing that the
income of Lord Stewart placed him above the suspi-
cion of being a fortune-hunter ; for it was to be re-
collected, that, though his emoluments were great,
they arose solely from public appointments, and
therefore were necessarily productive of much ex-
pense. He had, for example, 12,0001. at the Court of
Vienna, but as the Ambassador of the Country, he
.Was necessarily obliged to live in a superior manner.
He was 'willing to believe Lord Stewart's denial of
the charge of irregular habits ; but when the Court
were told that the charge rested solely on the affida-
vit of Mrs. Taylor, it was but fair to add, that the
denial also rested solely on the affidavit of hii Lord-
ship. He was willing to believe that his Lordship
was not addicted to gambling or intoxication, espe-
cially •as his Lordship challenged the world to
Produce a single instance of that; but why had his '
Counsel brought forward such things? With what
reason could they deprecate a public discussion of
the case, while they were the very means of publish.
ing what they seemed and declared themselves to be