HER MAJESTY'S DEFENCE. Twenty-second Day, TUESDAY, OCTOBER Sd, 1820. Several of the Peers were assembled as early as nine o'clock. At a quarter before ten, the Lord Chancellor arrived, and prayers were read. At ten o'clock the names of the Peers were called over. An unusual number were excused on account of ill health and other causes. The Bishop of Bangor, by letter to the Lord Chancellor, stated, upon honour, that he was so unwell as to be quite incapable of giving further attendance during the present proceedings. The Duke of Hamilton was absent, in consequence of a fall, by which he had been so seriously injured as to be confined to his bed. Counsel were then to be called in, and the barristers and solicitors on each side entered and advanced to the bar. Mr. Brougham began to address their lordships in a very low tone of voice: it was with difficulty he could at first be heard; he said-The time had now arrived when it became his duty to address himself to their lordships in defence of his illustrious client. But when the moment which he had so anxiously desired had at length come, he felt the greatest alarm. It was not, however, the angust presence of that assembly that oppressed him, for he had often experienced its indulgence; neither was it the novelty of the proceedings that embarrassed him, for to novelty the mind gradually gets accustomed, and becomes at last reconciled to the most extraordinary deviations; nor was it even the great importance and magnitude of the cause he had to defend which perplexed him, for he was borne up in his task with that conviction of its justice, and of the innocence of his illustrious client, which he shared in common with all mankind. But it was even that very conviction which alarmed him-it was the feeling that it operated so zealously and so rightly which now dismayed him, and made him appear before their lordships impressed with the fear that injustice might be done to the case by his unworthy mode of handling it. While, however, other counsel bave trembled for fear of guilt in a client, or have been chilled by indifference, or have had to dread the weight of public opinion against them, he had none of these disadvantages to apprehend. Public opinion had already decided on the case, and he had nothing to fear but the consequences of perjury. The apprehension which oppressed him was, that his feeble exertions might have the effect of casting, for the first time, this great case into doubt, and turning against him the reproaches of those millions of his Countrymen now jealously watching the result of these proceedings, and who perhaps might impute it to him if their lordships should reverse that judgment which they had already pronounced upon the charges in the present state of the case, In this situation, with all the time which their lordships had afforded him for reflection, it was difficult for him to compose his mind to the proper discharge of his professional duty; for he was still weighed down with the sense of the heavy respon sibility of the task he had undertaken. He must also observe, that it was no light addition to the anxiety of this feeling to foresee that, before these proceedings closed, it might be his unexampled lot to act in a way which might appear inconsistent with the duty of a good subject-to state what might make some call in question his loyalty, though that was not what he anticipated from their lordships. He would now remind their lordships that his illustrious client, then Caroline of Brunswick, arrived in this country in the year 1795; she was niece of the Sovereign, and the intended consort of the beir-apparent, end was herself not far removed from the succession to the crown. But he now went back to that period solely for the purpose of passing over all that elapsed from her arrival until her departure in 1814; and be rejoiced that the most faithful discharge of his duty permitted him to take this course. But he could not do this without pausing for a moment to vindicate himself against an imputation to which he might not unnaturally be exposed in consequence of the course which be pursued, and to assure their lordships that the cause of the Queen, as it appeared in evidence, did not require recrimination at present. The evidence against her Majesty, he felt, did not now call upon him to utter one whisper against the conduct of her illustrious consort, and he solemnly assured their lordships that but for that conviction his lips would not at that time be closed. In this discretionary exercise of his duty, in postponing the case which he possessed, their lordships must know that lie was waving a right which belonged to him, and abstaining from the use of materials which were unquestionably his own. If, however, he should hereafter think it abvisable to exercise this right-if he should think it necessary to avail himself of means which he at present declined using-let it not be vainly supposed that he, or even the youngest member in the profession, would hesi tate to resort to such a course, and fearlessly perform his duty, He had before stated to their lordships-but surely of that it was scarcely necessary to remind them-that an advocate, in the discharge of his duty, knows but one person in all the world, and that person is his client. To save that client by all means and expedients, and at all hazards and costs to other persons, and, among them, to himself, is his first and only duty; and in performing this duty he must not regard the alarm, the torments, the destruction which he may bring upon others. Separating the duty of a patriot from that of an advocate, he must go on reckless of consequences, though it should be his unhappy fate to involve his country in confusion. He felt, however, that, were he now to enter on the branch of his case to which he had alluded, he should seem to quit the higher ground of innocence on which he was proud to stand. He would seem to seek to justify, not to resist the charges, and plead not guilty-to acknowledge and extenuate offences, levities, and indiscretions, the very least of which he came there to deny. For it was foul and false to say as some of those who, under pretence of their duty to God, forget their duty to their fellow-creatures, had dared to say, and they knew it to be false and foul when they asserted it-that any improprieties were admitted to have been proved against the Queen. He denied that any indiscretions were admitted. He contended not only that the evidence did not prove them, but that it disproved them. One admission he did make; and let the learned counsel who supported the bill take it, and make the most they could of it; for it was the only admission that would be made to them. He granted that her Majesty had left this country for Italy; he granted that while abroad she had moved in society chiefly foreign, inferior probably to that which, under happier circumstances, she had known-and very different, certainly, from that which she had previously enjoyed in this country. He admitted, that when the Queen was here, and happy, not, indeed, in the protection of her own family, but in the friendship of their lordships and their fami lics, that she moved in more choice and dignified society than any in which she has since had the good fortune to be placed. The charge against her was-that she went to Italy, and that instead of associating with the peers and peeresses of England, she took to her society only foreigners. He fully admitted that her Majesty had been under the necessity of associating with Italian nobility, and sometimes with the commonalty of that country, But who are they that bring this charge? Others might blame her Majesty for going abroad-others might say that she had experienced the consequences of leaving this country and associating with foreigners; but it was not for their lordships to make this charge. They were the very last who should fling this at the Queen; for they who now presume to sit as her judges were the very witnesses she must call to aquit her of this charge. They were, in fact, not only the witnesses to acquit but had been the cause of this single admitted fact. While her Majesty resided in this country she Courteously threw open her doors to the peers of England and their families. She graciously condescended to court their society, and, as long as it suited certain purposes which were not hers-as long as it served interests in which she had no concern as long as she could be made subservient to the ambitious views of others- she did not court in vain. But when a change took place when those interests were to be retained which she had been made the instrument of graspingwhen that lust of power and place to which she was doomed to fall a victim had been satisfied-then in vain did she open her doors to their lordships and their families; then it was that those whom she had hitherto condescended to court-and it was no humiliation to court the first society in the worldabandoned her. Her Majesty was then reduced to the alternative of begging society in this country as a favour, or of leaving it. She could not, by humbling herself, have obtained the society of British preresses, and must have sought that of other classes, or gone abroad. Such, then, being the circumstances, it was not in the presence of their lordships that he expected to hear the Queen reproached for going abroad. It was not here that he had thought any one would have dared to lift up his voice, and make it a topic of censure that the Princess of Wales had associated with foreigners-with some whom, perhaps, she might say she would not, and ought not have chosen under other and happier circumstances. Up to this period her Majesty had still one pleasure left. She enjoy ed, not indeed the society, but the affection and grateful respect of her beloved daughter. An event, of all things most grateful to a mother's feelings, soon ofter took place-the mar riage of her beloved daughter. Of this event her Majesty received no announcement. Though all England was looking towards the approaching event with the deep interest it was so well calculated to excite-though all Europe was looking at it with the liveliest feelings, and with all the knowledge of the interesting event which was about to take place-still there was one person, and one only, left in ignorance of the whole proceeding, and that solitary individual was the mother of the bride. All that she had done up to that time to deserve this treatment was, that she had been charged, and afterwards acquitted, of an alleged crime, and her perjured persecutors rendered infamous; and this treatment she received from his Majesty's servants, some of whom had risen in power by having made her a tool to promote their own interests. The Queen heard of the event of the approaching marriage of her only child accidentally; she heard it from a courier, who was going from this country charged with a notification of it to his Ho |