tion of this great task, so essential to my honour, I have let drop any expressions which a colder and more cautious prudence would have checked, I appeal to your Majesty's warm heart and generous feelings to suggest my excuse, and to afford my pardon. "What I have said, I have said under the pressure of much misfortune, under the provocation of great and accumulated injustice. Oh! Sire, to be unfortunate, and scarce to feel at liberty to lament; to be cruelly used, and to feel it almost an offence and a duty to be silent, is a hard lot; but use had in some degree inured me to it. But to find my misfortunes and my injuries imputed to me as faults; to be called to account upon a charge made against me by Lady Douglas, who was thought at first worthy of credit, although she had pledged her veracity to the fact of my having admitted that I was myself the aggressor in every thing of which I had to complain, has subdued all power of patient bearing; and when I was called upon by the Commissioners, either to admit, by my silence, the guilt which they imputed to me, or to enter into my defence, in contradiction to it; no longer at liberty to remain silent, I, perhaps, have not known how, with exact propriety, to limit my expressions. In happier days of my life, before my spirit had been yet at all lowered by my misfortunes, I should have been disposed to have met such a charge with the contempt which, I trust, by this time, your Majesty thinks due to it, I should have been disposed to have defied my enemies to the utmost, and to have scorned to answer to any thing but a legal charge, before a competent tribunal; but in my present misfortunes, such force of mind is gone, I ought, perhaps, so far, to be thankful to them for their wholesome lessons of humility. I have therefore entered into this long detail to endeavour to remove, at the first possible opportunity, any unfavourable impressions; to rescue myself from the dangers which the continuance of these suspicions might occasion, and to préserve to me your Majesty's good opinion, in whose kindness hitherto I have found infinite consolation, and to whose justice, under all circumstances, I can confidently appeal. Under the impression of these sentiments, I throw myself at your Majesty's feet. I know that whatever sentiments of resentment, whatever wish for redress, by the punishment of my false accusers, I ought to feel, your Majesty, as the father of a Stranger, smarting under false accusation, as the head of your illustrious house dishonoured in me, and as the great guardian of the laws of your kingdom, thus foully attempted to have been applied to the purposes of injustice, will not fail to feel for me. At all events, I trust your Majesty will restore me to the blessing of your gracious presence, and confirm to me, by your own gracious words, your satisfactory conviction of my innocence. I am, With every sentiment of gratitude and loyalty, and dutiful Daughter-in-Law, Subject and Servant, Montague House, 2d October, 1806. C. P. 2617 CHAPTER VI. SUCH is the DEFENCE which the Princess of Wales was enabled to make to one of the most foul, malignant, and wicked attempts on her life and honour that was, perhaps, ever before made on the life of any individual. That there should, in the 19th century, and in England too, have existed a well-educated female of family and of rank, so lost to every sense of honourable feeling, so destitute of every spark of gratitude, so debased as to state, in the presence of some of the highest noblemen and peers of the realm, so many facts of sheer indecency; and so abominably wicked as to attempt the life of the wife of the Heir Apparent, posterity will scarcely credit; and the name of Lady Douglas will never be mentioned but in association with infamy—in union with all that is abhorrent to the best portion of our natures. That the reader might be in full possession of every thing of real importance connected with "The Delicate Investigation," I have thought it my duty to present the most valuable of those documents in a perfect shape; and, certainly, the present is one of the most interesting portions of the domestic history of the royal family ever yet recorded, equalled only by the awful climax which the reader will have to contemplate in the subsequent pages of the present work. The present chapter shall be devoted to a circumstantial detail of every important event arising out of the investigation, already noticed at length, until the illustrious and suffering subject of these Memoirs was induced to leave this country, to seek repose on the continent, and some degree of relief from her unparalleled anxieties by travelling through the most interesting portions of the civilized world. The reader will naturally inquire as to the result of the long and very able letter to the late King, given in the preceding chapter. With that letter, her Royal Highness sent, also, the following truly affecting note: "SIRE, "TO THE KING. "In discharge of the duty I owe to myself, and the great duty I owe to your Majesty and your illustrious family, I have herewith transmitted a statement, which I confidently trust will appear to prove me not unworthy of the protection and favour with which your Majesty has pleased to honour me. "To be restored to that favour and protection, in consequence of a conviction in your Majesty's mind of my innocence, produced by the papers I now humbly lay before your Majesty, is the first wish of my heart. "Grieved, Sire, deeply grieved as I cannot but be, that your Majesty should be exposed to so much trouble on so painful an occasion, and on my account, it is yet my humble trust that your Majesty will graciously forgive me, if extreme anxiety about my honour, and your Majesty's favourable opinion, leads me humbly to solicit, as an act of justice, that scrupulous attention on your Majesty's part to these papers, which cannot fail, I think, to produce in your Majesty's mind, a full conviction of my innocence, and a due sense of the injuries I have suffered. "One other prayer I, with all possible humility and anxiety address to your Majesty, that, as I can hope for no happiness, nor expect to enjoy the benefit of that fair reputation to which I know I am entitled, till I am re-admitted into your Majesty's presence, and as I am in truth without guilt, suffering what to me is heavy punishment, whilst I am denied access to your Majesty, your Majesty will be graciously pleased to form an early determination whether my conduct and my sufferings do not authorize me to hope that the blessing of being restored to your Majesty's presence may be conferred upon, Sire, your Majesty's dutifully attached, affectionate, and afflicted daughter-in-law and subject, (Signed) Blackheath, Oct. 2, 1806." "CAROLINE." སྙ་འ One would have thought, that after such a decis sive answer to every charge of criminality adduced against her Royal Highness; and after such an affectionate appeal by which it was accompanied, that not a day's unnecessary delay would have taken place in returning a satisfactory reply to it; that the mind of the royal sufferer might be instantly relieved as much as possible from every anxiety on the score of character, and her reputation perfectly restored to the public. But, alas! from some cause or other, nine weeks were suffered to elapse, and no notice whatever appeared to have been taken of the important communication made by her Royal Highness to his Majesty, otherwise than that the Lord-Chancellor had informed the Princess's counsel, that the letter should be conveyed to the King the very day on which he had himself received it; and, also, that in about a week or ten days afterwards, his lordship communicated to her Royal Highness's solicitor, that his Majesty had read the letter, and that it had been transmitted to his lordship, with directions that it should be copied for the Commissioners, and that when such copy had been taken, the original should be returned to the King. Was it, therefore, to be wondered at, that her Royal Highness should become somewhat impatient to have such an answer to her letter as would satisfactorily restore her to the protection and society of his Majesty, and put a speedy termination to the rumours that were daily gaining ground in the public mind to her prejudice? i. On the 8th of December she again ventured to address his Majesty, in a letter strongly, but respectfully expressive of her anxiety and uneasiness at the delay in reply to her communications of the 2d of October preceding. In this letter she says, that his Majesty's own mind would easily conceive what must have been her state of anxiety and suspense, whilst she had been fondly indulging in the |