TO JAMES PAUL,

Of Bursledon, in Lower Dublin Township, in Philadelphia County, in the State of Pennsylvania;

ON

MATTERS RELATING TO HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCESS OF WALES.

(Political Register, March, 1813.)

LETTER II.

Botley, 3d March, 1813.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

Since the date of my last letter I have returned home, where I found my children delighted to hear, that I had resumed my correspondence with "Grand-daddy Paul;" but very much surprised, that I did not write to you about sheep, and turnips, and carrots, in preference to the subject which I had chosen. To say the truth, I should prefer the former topics; but, I have a duty to perform with regard to the latter. It is certainly one of the most important public matters that ever has been discussed in England. It is a matter that must make a great figure in the history of a country which fills a high rank in the community of nations; and, viewing it in this light, I cannot help being anxious, that those, who, some years hence, may refer to the Register for information relating to it, should not have to blame me for their disappoint

ment.

It is impossible for any one to enter on a discussion with more perfect impartiality than I have entered upon this. I know nothing personally of either of the Royal parties most concerned; I have never received either good or evil from the hands of either; I have never been under any indirect influence flowing from either. I reside at a great distance from the scene of all cabals and intrigues; I hold no correspondence which the people at our Post-office may not, if they like it, amuse themselves with reading; I never deal in secrets, and never desire to hear any thing that may not be uttered by the mouth of the crier in the open streets. I can have no motive to make my court either to the Prince or the Princess, seeing, that I am bound by the most solemn pledge never to touch, in any shape, a farthing of the public money as long as I live, and never to suffer any son of mine to do it, if I have it in my power to prevent him, and I do flatter myself that neither of them will ever entertain such a design. Thus standing before the public, having nothing to complain of with regard to either party; having nothing to fear, and nothing to hope for, from either, I shall, I trust, be listened to without prejudice, and that the facts, or the reasonings, which I shall bring forward, will, at the least, have a fair chance of producing their wished-for effect; a just decision in the minds of all persons of sense and integrity.

My last letter concluded with a remark as to the separation of dwelling-places of the Prince and Princess. The time, however, was not exactly named; and, as I wish to leave nothing less perfect than circumstances compel me, I have now to remind you, that this separation of dwellings took place in April, 1796, twelve months after the marriage, and three months after the birth of the Princess Charlotte of Wales. It is said, that, as to the cause of this unhappy event, and as to the manner of its taking place, there is a Letter in existence, in the hands of her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales; and, as this Letter was, as it is stated, written by the Prince himself, it will, doubtless, be found to be, at once, satisfactory in its reasons and delicate in its sentiments and diction. This being the case, we shall, I hope, see this Letter in print; because it will answer one great purpose; it will clear up every thing to the day of separation, and will, I have no doubt, show the world, that any infamous tales, which the tongues of base parasites may have been engaged in circulating, are wholly without foundation.

Before I come to that consideration, which I have promised, of the several parts of the Princess's Letter, let me request you to bear in mind, that, in 1806, when Lord Grenville, Lord Erskine, Lord Grey, and Mr. Fox were in the ministry, there was, in our newspapers, many articles published, relative to an inquiry, which was then going on, respecting the conduct of the Princess of Wales. This was called, at that time, the "Delicate Investigation," by which name it has ever since gone. The Princess was observed, at that time, and for sometime afterwards, not to go to Court, as she had done before, which circumstance had the effect of producing an opinion to her disadvantage. Some months after this, however, she re-appeared at Court; but, in the meanwhile, the ministry had changed, and the late Perceval and his set had become ministers. It was understood, also, that an account of the Delicate Investigation had been formed into A BOOK, had been printed, had been upon the eve of publication, had, all at once, just when the change of ministry took place, been stopped; and that, certain copies, which had escaped by chance, had been bought up by the supposed authors at an enormous price. What I state here as matter of mere report, will, probably, hereafter appear in a more authoritative shape; but, in the meanwhile, there having been such reports current is fact sufficient for our purpose; namely, to explain certain parts of the Princess's Letter, which, without such explanation, must appear unintelligible to you.

Bearing in mind what has been said, you will now have the goodness to follow me to the period of the establishment of the Regency in the person of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. Hitherto the Princess had lived chiefly at a small mansion at Blackheath, upon, apparently, a very limited pecuniary allowance, which, by almost all the public prints, we were told she participated with the poor and distressed persons of her neighbourhood. I do not know that this was the case. I cannot know it, and, therefore, I vouch not for the fact; but I do know well that the fact was asserted in print, and that the assertion so often met the public eye, accompanied with a detail of the instances of her benevolence, that it was next to impossible that it should not have obtained general belief.

When, therefore, the Regency came to be settled, and the Prince came to the possession and disposal of a kingly income, it was natural for the

nation to expect to see the Princess placed upon a corresponding footing; and this became the more a subject of observation, because, just at the same time, large sums of money were granted by the Parliament for the purpose of enabling the Prince's maiden sisters to keep their state in separate mansions, and to maintain separate establishments. In this state of things, the nation seemed, with one voice, to ask, why no change was to be made in the pecuniary circumstances and the exterior appearance of the Princess of Wales, the wife of the Regent and the mother of the sole heiress to the throne. The question was actually asked in Parliament; it was put to the then minister, Perceval, what was the cause of this marked slight to Her Royal Highness; and finally, it was put distinctly to him, who had been intimately acquainted with all the facts, whether there existed any ground of charge against the Princess to which he as distinctly answered, that there existed none.

Now, my friend, you will observe, that this declaration was made by a man, who had been a minister at the time when the Princess was restored to court, and who, of course, had advised that measure. He, as a Privy Councillor, was sworn to give the King the best advice in his power. Besides, he, at the time of his making the Declaration, was the prime minister, chosen by the Prince himself to fill that office. He was the man who directed the councils of the Prince, now become Regent with kingly powers. Therefore, his Declaration of the innocence of the Princess had deservedly very great weight with the public, who then, more than before, seemed astonished, that, while the Prince was raised in splendour as well as power, to the state of a king, the Princess, his wife, should experience no change whatever in her circumstances, but appeared to be doomed to pass the whole of her life in obscurity. The public did not seem to wish to pry into any family secrets. They generously wished not to revive past disputes. They were willing and anxious to forget all the reports which had been circulated. They wished to have no cause to suspect anything improper in either husband or wife; and, therefore, anxiously wished to see the Princess placed in a situation suited to the rank of her royal spouse, by which means all doubts, the effect of all malicious insinuations and rumours, would, at once, have been removed.

In the articles, which I wrote at the time, recommending a suitable establishment for Her Royal Highness, I was, I sincerely believe, no more than the echo of ninety-nine hundredths of the people of England. No such establishment did, however, take place; and Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales, the wife of the Regent; she who, if the King die before the Regent, will be crowned Queen with her husband; she who is the mother of our future sovereign, was left in her former comparative obscurity, even at a time when establishments were granted to the sisters of the Prince; and this happened too, you will bear in mind, while the prime minister, the Prince's chief adviser, explicitly declared in open Parliament, that there was no ground of charge existing aginst Her Royal Highness.

It will be said, perhaps, and it has been said, that, in not granting an establishment of a higher order to the Princess; in not enabling her to hold a court of her own, and giving her the necessary accompaniments of splendour; it has been said, that, in not doing this no law was violated. Very true; but, if this were a sufficient answer to us, to what a state might she not be reduced before the proper season of complaint would arrive? We are not talking about law: the question before us is a ques

tion of feeling; a question of moral propriety. For my part, I appear not as an accuser of any one in authority: my object is simply this: to inquire whether the foul, the base, the malignant publications against the Princess of Wales do, or do not, admit of a shadow of justification. Justification, indeed, they cannot admit of; but, whether they admit of the shadow of an apology; and the answer to this question will naturally grow out of a consideration of the several parts of Her Royal Highness's Letter.

In entering upon this consideration, we must bear in mind, that the Letter treats of two subjects; namely, the treatment of the Princess herself, and the education of her daughter. These we must keep separate in our mind, or else we shall fall into a confusion which will prevent a clear view of the case.

The Princess complains, as to herself, that she is debarred from that intercourse with her child which it is natural for a mother to expect, and which mothers do usually enjoy. And, here, before I proceed further, you ought to be informed, that, when the Princess went to live at Blackheath, in 1796, she took her daughter with her; that her daughter remained with her till she attained the age of eight years; that she was then placed under the care of proper persons to superintend her education, and that her place of residence was chiefly at Windsor, the place of residence of the Queen, her mother going frequently to see her, and she going frequently to see her mother. It now appears, from the Princess's Letter, that (at what time is not mentioned), the Royal Mother's visits to her daughter, or rather, the interviews between them, were limited, at first, to ONCE A WEEK; that they were afterwards reduced to interviews of ONCE A FORTNIGHT; and that she now learns that, "even "this most rigorous interdiction is to be STILL MORE RIGIDLY EN"FORCED."

This, her Royal Highness says, has compelled her reluctantly to break a silence which has long been most painful to her. Her complaint is this: -That, at the time of settling the Regency, she was unwilling to obtrude herself upon the Prince with her private complaints; that she waited patiently, expecting redress from the Prince's own gracious condescension; but, that, having waited so long without receiving that redress, and now perceiving that the measures with regard to her interviews with her daughter, are calculated to admit of but one construction, and that construction fatal to her own reputation, she has now resolved to give utterance to her feelings.

Whether the reasoning of the Princess be correct; whether the separation of her from her daughter; whether the limiting of their interviews to once a week, and then further limiting them to once a fortnight; whether, in short, the prohibition against a mother (any mother), seeing and speaking to her daughter at her pleasure; whether such a prohibition can admit of any construction not fatal to the mother's reputation, I will, my sensible and honest friend, leave you to judge. And, with regard to the Princess's maternal feelings, you will, I am sure, want nothing to guide you in your judgment further than the supposition, for a moment, of a similar prohibition laid upon yourself.

Upon this part of the subject I would not add a single word, did I not think it my duty to expose some of the unfeeling ruffians of the London press, who have, upon this occasion, assailed the Princess of Wales. In answer to her complaint of not being permitted to have a free intercourse

VOL. IV.

with her daughter, the COURIER newspaper, of the 13th of February, makes the following remarks:

"The charge of separating a child from its mother, naturally engages the affec"tions of every parent; and her Royal Highness knowing this, does not forget to "make a strong appeal to the passions of Englishwomen. But to what extent "is this charge founded? A visit once a week is changed to a visit once a fort66 night. And how many mothers are there who do not see their daughters of "seventeen so often as once a fortnight? They must be callous-hearted jades who "trust their girls to a boarding-school; they must be unfeeling monsters who "allow their daughters, when of an age fit for marriage, to make visits to their "friends and relations with the view of forming connexions; and if this daughter were to live under the protection of her grandmother, her uncles, and aunts, "6 nay, of her very father, the conduct must be barbarous indeed! But how inhu"1 man must it be to allow girls of seventeen or eighteen to marry, thus placing it "in the power of a hard-hearted husband to take a daughter to his own home, at "a distance, perhaps, where the mother may not see her for months together, a " privation, which, if any thing desirable is to be had through the daughter's influence, is certain of raising loud lamentations."

66

"

I am afraid, my friend, that the reading of this paragraph will give you a very bad opinion of the people of England; for, you will naturally ask, What a people must that be, amongst whom any writer would dare to "give vent to such miserable trash as this, and to call it an answer to the "Princess's complaint ?" It is not of an unavoidable separation that the Princess complains; it is of a separation easily avoided ; a separation, not arising from distance, or any other insurmountable obstacle, but simply from the prohibition of a third party. It is not, as in the cases here cited, a separation growing out of a calculation of advantages and disadvantages, but a separation without any compensation to the party complaining. To her a sheer, unmixed evil, and that, too, of a most grievous kind. It is not a separation, as in the case of school, or marriage, of a temporary nature; but is of that sort, which, if rightly represented in the Letter, promises no termination. It is, in one word, the forcible separation of an only child from her mother. No powers of description can heighten the fact, the bare naming of which is sufficient for any one who has the common feelings of humanity about him.

Yet, my friend, I do not say that there may not be causes, even in common life, to justify such a separation. We may suppose a case of a mother so profligate, as to render it prudent in the father to prevent her from having access to her daughter. It is a horrible case to suppose. One can hardly entertain the idea without being ashamed of one's human character. Still the case is possible; but then the guilt, the profligacy, of the mother, must be so certainly established, so far removed from all doubt, as to leave no possibility of dispute on the question. I do not take upon me to determine in what degree the maxims, as to this matter, may be different, when the parties belong to royal families; but we have, in the Letter of the Princess, a most clear and positive assertion of her innocence, as to all the charges that base insinuation had ever preferred against her.

This, my good friend, is by far the most material part of her Letter, and it will, unless I am greatly deceived, be considered as more than a sufficient answer to the calumnies, which the panders of all the low, filthy passions have hatched and circulated against her. In the former part of her Letter, she says, that she has been afflicted without any fault of her own, and that His Royal Highness knows it; but, she afterwards comes to this distinct and unequivocal assertion: