though this was peculiarly the duty of the noble lord. It was sufficient for a member of parliament in his common capacity, to say he would wait and give his opinion, but such was not the duty of the noble lord as a minister of the crown in that House in such a case. Lord Castlereagh would still persevere in refusing to answer any questions arising continue to be subject to regulation and restraint We beg leave humbly to report to your Royal Highness, that after a full examination of all the documents before us, we are of opinion, that under all the circumstances of the case, it is highly fit and proper, with a view to the welfare of her royal highness the Princess Charlotte, in which are equally involved the happiness of your Royal Highness in your parental and royal character, and the most important interests of the state, that the intercourse between her royal highness the Princess of Wales and her royal highness the Princess Charlotte, should continue to be subject to regulation and restraint. We humbly trust that we may be permitted, without being thought to exceed the limits of the duty imposed on us, respectfully to express the just sense we entertain of the motives by which your Royal Highness has been actuated in the postponement of the Confirmation of her royal highness the Princess Charlotte, as it appears, by a statement under the hand of her majesty the Queen, that your Royal Highness has conformed in this respect to the declared will of his Majesty, who had been pleased to direct, that such ceremony should not take place till her Royal Highness should have completed her 18th year. We also humbly trust that we may be further permitted to notice some expressions in the Letter of her royal highness the Princess of Wales, which may possibly be construed as implying a charge of too serious a nature to be passed over without observation. We refer to the words "suborned traducers." As this expression, from the manner in which it is introduced, may, perhaps, be liable to be understood (however impossible it may be to suppose that it can have been so intended), to have reference to some part of the conduct of your Royal Highness, we feel it our bounden duty not to omit this opportunity of declaring that the documents laid before us afford the most ample proof, that The following are the Documents referred to in the preceding Report: LETTER addressed by Her Royal High Sir; it is with great reluctance that I presume to obtrude myself upon your Royal Highness, and to solicit your attention to matters which may, at first, appear rather of a personal than a public nature. If I could think them so-if they re lated merely to myself-I should abstain from proceedings which might give uneasiness, or interrupt the more weighty occupations of your Royal Highness's time. I should continue, in silence and retirement, to lead the life which has been prescribed to me, and console myself for the loss of that society and those domestic comforts to which I have so long been a stranger, by the reflection that it has been deemed proper I should be afflicted without any fault of my own-and that your Royal Highness knows it. But, Sir, there are considerations of a higher nature than any regard to my own happiness, which render this address a duty both to myself and my daughter. May I venture to say-a duty also to my husband, and the people committed to his care? There is a point beyond which a guiltless woman cannot with safety carry intention of ministers to take any other notice of the Letter, addressed to the Speaker of that House by the Princess of Wales? Lord Castlereagh said, that whenever any intention of that nature was entertained by the Prince Regent's ministers, due notice would be given of it. me if you were aware of its bitterness. Our intercourse has been gradually diminished. A single interview weekly seemed sufficiently hard allowance for a mother's affections-That, however, was reduced to our meeting once a fortnight; and I now learn that even this most rigorous interdiction is to be still more rigidly enforced. her forbearance. If her honour is invaded, the defence of her reputation is no longer a matter of choice; and it signifies not whether the attack be made openly, manfully, and directly-or by secret insinuation, and by holding such conduct towards her as countenances all the suspicions that malice can suggest. If these ought to be the feelings of every woman in England who is conscious that she de- But while I do not venture to intrude serves no reproach, your Royal Highness my feelings as a mother upon your Royal has too sound a judgment, and too nice a Highness's notice, I must be allowed to sense of honour, not to perceive, how say, that in the eyes of an observing and much more justly they belong to the mo- jealous world, this separation of a daughter ther of your daughter-the mother of her from her mother will only admit of one who is destined, I trust at a very distant construction-a construction fatal to the period, to reign over the British empire. mother's reputation. Your Royal HighIt may be known to your Royal Highness will also pardon me for adding, that ness that during the continuance of the restrictions upon your royal authority, I purposely refrained from making any representations which might then augment the painful difficulties of your exalted station. At the expiration of the restrictions I still was inclined to delay taking this step, in the hope that I might owe the redress I sought to your gracious and unsolicited condescension. I have waited, in the fond indulgence of this expectation, until, to my inexpressible mortification, I find that my unwillingness to complain, has only produced fresh grounds of com plaint; and I am at length compelled, either to abandon all regard for the two dearest objects which I possess on earth, mine own honour, and my beloved child, or to throw myself at the feet of your Royal Highness as the natural protector of both. there is no less inconsistency than injustice in this treatment.-He who dares advise your Royal Highness to overlook the evidence of my innocence, and disregard the sentence of complete acquittai which it produced-or is wicked and false enough still to whisper suspicions in your ear, betrays his duty to you, Sir, to your daughter, and to your people, if he counsels you to permit a day to pass without a further investigation of my conduct. I know that no such calumniator will venture to recommend a measure which must speedily end in his utter confusion. Then let me implore you to reflect on the situation in which I am placed; without the shadow of a charge against me-without even an accuserafter an enquiry that led to my ample vindication-yet treated as if I were still more culpable than the perjuries of my suborned traducers represented me, and held up to the world as a mother who may not enjoy the society of her only child. I presume, Sir, to represent to your Royal Highness, that the separation, which every succeeding month is making wider, of the mother and the daughter, is equally injurious to my character and to her edu- The feelings, Sir, which are natural to cation. I say nothing of the deep wounds my unexampled situation, might justify which so cruel an arrangement inflicts me in the gracious judgment of your upon my feelings, although I would fain Royal Highness, had I no other motives hope that few persons will be found of a for addressing you but such as relate to disposition to think lightly of these. To myself. But I will not disguise from see myself cut off from one of the very your Royal Highness what I cannot for a few domestic enjoyments left me-cer- moment conceal from myself, that the setainly the only one upon which I set any rious, and it soon may be, the irreparable value, the society of my child-involves injury which my daughter sustains from me in such misery, as I well know your the plan at present pursued, has done Royal Highness could never inflict upon more in overcoming my reluctance to in Lord Milton thought it the bounden duty of ministers to take up the business, which was of the greatest importance in every point of view, and not of so trivial a nature as the noble lord affected to consider it. trude upon your Royal Highness, than any sufferings of my own could accom plish; and if for her sake I presume to call away your Royal Highness's attention to the other cares of your exalted station, I feel confident I am not claiming it for a matter of inferior importance either to yourself or your people. The powers with which the constitution of these realms vests your Royal Highness in the regulation of the royal family, I know, because I am so advised, are ample and unquestionable. My appeal, Sir, is made to your excellent sense and liberality of mind in the exercise of those powers: and I willingly hope that your parental feelings will lead you to excuse the anxiety of mine for impelling me to represent the unhappy consequences which the present system must entail upon our beloved child. Is it possible, Sir, that any one can have attempted to persuade your Royal Highness, that her character will not be injured by the perpetual violence offered to her strongest affections-the studied care taken to estrange her from my society, and even to interrupt all communication between us? That her love to me, with whom, by his Majesty's wise and gracious arrangements, she passed the years of her infancy and childhood, never can be extinguished, I well know, and the knowledge of it forms the greatest blessing of my existence. But let me implore your Royal Highness to reflect how inevitably all attempts to abate this attachment, by forcibly separating us, if they succeed, must injure my child's principles-if they fail, must destroy her happiness. The plan of excluding my daughter from all intercourse with the world, appears to my humble judgment peculiarly unfortunate. She who is destined to be the sovereign of this great country, enjoys none of those advantages of society which are deemed necessary for imparting a knowledge of mankind to persons who have infinitely less occasion to learn that important lesson: and it may so happen, by a chance which I trust is very remote, that she should be called upon to exercise Mr. Bennet declared, that whenever the gallery was cleared, he should persist in moving an adjournment; and he now again moved that the House should adjourn. Mr. Yorke expressed his regret that the the powers of the crown, with an experience of the world more confined than that of the most private individual. To the extraordinary talents with which she is blessed, and which accompany a disposition so singularly amiable, frank, and decided, I willingly trust much; but beyond a certain point the greatest natural endowments cannot struggle against the disadvantages of circumstances and situation. It is my earnest prayer, for her own sake as well as her country's, that your Royal Highness may be induced to pause before this point be reached. Those who have advised you, Sir, to delay so long the period of my daughter's commencing her intercourse with the world, and for that purpose to make Windsor her residence, appear not to have regarded the interruptions to her education which this arrangement occa sions; both by the impossibility of obtaining the attendance of proper teachers, and the time unavoidably consumed in the frequent journies to town, which she must make, unless she is to be secluded from all intercourse, even with your Royal Highness and the rest of the royal family. To the same unfortunate counsels I ascribe a circumstance in every way so distressing both to my parental and religious feelings, that my daughter has never yet enjoyed the benefit of confirmation, although above a year older than the age at which all the other branches of the royal family have partaken of that solemnity. May I ear nestly conjure you, Sir, to hear my intreaties upon this serious matter, even if you should listen to other advisers on things of less near concernment to the welfare of our child? The pain with which I have at length formed the resolution of addressing myself to your Royal Highness is such as I should in vain attempt to express. If I could adequately describe it, you might be ena bled, Sir, to estimate the strength of the motives which have made me submit to it. They are the most powerful feelings of affection, and the deepest impressions of duty towards your Royal Highness, my beloved child, and the country, which I devotedly hope she may be preserved to hon. member should think it right to per-marked man, and was near having his sist in his motion, and thus impede the house pulled about his ears, for doing his progress of the public business. The duty in a similar manner. He did not heHouse, he thought, should mark its sense sitate to say, that unless the House marked of such conduct. He had once been a the enforcement of the standing order as govern, and to shew by a new example the liberal affection of a free and gene. rous people to a virtuous and constitutional monarch. the conduct of her royal highness the Princess of Wales; that these statements not only imputed to her Royal Highness great impropriety, and indecency of be haviour, but expressly asserted, partly on the ground of certain alledged declara tions from the Princess's own mouth, and I am, Sir, with profound respect, and an attachment which nothing can alter, your Royal Highness's most devoted and most affectionate consort, cousin, and sub-partly on the personal observations of the CAROLINE LOUISA. ject, Copy of a REPORT made in 1806, by the four Commissioners appointed by the King, viz. lord Erskine, (Chancellor,) lord Grenville, First Lord of the Treasury, lord Spencer, Secretary of State, lord Ellenborough, Chief Justice of the King'-bench, to examine into the conduct of her royal highness the Princess of Wales. May it please your Majesty, Your Majesty having been graciously pleased by an instrument under your Majesty's royal sign manual, a copy of which is annexed to this Report, to authorize, empower, and direct us to enquire into the truth of certain written declarations touching the conduct of her royal highness the Princess of Wales, an abstract of which had been laid before your Majesty, and to examine upon oath, such persons as we should see fit touching and concerning the same, and to report to your Majesty the result of such examinations; we have, in dutiful obedience to your Majesty's commands, proceeded to examine the several witnesses, the copies of whose depositions we have hereunto annexed; and in further execution of the said commands, we now most respectfully submit to your Majesty the report of these examinations, as it has appeared to us. But, we beg leave at the same time, humbly to refer your Majesty for more complete information, to the examinations themselves, in order to correct any error of judgment into which we may have unintentionally fallen, with respect to any part of this business. On a reference to the above mentioned Declarations as the necessary foundation of all our proceedings, we found that they consisted in certain statements which have been laid before his royal highness the Prince of Wales, respecting informants, the following most important facts, viz.-That her Royal Highness had been pregnant in the year 1802, in consequence of an illicit intercourse, and that she had in the same year been secretly delivered of a male child, which child had ever since that period been brought up by her Royal Highness, in her own house, and under her immediate inspection. These allegations thus made, bad, as we found, been followed by declarations from other persons, who had not indeed spoken to the important facts of the preg nancy or delivery of her Royal Highness, but had stated other particulars in themselves extremely suspicious, and still more so when connected with the assertions already mentioned. In the painful situation, in which his Royal Highness was placed by these communications, we learnt that his Royal Highness had adopted the only course, which could, in our judgment, with propriety, be followed, when informations such as these had been thus confidently alleged, and particularly detailed, and had been in some degree supported by collateral evidence, applying to other points of the same nature (though going to a far less extent) one line could only be pursued. Every sentiment of duty to your Majesty, and of concern for the public welfare, required that these particulars should not be withheld from your Majesty, to whom more particularly belonged the cognizance of a matter of state, so nearly touching the honour of your Majesty's royal family, and by possibility affecting the succession of your Majesty's crown. Your Majesty had been pleased on your part to view the subject in the same light. Considering it as a matter which in every respect demanded the most immediate investigation, your Majesty had thought fit to commit into our hands the duty of ascertaining, in the first instance, what degree of credit was placed in his hands, of moving an ad their ancient and indisputable right, gentlemen had better go home to their re-journment whenever he thought proper; spective counties. Sir J. Newport trusted that the hon. member would exercise the power which and that he would not be deterred by the threats of any man, however high in authority, from doing his duty. He also Royal Highness, or that she was delivered of any child in the year 1802; nor has any thing appeared to us which would warrant the belief that she was pregnant in that year, or at any other period within the compass of our enquiries. The identity of the child now with the Princess, its parents, age, the place and date of its birth, the time and circumstance of its being first taken under her Royal Highness's protection, are all established by such a concurrence both of positive and was due to the informations, and thereby enabling your Majesty to decide what further conduct to adopt concerning them. On this review, therefore, of the matters thus alleged, and of the course hitherto pursued upon them, we deemed it proper, in the first place, to examine those persons in whose declarations the occasion for this enquiry had originated; because, if they, on being examined on oath, had retracted or varied their assertions, all necessity of further investigation might possibly have been precluded. We accord-circumstantial evidence as can in our ingly first examined on oath the principal informants, sir John Douglas, and Charlotte bis wife, who both positively swore, the former to his having observed the fact of the pregnancy of her Royal Highness, and the latter to all the important particulars contained in her former declaration, and above referred to. Their examinations are annexed to this Report, and are circumstantial and positive. The most material of these allegations, into the truth of which we have been directed to enquire, being thus far supported by the oath of the parties from whom they had proceeded, we then felt it to be our duty to follow up the enquiry, by the examination of such other persons as we judged best able to afford us information as to the facts in question. We thought it beyond all doubt, that in the course of enquiry many particulars must be learnt which would be necessarily conclusive on the truth or falsehood of these declarations, so many persons must have been witnesses to the appearance of an actual existing pregnancy; so many circumstances must have been attended upon a real delivery, and difficulties so numerous and insurmountable must have been involved, in any attempt to account for the infant in question, as the child of another woman, if it had been in fact the child of the Princess, that we entertained a full and confident expectation of arriving at complete proof, either in the affirmative or negative, on this part of the subject. This expectation was not disappointed. We are happy to declare our perfect conviction that there is no foundation whatever for believing that the child now with the Princess of Wales is the child of her judgment leave no question on this part of the subject. That child was beyond all doubt born in Brownlow-street-hospital, on the 11th day of July, 1802, of the body of Sophia Austin, and was first brought to the Princess's house in the month of November following. Neither should we be more warranted in expressing any doubt respecting the alleged pregnancy of the Princess, as stated in the original declaration, a fact so fully contradicted, and by so many witnesses, to whom, if true, it must in various ways be known, that we cannot think it entitled to the smallest credit. The testimonies on these two points are contained in the annexed depositions and letters. We have not partially abstracted them in this Report, lest by an unintentional omission we might weaken their effect; but we humbly offer to your Majesty this our clear and unanimous judgment upon them, formed upon full deliberation, and pronounced without hesitation, on the result of the whole enquiry. We do not, however, feel ourselves at liberty, much as we should wish it, to close our Report here. Besides the allegation of the pregnancy and delivery of the Princess, those declarations, on the whole of which your Majesty has been pleased to command us to enquire and report, contain, as we have already remarked, other particulars respecting the conduct of her Royal Highness, such, as must, especially considering her exalted rank and station, necessarily give occasion to very unfavourable interpretations. From the various depositions and proofs annexed to this Report, particularly from the exa minations of Robert Bidgood, William Cole, Frances Lloyd, and Mrs. Lisle, your |