ed Royal. How many names have found their way into the calendar of Saints for deeds less truly meritorious than those of your Majesty! And, how then are we to believe the vile accusations put forth against you? How are we to believe that all this greatness of mind, all this nobleness of sentiment, were found in a per-1 son devoted to the most degrading of pleasures? Without more ado, we dismiss the vile charge; we say it is a base calumpy; we gather ourselves round your Majesty and think ourselves dishonoured for ever if we but for one single moment suffer ourselves to be suspected of want of devotion to your cause. We are prepared for every extremity: we look not at little points of difficulty or of danger; our determination is founded upon a general view of the matter: our hearts tell us that your Majesty will not be sacrificed, because we can see nothing to produce evil to you which must not necessa7.rily produce evil to ourselves. J According to present appearances, your enemies have two difficulties before them of equal magnitude. In the opinion of some persons, it would be less dangerous to those enemies that your Majesty should be convicted than that you should be acquitted. For my own part, I do not know on which side the danger to them is greatest. But of one thing I am very certain; and that is, that nothing will shake your Majesty in the love and admiration of the people, including, in the word people, the whole of the efficient part of the community. If the prosecution fail, new intrigues will be attempted; new endeavours to remove your Majesty from these protecting shores; even new calumnies will be invented; unless your Majesty reject every proposition of compromise, and resolve, at once, to enter upon the full and complete enjoyment of all your rights. It is necessary that I speak plain here in print, having no other means of communicating my thoughts to your Majesty. I like very much the greater part of the proceedings of the Meeting in Mary-le-bonne.— The noblemen and gentlemen assembled there have done themselves great honour, and all their intentions are unquestionably good. But, there is one part of the proceedings, which I view with great suspicion; not as to the motive; but as to the effect. To raise a fund to be presented to your Majesty, would, in my opinion, if the money were received, have a very injurious effect. It would seem to say, that your Majesty had a reliance other than that which you ought to have on the Justice of the whole nation. It would place your Majesty upon a footing with some oppressed private individual, who has not the power to carry on a contest with the Ministry, It would seem to be an abandonment of your own rights; which rights are clear and definite, and without the enjoyment of which rights, your Majesty must be in a state of degradation, whenever you cease to carry on a struggle for them. To accept will carry you successfully of support, doled out by a set of through ever danger, and cause Trustees, however respectable you to triumph over every onein themselves and however wor-my, there must be no abatement thy their motive, would be a in that high, dignified and great humiliation of your Ma- lofty attitude which your Majesty and a source of great griefjesty has assumed. to the people. You are the To accept of pecuniary support at the hands of Trustees, whoever those Trustees might be, would be as degrading to your Majesty as a similar act on the part of the King would be degrading to him. It belongs to the nation, and that, too, through the hands of its regular constituted authorities, and in the regular and constitutional mode, to provide for the maintenance It is an old maxim of poli- of your Majesty's dignity and ticians that power is to be main- splendour. By the side of the tained by the same means by King is your Majesty's place. which it has been acquired. To hold your station and your Your Majesty has gained your courts, as Queen, is your right; power over public opinion by and for this right, your Majesty your firmness and resolution; must contend to the last. Some by the loftiness of your charac- of the slippery sycophants; ter and your language. These some of the filthy knaves, who have given a tone to the minds have been at the bottom of the of the people, who feel as you machinations against your Mafeel; and therefore, to preserve jesty, are beginning to say, that that tone, your Majesty must "though the proof of some parts act as you have acted. It is not "of the charges against you may money; it is not houses, furni-"fail, still there will be enough ture, horses, carriages, liveries "proved to cause the Bill of and other outward and visible "Pains and Penalties to be signs of grandeur, that have "passed in a mitigated form, so made so many millions of hearts" as to render it improper for devoted to your Majesty. It is "such a person to hold a Court.” your own conduct; it is the con- I beseech your Majesty to pay fidence inspired in that conduct, particular attention to this.. It and by your language. You have is thought by these knaves; poured your own soul into the these cunning and precious breasts of the people. Creatures knaves; that, by thus blackening that never felt before have been your Majesty without proceedinspired and worked into feeling ing to any very violent act by your Majesty. And, there- against you, and by making you fore, to maintain this spirit which what they call a handsome pe cuniary allowance, the feelings for the result. Your Majesty is, of the people will be blunted; and that your Majesty, finding yourself of no public importance here in this great country, will very soon remove to some other, carrying with you the dirt that has been flung upon you, and leaving the field clear to your enemies. These knaves deceive themselves in this, their calculation; but I am uncommonly anxious to guard your Majesty against doing any thing that shall cause one single person in the country to believe, that any decision, however mitigated, would induce you to give up, for one single hour, the assertion and the pursuit of your rights. Every word you utter, ought to strengthen the people in the conviction that you will fulfil the solemn pledge given at the close of your letter to the King, which letter, your Majesty ought to be informed, has surpassed, in point of circulation, and probably ten thousand times surpassed, any thing that ever before found its way to the press. Your Majesty should be informed that it has been circulated through every avenue in this kingdom, from one end of it to the other; that it has been re-published in all the journals of France, Spain, Holland, Germany and Italy; and that, in short, the whole civilized world are in possession of your Majesty's just complaints, your noble views and intentions. This country is the centre of the civilized world. All man and woman-kind have their eyes upon your Majesty. They have seen your pledge and they wait in short, destined to be the greatest personage that the world ever yet produced, unless, what is not to be believed, you were now, when complete victory is within your reach, to stop suddenly short in your career in support of your rights, which are, in fact, also the rights of the nation. Your Majesty's glory will be of the true and sterling stamp ; it will not have been acquired by bad means; but by means the most honourable, the most praise-worthy that the human mind can conceive. You have not sought for it. It has been brought to you by the hand of persecution. There has been nothing ostentatious in your conduct. Your whole life appears to have been marked by an anxious desire and a never-ceasing activity to relieve the distresses and to promote the happiness of others. The charge of going to your chamberlain's bed to inquire how he was when he was ill, brings out the fact even from the mouths of your base accusers, that you went, also, to the bedside of your man-cook to inquiro how he was when he was ill! And this brings out the fact, that it was your uniform prac tice to visit, in your own person, every creature belonging to your family that was in a state of indisposition. That it was your uniform practice to inquire with your own lips from the sufferers themselves what was the cause and state of their ailments. That it was your uniform practice to sce with your own eyes that they had proper attendance and suitable accommodation. These detailed proofs of your rare humanity, of your unparalleled condescension and benevolence, of your matchless goodness and tenderness of heart: these have been produced to us by your calumniators. Had you never been accused of crimes the most foul, your bright virtnes would never have come to light. rents and children; it had been necessary for your Majesty to encounter hardships and perils yourself; and hence they should have drawn the conclusion, that, it was unnatural to suppose that your breast would be wholly devoid of resentment of injuries so outrageous as those they were prepared to Leap upon you; and still more unnatural to suppose that you would not feel a desire to incur some risk, to encounter some hardship and some peril, for the sake of a people who had shown so much attachment to your Majesty as that shown by the English people from the hour of your landing. Your enemies have calculated wrongly. and those calculate wrongly, now, who imagine that your Majesty is to be degraded and shoved out of the country by any thing that they can say or do. The whole of your life has been by your enemies proved to have been a life of real charity, and of tenderness towards persons in distress, such as never was before found in human being. In no one single instance do we discover a desire to make known to the world any of your good and gracious acts. Your Majesty has a monu ment of fame, raised by the hands of your enemies. Little did those enemies imagine what they were doing. They, calculating upon what is commonly seen in life, that great tender- Standing as your Majesty ness is rarely united with stern does, openly opposed to a and inflexible resolution; that faction which has involved this the tender bosom generally re- once happy country in every coils at dangers, and desists species of ruin and misery; a from the pursuit even of well faction well known to the known right, if, in that pur- whole civilized world; a faction suit, perilous consequences be upon whom the Spaniards, the involved: your enemies calcu- Neapolitans, the sound part of lating in this way were unable the French, every man in the to estimate the character of world that possesses or sighs your Majesty. They should have for, freedom, has his eye: standperceived that your extraordi- ing as your Majesty does opposnary benevolence and tender-ed to this faction, all the world ness of disposition was accom- has its eyes upon you; and thus, panied with zeal, activity, and by your enemies, you have been courage, equally extraordinary; placed upon a pinnacle more they should have considered conspicuous than that, to set the captive free; to cupied by any other human send him home to restore hap- being. In such a state, every piness to his disconsolate pa- act and every word is of con that oc a sequence. It requires more than PEEP AT THE PEERS. human wisdom and foresight to It is curious to observe what do or to say much in your Ma- hubbub this little work has jesty's situation, and to do or say made in the political world. It nothing wrong; but there is used to be thought, "that a one rule never to be departed "cat might look at a King ;" from; and that is, to do, or say, and yet, it would seem, that, nothing, from which any human now-a-days, poor Englishmen being can collect that your Mamust not venture even to pep jesty can, by any means, be brought to flinch from your at a peer! The Authors, or, noble resolution, expressed in rather, the Compilers of this your letter to the King. That useful little work have sent me letter is our Polar Star. To that we look; and on the spirit, the following letter in their de which that letter breathes, we fence. I should insert it as a rely for your Majesty's restora-measure of justice; but, I have tion to rights and dignities, so the further motive of gratitude; clearly your own, and so essential to the nation's honour and tranquillity. for, I have no scruple to say, that, in this work, I have purchased more valuable knowledge for fourpence; yea, for a single groat, than I ever before purchased, in all the books that I ever possessed, and those books have cost me many hundreds of pounds. My readers have often heard me complain of the con We are now, may it please your Majesty, in no sort of anxiety or uncertanity as to your Majesty's innocence of the foul charges brought against you. We know that you are as innocent as you were in 1806. The testimony now giving against you is more a subject of curiosity than of interest with the people. But, we look with great interest to the consequen-fused manner, in which the ces; and, relying firmly on your place, pension and sinecure lists Majesty's wisdom and resolution, we are full of hope, that those consequences will prove permanently beneficial to the people as well as to the throne. were made out. The difficulty, or, rather, the impossibility, that I experienced, was, to get together the whole of what one man, or one family, received. This is now done for me, as far as relates to the Peers; and most sincerely do I thank the laborious compilers. They very |