to have conveyed. Such crimes, and faults, derive not their guilt from the consideration of the conjugal virtues of the individual, who may be the most injured by them, however much such virtues may aggravate their enormity. No such letter, therefore, in any construction of it, no renunciation of conjugal affection or duties, could ever palliate them. But whether conduct free from all crime, free from all indelicacy, (which I maintain to be the character of the conduct to which Mrs. Lisle's observations apply,) yet possibly not so measured, as a cautious wife, careful to avoid the slightest appearance, of not preferring her husband to all the world, might be studious to observe. Whether conduct of such description, and possibly, in such sense, not becoming a married woman, could be justly deemed, in my situation, an offence in me ; I must leave to your Majesty to determine.

In making that determination, however, it will not escape your Majesty to consider, that the conduct which does or does not become a married woman materially depends upon what is, it is not known by her to be agreeable to her husband. His pleasure and happiness ought unquestionably to be her law; and his approbation the most favourite object of her pursuit. Different characters of men require different modes of conduct in their wives, but when a wife can no longer be capable of perceiving from time to time, what is agreeable or offensive to her husband, when her conduct can no longer contribute to his happiness, no longer hope

to be rewarded by his approbation, surely to examine that conduct by the standard of what ought, in general, to be the conduct of a married woman, is altogether unreasonable and unjust.

What then is my case? Your Majesty will do me the justice to remark, that, in the above letter of the Prince of Wales, there is not the most distant surmise, that crime, that vice, that indelicacy of any description, gare occasion to his determination; and all the tales of infamy and discredit, which the inventive malice of my enemies has brought forward on these charges, have their date, years, and years, after the period to which I am now alluding. What then, let me repeat the question, is my case? After the receipt of the above letter, and in about two years from my arrival in this country, I had the misfortune entirely to lose the support, the countenance, the protection of my husband-I was banished, as it were, into a sort of humble retirement, at a distance from him, and almost estranged from the whole of the Royal Family. I had no means of having recourse, either for society or advice, to those, from whom my inexperience could have best received the advantages of the one, and with whom I could, most becomingly, have enjoyed the comforts of the other; and if in this retired, unassisted, unprotected state, without the check of a husband's authority, without the benefit of his advice, without the comfort and support of the society of his family, a stranger to the habits and fashions of this country, I should,

in any instance, under the influence of foreign habits, and foreign education, have observed a conduct, in any degree deviating from the reserve and severity of British manners, and partaking of a condescension and familiarity which that reserve and severity would, perhaps, deem beneath the dignity of my exalted rank, I feel confident, (since such deviation will be seen to have been ever consistent with perfect innocence), that not only your Majesty's candour and indulgence, but the candour and indulgence, which, notwithstanding the reserve and severity of British manners, always belong to the British Public, will never visit it with severity or

censure.

It remains for me now to make some remarks upon the further contents of the paper, which was transmitted to me by the Lord Chancellor, on the 28th ult. And I cannot, in passing, omit to remark, that that paper has neither title, date, signature, nor attestation; and unless the Lord Chancellor had accompanied it with a note, stating, that it was copied in his own hand from the original, which his Lordship had received from your Majesty, I should have been at a loss to have perceived any single mark of authenticity belonging to it; and as it is, I am wholly unable to discover what is the true character which does belong to it. It contains, indeed, the advice which your Majesty's servants have offered to your Majesty, and the Message which, açcording to that advice, your Majesty directed to be delivered to me,

Hh

Considering it, therefore, wholly as their act, your Majesty will excuse and pardon me, if, deeply injured as I feel myself to have been by them, I express myself with freedom upon their conduct. I may speak, perhaps, with warmth, because I am provoked by a sense of gross injustice; I shall speak certainly with firmness and with courage, because I am emboldened by a sense of conscious innocence.

they

Your Majesty's confidential servants say, agree in the opinions of the four Lords," and they say this," after the fullest consideration of my observations, and of the affidavits which were annexed to them." Some of these opinions, your Majesty will recollect, are, that "William Cole, Fanny Lloyd, Robert Bidgood, and Mrs. Lisle, are wit

nesses who cannot," in the judgment of the four Lords, "be suspected of any unfavourable bias;" and" whose veracity, in this respect, they had seen

no ground to question;" and " that the circum"stances to which they speak, particularly as relating to Captain Manby, must be credited until they are decisively contradicted." Am I then to understand your Majesty's confidential servants to mean, that they agree with the four Noble Lords in these opinions? Am I to understand, that after having read, with the fullest consideration, "the observations which I have offered to your jesty; after having seen William Cole there proved to have submitted himself, five times at least, to private, unauthorized, voluntary examination by Sir John Douglas's Sclicitor, for the express pur

Ma

pose of confirming the statement of Lady Douglas, (of that Lady Douglas, whose statement and deposition they are convinced to be so malicious and false, that they propose to institute such prosecution against her, as your Majesty's Law Officers may advise, upon a reference, now at length, after six months from the detection of that malice and falsehood, intended to be made)-after having seen this William Cole, submitting to such repeated voluntary examinations for such a purpose, and although he was all that time a servant on my establishment, and eating my bread, yet never once communicating to me, that such examinations were going on-am I to understand, that your Majesty's confidential servants agree with the four Lords in thinking, that he cannot, under such circumstances, be suspected of unfavourable bias? That after having had pointed out to them the direct, flat contradiction between the same William Cole and Fanny Lloyd, they nevertheless agree to think them both (though in direct contradiction to each other, yet both) witnesses, whose veracity they see no ground to question? After having seen Fanny Lloyd directly and positively contradicted, in an assertion, most injurious to my honour, by Mr. Mills and Mr. Edmeades, do they agree in opinion. with the four Noble Lords, that they see no ground to question her veracity 2-After having read the observations on Mr. Bidgood's evidence; after having seen, that he had the hardihood to swear, that he believed Captain Manby slept in my house, at Southend, and to insinuate that he