correspondence which has passed, and requests Mr. Speaker to communicate it to the house of commons.

“ Connaught-house, June 3, 1814."

The Speaker then asked whether it was the pleasure of the house that he should hand the inclosed documents to the clerk, and there being an universal

cry

of “Hear! Hear! Hear!" the documents were presented to the clerk. Upon the

, Speaker's proposing the question that they should be read, it was unanimously agreed to. The clerk then read the several letters; upon which,

Mr. Methuen rose; but Mr. Lygon (member for Worcestershire,) proposed the exclusion of strangers, and the gallery accordingly remained closed until the discussion terminated. The following was published as a sketch of the debate.

Mr. Methuen commented on various passages of the correspondence between the princess of Wales, and the queen, as also on the minute of council of the 10th of April 1807, in which the cabinet expressed their concurrence in that part of the report which acquitted her royal highness the princess of Wales from all criminality. The honorable. gentleman then moved" That an humble address: be presented to his royal highness the prince regent, to

prav his royal highness that he will be graciously pleased to acquaint the house by whose advice his royal highness was induced to form the "fixed and

9

unalterable determination never to meet her royal highness the princess of Wales upon any occasion, either in private or public,” as communicated by his royal highness to her majesty, together with the reasons submitted to his royal highness upon which such advice was founded.”

Mr. Martin seconded the motion.

Mr. Bathurst paid a tribute to the motives of the mover, but he had used no arguments to induce the house to agree to the motion. Out of all the papers that are now before the house he had used only the letter from the princess of Wales to the regent. Surely it was not for the letter in question, that the ministers were to be responsible. The main object of the motion was to know why the princess was prevented from being at court. Will parliament call upon the regent to declare who advised him not to see the princess ? The honorable gentleman indulged himself in speeches about liberty, as if it was a question where liberty was connected. As for the charges of guilt, they were irresistibly refuted at a former period. In other periods of our history, discussions were carried on between different members of the royal family to a greater excess than at prescrit, and yet parliament was not called on to interfere. The honorable gentleman had talked of a right of the princess to attend the drawing-room. Now what was this ? a mere assembly. Are the ministers,

the confidential advisers of the crown on state affairs, responsible for prohibitions to be present at court? The object of the motion, the substance of the thing, was the princess's admission to court: will they say that she ought to be there and the regent not? Those prohibitions to be present at court might proceed from different causes: these questions of guilt or innocence from causes, so frivolous as those mentioned, for the first time, in that house, by the honorable gentlemen for difference of taste. Here the right honorable gentleman made some historical observations, and added, that the duchess of Gloucester and Cumberland were forbidden the court, but there was no imputation of guilt-no question or guilt of innocence there, and yet they were never received at court: but if the honorable gentleman prided himself upon

the opinion of the king as to the path of the princess's conduct, as alluded to in the report of the council, he might find himself on investigation most mistaken: but the more this unfortunate question was discussed the more irritation was produced. He did not wish to withdraw himself from responsibility, but the question the house was called upon to interfere in was a question of etiquette. Will the house call upon the regent to rescind his resolution ? This house might as well be called upon to interpose on account of the separation. The present case is one of mere court etiquette arising

from circumstances totally distinct from guilt. No guilt is charged; for what the honorable gentleman said is true; if it were so she would not be permitted to see her daughter. The parliament cannot with propriety interfere; he calls upon the house to stop it in the beginning, he does not complain but it is so. The main question is, can the house interfere without the greatest mischief to all the parties concerned ? He concluded by opposing the motion.

Mr. Whitbread~"The speech of the right honorable gentleman in defence of the advice he has given, has been like the advice itself-special minute wavering, assuming a right, a right to exclude, and acting as it were conscious the party advised had no such right. Sir, I maintain, that a great indignity, a harsh disgrace, a cruel and unmerited punishment has been inflicted on an innocent person, on a subject of the crown—who was by that crown protected as long as it had moral and mental life and energy to protect. At one time the right honorable gentleman shrunk from the contest--he divested himself of all responsibility, he was ashamed of his own act and deedof the advice that he had given. The sovereign and crown was left by him to trample upon any subject—to gratify its own unadvised and unconfronted vindictive resentments, yet at the end of his speech he lets us know that the sovereign

power did not act for itself. That there were advisers, that he could name them, could give them up if the house should call upon him so to do. Let them come forth! He has treated this as only an exclusion from an assembly, from a fete, but a positive exclusion the advisers dared not warrant; that was a proceeding too manly. It was an affront to be operated through the queen, consort of that monarch, who, when the king had the use of his faculties, had commanded her to receive the princess of Wales at her court, as the symbol of her entire innocence, of her complete acquittal. This reception continued till the king's indisposition, and then the regent was advised to employ the queen, his mother, to banish the princess of Wales from court. Could this advice have been risked had the king mentally existed ?-Oh no! he should have thought that gentleman and his colleagues would have been eager in their advice to conciliate and to calm : to proclaim the innocence they had so often declared, but the reverse is the case. The right honorable gentleman, as he knows the king cannot contradict him, has ventured to throw out an insinuation, as if, in the assertion made of the complete approbation, the affectionate attachment of the king was not well grounded. The king cannot speak, and he quotes the king, to wound, through his side, the princess of Wales. This is of a piece with the whole of their proceedings. I