also declared, that the evidence did not rest upon the testimony of abandoned characters, but of travellers of all ranks, who had visited the places where her majesty had resided; and he positively denied, that up to the period of the institution of the Milan commission, which was dated in March 1818, although the parties did not go over until the August following, ministers had officially taken the least pains to collect testimony against her majesty. No servant of the crown had, up to that period, received instructions upon the subject; although undoubtedly they had communications forced upon them by the notoriety of the circumstances. The death of the princess Charlotte had nothing more to do in the way of influencing government as to the time of instituting the Milan commission, than any other circumstance. The reason why the investigation had not been taken up sooner was, that her majesty did not return from the long voyage till shortly before that time; and it was not till late in that year, that ministers were made acquainted with the whole extent of the charges relative to her conduct during that voyage. If any inquiry was instituted for the purpose of fishing and prying, whether any of the subordinate agents of government had acted contrary to their instructions-if it was wished to ascertain whether the country had, by this commission, been involved in unnecessary expense-he should be prepared to give every informa tion that could be required. At present he should only say, that the commission had been instituted on the report of a legal

adviser of the crown of high character, who had said, that if called upon to wind up the charges, and give an opinion on them, that opinion must be against the party accused. That person, at the same time, thought that such a proceeding should be founded on evidence, which could not be impeached, and which ought, therefore, to be previously inquired into. If the gentlemen opposite were to call before them Mr. Cooke and Mr. Powell, who had conducted the evidence, and were to examine them as to the injunctions under which they took the various depositions and examinations, they would find, that no precautions had been omitted, which the spirit of jus tice could dictate.

Mr. Brougham's reply was by no means satisfactory, and was singularly deficient in perspicuity

a quality which the speeches of that learned gentleman, whether argumentative, or declamatory, generally possess in a very eminent degree. Admitting that he had made in 1819 à proposition on the part, but without the knowledge of her majesty, such as lord Castlereagh had mentioned, he contended, that it was made under circumstances totally dif ferent from those, under which the government had adopted it as the basis of their offers to the Queen. When it was brought forward by him, the Queen was princess of Wales; the late king was alive and in perfect health; no apprehension existed of his death and of the consequent demise of the crown; such an event as the demise of the crown was not then contemplated; and surely there was a wide dif ference between covenanting not

to take up a future and contingent dignity, and abdicating that which was already in actual possession. In the latter case, the Queen was required to step down from her station, to give up all claim to its honours, to abandon the throne itself, to part with all her rights and privileges. This circumstance could not but affect an arrangement, which was to be made, with a person not merely expectant of a right, but, possessing one which she could not give up. To whom, then, was the delay to be attributed? To the ministers, who had suffered the interval between June 1819, and February 1820, to elapse without acting upon the proposition which had been made to them. That proposition, in fact, was nothing more than a suggestion on the part of her majesty's legal adviser that, if certain terms were offered to her by the government, he would recommend her to adopt a course, of which they should be the basis. But their delay was the very thing, which made it impossible that the terms could be accepted: for there was all the difference in the world, between the situation of her majesty in June 1819, and in Feb. 1820. It had been asked, why he (Mr. B.) had not gone over to the continent sooner : and why he had from the 15th of April, kept in his pocket the proposition he was charged to deliver? Now, he had never, for one moment, concealed from lord Liverpool the impossibility of his going to such a distance as Geneva. He had never given him the slightest reason to suppose, that he could be absent more than six or seven days from his place in that House. When

he set off to meet his royal mistress at St. Omer, his belief certainly was, that her interests, and those of the country, equally required, that the threatened investigation should not go on; not that he conceived she had any thing to dread from the severest scrutiny into all parts of her conduct (for the conduct of innocence dreaded no scrutiny), but because she was surrounded by all those dangers that a person can be threatened with, who had resided in a country, where, for six years, her life and her honour had been equally the objects of a conspiracy; and where witnesses could be bought for money to rake up, from every corner of Italy, every scandal that could be invented, or idle tale that malice and detraction could frame. His belief was also this that there were certain cases, which, from the mere odious nature of the charges that were to be adduced, and the abominable details of the accusation, would induce a person to pause before he ran into a trial, when, by an honourable arrangement, he might obtain all that his character required the other party to concede. He did feel, that if, by an honourable arrangement, her majesty could obtain terms which were consonant with her own honour (and others, no person could have dared to recommend her), and which would have obviated all idea of investigation, her majesty would have been justified in availing herself of them. And although, from the first moment of seeing her, he perceived that the negotiation was at an end; yet, after her first rejection of the terms, he continued, subsequently to her arrival in this

country, to recommend, and even to solicit, again and again, the renewal of negotiations, which might have prevented the necessity of the late inquiry. It had, however, been gone into; and, though her majesty had withstood its terrors-though she had come through it with that which nothing but the grossest injustice could refuse to her an absolute acquittal; yet it had been entirely owing to her majesty's own consciousness of innocence, that she had refused to listen to any terms whatever."I have stated thus much," continued the hon. and learned gentleman, "as to the conduct of the Queen. It is fit I should now discharge what I call a debt of justice to her. I know it has been invidiously and malevolently asserted, and most industriously circulated, for purposes which must be obvious to every man, that my expressed opinions of her majesty's conduct are not the same in fact with my own conscientious conviction. It is necessary, Sir, for me, with that seriousness and sincerity, which it may be permitted to a man upon the most solemn occasions to express, to assert which I do now assert in the face of this House-that if, instead of an advocate, I had been sitting as a judge, at another tribunal, I should have been found among the number of those, who, laying their hands upon their hearts, conscientiously pronounced her majesty Not guilty.' For the truth of this assertion, I desire to tender every pledge, that may be most valued and most sacred. I wish to make it in every form which may be deemed most solemn and most binding; and if I believe it not, as I now advance

it, I here imprecate on myself every curse which is most horrid and most penal."

The question being put, there appeared for lord Tavistock's motion, 178, and against it, 324; leaving a majority with ministers, of 146. The House did not adjourn till half-past six in the morning.

With respect to Mr. Brougham's speech on this occasion, we cannot but observe, that his explanation of the cause of the refusal of the terms which he had suggested

his apology for his own delayand his protestation in favour of the Queen's innocence, are all somewhat unsatisfactory. The terms which he had suggested in 1819, expressly provided for the demise of the crown; and yet Mr. Brougham could assert, that they did not contemplate such an event. He had the boldness to ask, why had not ministers proceeded in the negotiation between June 1819, and February, 1820: forgetting that he had received an answer to his proposal, and that it then lay with him to communicate with his client, and procure authority to act in her behalf. After he had received written proposals from lord Liverpool, he could not forthsooth impart them to her majesty, because he could not possibly travel as far as Geneva; what duties then, had he to perform, either in parliament, or at the bar, so so urgent as to make it his duty to neglect the most important commission with which any individual could be charged? As to his solemn protestation, it may be doubted, whether it did not strengthen, rather than weaken the rumours in circulation, with respect to

his own doubts of his client's conduct. A juryman must often say, "not guilty," when his moral conviction is quite the other way and Mr. Brougham, purposely, as it would seem, using a most circuitous mode of expression, while he formally announced what his judicial determination would have been, left his sincere belief, as an individual, still a matter of doubt.

The Opposition, having now made a trial of their strength, both on the expediency of originally omitting her majesty's name from the Liturgy, and on the general conduct of ministers towards her, made a last effort in her cause, by bringing forward a resolution for restoring her name to the public prayers of the church. This was done by Mr. John Smith, on the 13th of February; his motion was drawn up in these words: "That this House having taken into its consideration the circumstance of her majes ty's name not being inserted in the collects, prayers, and litanies of the church; and also the numerous petitions from the people, addressed to this House, complaining thereof, is of opinion, that under all existing cir'cumstances, it is highly expedient, that her majesty's name should be inserted in the said collects, prayers, and litanies, and that such a measure would greatly tend to remove the discontents that exist on that subject, in the public mind." Among those who supported it, was Mr. Wilberforce. This he did, chiefly from a consideration of the effect which the course recommended by Mr. Smith would produce on the popular mind. The omission, he said, was brought under public

notice every Sunday, and the wound, which might otherwise be healed, was kept in a state of continued irritation. Such an effect could not but be prejudicial to our church establishment, at a time when there were too many causes at work for its overthrow at a time when so many mischievous men were industriously employing every means for the destruction, both of our religious and civil constitution. He had been informed, that the Queen, whilst excluded from the prayers of the established church, was prayed for in most of the Methodist chapels. Nothing seemed so well calculated as the present state of things, for bringing into disrespect and contempt, an ecclesiastical system, sealed with the blood of martyrs, and from which the Dissenters themselves had derived all the advantages which they enjoyed. He would, therefore, guard and cherish, with redoubled earnestness, what was so sacred in itself, and was now threatened by so many dangers. Those dangers were rendered formidable, both by the pressure of the times, and the unceasing efforts made by the malicious to estrange the present generation from the religion of their forefathers. True justice, true dignity, and true magnanimity, did not in his opinion, consist in resolutely adhering to a measure, because it had been once adopted. If its abandonment was likely to confer a substantial benefit on the country, it became a magnanimous, as well as an honest, man to sacrifice his own opinion to the general interest. Let not the House conceive, that to yield to the present motion was to declare a be

lief of the innocence of the Queen. With him (Mr. Wilberforce) the innocence or guilt of her majesty weighed not a feather. Independently of any feeling upon that point, he would vote for the motion, because he thought that its success would go to tranquillize the country. Upon a division, the Ayes were 178, the Noes 298, leaving a majority of 120 against Mr. Smith's motion.

This may be regarded as the last great effort made by the Opposition in behalf of her majesty; and as the result showed, that their whole strength had been mustered on lord Tavistock's motion, the subject, though often alluded to on discussion, was not again made the formal topic of debate, except on one particular point of legal technicality, relating to a supposed infringement of the privileges of the Church of Scot land. On the 15th of February, lord Arch. Hamilton brought this matter forward. He stated, that upon the death of the late king an order in council, precisely similar to that issued in England, had been sent down to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. The order referred to two acts of parliament, on which it purported to proceed the 10th of Anne, and the 32nd of George III.-by neither of which could it be authorized: inasmuch as the former merely commanded the clergy of Scotland to pray for queen Anne and the princess Sophia, while the latter related solely to the episcopalians of Scotland. The order, the noble lord con tended, was therefore illegal, being an arbitrary assumption of authority in the religious worship of Scotland, over which the crown

had no controul: and accordingly it had been generally and universally disregarded. Two instances were then mentioned by him, in which this order had given rise to proceedings which merited animadversion. The first took place at a meeting of the Kirk session of Kirkcudbright, at which the sheriff of the county, his son, a colonel of yeomanry, and the clergyman were present. At that meeting, the sheriff and his son, agreed, that in compliance with the order in council, they should prevent the Queen from being prayed for. The clergyman, however, dissented from their opinion, and refused to omit the prayer for her majesty's name. The matter was then referred to the presbytery, who approved of the conduct of the clergyman, disapproved of the order in council, ordered the minute of the sheriff's approval to be erased, the parties to appear before them for reprimand, and the whole decision to be read in the church. The second case was that of another sheriff of a Scotch county, who was also a colonel of yeomanry. The colonel (Gordon) asked Mr. Gillespie, the clergyman of his district, whether he was a party to any agreement not to omit the prayer for the Queen in the church service. The clergyman replied, that he would act in obedience to the law of the land; and at the end of a sermon which he preached (remarkable for nothing but the propriety of its language and sentiments), after praying for the king, he said,

and bless likewise the Queen." For that conclusion the clergyman was on the same Sunday put under arrest; not indeed under at