SUMMING UP.

HL Deb 24 October 1820 vol 3 cc1027-95

Mr. Denman

then proceeded to sum up the Evidence on behalf of her majesty, as follows:—

My lords; under any circumstances in which it would have been possible for any advocate to be called upon to discharge that solemn duty which is now imposed upon me, I am sure it would have been quite unnecessary to request the merciful indulgence of the House to the individual who was to address them; but perhaps, my lords, there is something in the peculiar circumstances under which I now come forward, which may make it the more fit and the more necessary, that I should receive an ample portion of that indulgence of which I am extremely sensible that I stand in the greatest need. For, certainly, after the application made yesterday, and after the wish expressed by my learned friend, the attorney general, to postpone the evidence that he professed himself to have to call in contradiction to ours, until your lordships had decided, whether colonel Browne should be called or not, it would not have been unnatural to expect, that besides the solitary witness who has stood before your lordships to-day, there might have been a considerable mass of evidence to contend with—a considerable number of contradictions to consider; particularly when your lordships recollect, that almost the whole course of the cross-examination that has been applied to our witnesses, has pointed at such contradictions as di- rected our attention to the probability of adverse evidence being called, and therefore has kept our attention in some degree suspended, without that direct correspondence with the case proved upon the other side, which it would have been so extremely desirable to have had, before I had been called upon to sum up the whole of the evidence. My lords, I make no complaint upon this subject: considering the time that has elapsed, both in the proof against her majesty and since that proof was closed, and during the time that our own case has been going forward, I should have been extremely deficient in my duty to my illustrious client, if I had not paid the most constant and the most painful attention to the whole of that evidence. I therefore, with your lordships permission, without further preface, will proceed to make those observations upon the case, as it now lies before you, which have satisfied my own mind, which have satisfied the minds of all my learned friends, which have satisfied, I think I may say, the minds of the whole public, of the whole people of England, of all the civilized nations of the world, who are anxiously looking on, to see this great and unexampled spectacle brought to a conclusion, that her majesty the Queen has established a defence, which entitles her to a complete acquittal of all those charges which your lordships have permitted yourselves to try against the conduct of that illustrious individual.

My lords; I wish to proceed to this great inquiry with all that calmness and that deliberation and that absence of passion and of violence, which will lead to the complete investigation of truth; but it would be impossible to conceal, that during the course of those interlocutory contests which have existed between us, and in all that has passed in the course of these debates, there ma)' perhaps have been a tone and a temper, for which some degree of apology may be required—but which, I trust, will be found to require no other apology, than the enormous magnitude of the case, the dreadful consequences which it involves both to the individual and to the country, and the deep anxiety with which any advocate must feel himself almost overwhelmed, when he addresses himself to such considerations. My lords, we have been charged with making use of invective and declamation, calculated to captivate out of doors, and not to impress your lordships minds. I beg leave to say, in the first place, with respect to my learned friend, the attorney-general, who has sometimes felt as if we were bearing personally hard upon him—I beg leave most sincerely to disclaim all such intentions—I beg to disclaim every thing like an imputation upon his personal character or his honour. And, if I collected correctly what fell from him yesterday upon the subject, I almost imagined, that he thought that I could be questioning his veracity in what has passed upon this proceeding: I beg leave to say, that if any thing has fallen from me which could, by any possibility, bear such a supposition, or that if any man can suppose that to be my design, I most unequivocally retract it in the face of this assembly, and most sincerely ex^ press my regret, that any mistaken language of mine should have led to any such suspicion in any quarter. My lords, it has not been my object to give uneasiness; but I have felt it deeply. And it is impossible for any mind which comes with the right feelings of a man to the contemplation of this case, not to ask for the fullest indulgence for any thing that may have passed upon such an occasion; because it is impossible not to feel, that the illustrious client whose immediate interests are confided to our care, has been, perhaps I might say from the first moment that she placed her foot in this country to the hour at which I am now addressing your lordships, the victim of the most cruel oppression, and the most dreadful and irreparable wrong. My lords, that galling and degrading sensation has attended us through the whole of these proceedings: it must plead our excuse for any thing that may have been wrong and disrespectful in our manner. I trust I have said enough upon the subject; and I proceed to that case which it is my duty to observe upon.

But, my lords, while I have disclaimed, in the fullest terms, any thing which can appear like a personal imputation on my learned friend, I claim at the same time, in the amplest manner, a right to observe upon his whole conduct as an advocate in this proceeding; because, from the conduct of the advocate, we collect not only the whole impression upon his own mind, of the case he has to bring forward and the proofs he has to adduce, but we see something of the nature of the instructions under which he has acted, and much of the spirit of the prosecution which, I un- feignedly say, it is my learned friend's misfortune to conduct—a misfortune, for which no honours can possibly compensate him—a misfortune, which I see has, in a great measure, weighed him down in the course of these proceedings, and for which I certainly, for my own part, will say, that nothing should induce me to purchase such an office, with reference to any objects of human ambition—I speak of the office that is now imposed upon him, in prosecuting this Bill of Pains and Penalties, of divorce, degradation, and dethronement, against the wife of the present king of England.

My lords; in order to see what is the Proof brought forward in support of this bill, and how it applies, it is necessary to look back to the Charges which are brought against this illustrious individual. I shall therefore once more refer to the mode in which our Indictment is drawn up. It states, that her majesty, "while at Milan, in Italy, had engaged in her service, an individual, in a menial capacity; and that, while in that situation, a most unbecoming and degrading intimacy soon commenced between her royal highness and that individual; that he was not only advanced to a high situation in her royal highness's household, but that he was received by her royal highness with great and extraordinary marks of favour and distinction; and that she, unmindful of her exalted rank and station, and wholly regardless of her own honour and character, had conducted herself towards him, both in public and private, in the various places and countries which she visited, with indecent and offensive familiarity and freedom; and finally, that she carried on a licentious, disgraceful, and adulterous intercourse with the said Pergami, by which conduct of her royal highness, great scandal and dishonour have been brought upon his majesty's family, and upon this kingdom."—I am aware, my lords, that you are now upon the second reading of the bill, and that the single question that I am at liberty to discuss—certainly not binding your lordships to that question alone—is, the proof of these allegations, and the question of the nature of the evidence by which they have been established. Now, my lords, in the first place it is stated—(and every part of this is in some degree material, because the whole of the preamble goes to make out that complicated case which is complained of)—it is staled, and it is true, that this person was received into her royal highness's service in what may be called a menial capacity, and that he was promoted—it is true, that he received great marks of favour, and that several of his relations were received into the service of her royal highness. But then I really do think, that upon this clause, of which so much is said in the bill, where we are told of the orders of knighthood and titles of honour which were conferred upon him, through the agency of her royal highness, it would have been but fit and proper, that some evidence should have been given, that those titles were obtained by her royal highness. All that we hear upon the subject is, that at one period Bergami was without those titles, and that at another period he received them. I cannot tell why this should not be the subject of proof, as distinct as any other part of the bill; but there is no evidence upon this subject, except the fact, that she did, of her own authority, confer upon him a pretended order of Knighthood, which her royal highness had taken upon herself to institute, without any just or lawful authority. Now, my lords, I think we might have heard a little about the authority of royal personages to institute orders of knighthood; because, in the little inquiry that I have been able to make upon that subject, I do not find, that it is the exclusive privilege of reigning princes, but, on the contrary, that several orders have been established—many by persons of rank in France who possessed no sovereignties at all, and one by three brothers, I think three Italian merchants who were brothers, and who established an order of knighthood of their own, of which I do not at this moment recollect the name, but all this goes to show, that there is nothing to exclude persons, although not filling the throne at the moment, from instituting those orders of knighthood. My lords, I treat this part of the accusation with some degree of seriousness, because it is so treated in the preamble of the bill. This is one of the acts complained of as an invasion of the royal authority; but when an European princess goes, for the first time in six centuries, to visit the Holy Sepulchre, it does appear to me there is no great offence committed, if she, pleased with the enterprise she has undertaken, delighted with the novelty of the scene and the extraordinary circumstances under which she is placed, has taken upon herself to do what dukes of Orleans and dukes of Bourbon have done in former times—that is, to establish an order of knighthood for those who had attended her upon that occasion; and I can hardly suppose that this is to be pressed with any great degree of severity, though it is the charge against her majesty the most satisfactorily proved. I think lord Bacon says, that "princes make to themselves desires, and make to their hearts toys, sometimes in erecting a building, and sometimes in making to themselves an order." This illustrious lady, my client, made improvements, and added an additional wing, to the Villa d'Este, which improvements are understood to be in the most correct taste, and cannot form any subject of complaint against her, how much soever they may differ from some of those buildings which have been recently erected in this country. And with regard to the order which she is proved to have appointed, I do hope that that is regarded as a mode of swelling the charge against her majesty which ought not to be received with seriousness in this House, although it is stated in the preamble of this bill as one of the grounds of complaint against her.

Then, my lords, in regard to what follows, as to the indecent familiarities and adulterous intercourse, I think I may remark, that the real question to be tried before your lordships is, whether this adulterous intercourse has in fact taken place, and whether it has taken place in such a manner as to bring scandal, dishonour, and disgrace upon his majesty, and the character of the people of England. My lords, we certainly approach this subject under as many disadvantages as any defendant was ever oppressed with. Until the hour of trial, we had been left in utter darkness as to all the particulars of the charge against us. The opening of my learned friend, the attorney-general, is the first indictment, as it were, that is preferred against us; it is there that we are to look for that specification of the charges which was before refused us—not for a specification of the witnesses, for I think he named none—but for the specification of those charges which he undertook to make out in order, and to which our defence was to be applied. I refer, therefore, to the speech of my learned friend the attorney-general, as that case which we are to answer; and the only mode in which I can go through the answer to the case, is, by observing upon every one of the statements that he made to your lordships, and the mode in which he supported those statements by the witnesses who have appeared at your bar.

Now, my lords, the first statement—what I would venture to call the first count, or rather a statement of the first overt act in this charge of high treason—is what happened at Naples on the night of the Opera. And, most undoubtedly, there never was a series of facts opened by a counsel in a court of justice more likely to make a deep impression upon the minds of his hearers than the facts that were opened by my learned friend; not only as making it almost undeniably I clear, that there was an adulterous inter-course on the night in question, but also as shedding a colour over the whole of the case that was to follow, and as giving a character to every part of the transactions which afterwards passed between the individuals charged. For what was my learned friend's statement? He says, that upon former occasions the individual who is supposed to be the paramour of her royal highness had been accustomed to sleep at a distance from her room, and that he was, on that particular evening, by her royal highness's express desire, removed to a room very near her; that the boy, Austin, who had constantly slept in her room, was then, by her express desire, also separated from her. She returned, it is said, at an early hour from the Opera. Her maid, who happened to be present, detected her in a state of the greatest agitation; she saw her go to the room where she knew that this person was; and the next morning, it is said to have been discovered, that her royal highness had not occupied her own bed, and that the other bed had decisive marks of two persons having slept in it. It is added, that, on the following morning, her majesty was not visible at the usual hour; that she remained in her apartments locked up with this man to a late period of the day, and that several persons of rank who called upon her, were refused admittance to her presence. Then, as a consequence which follows upon all these facts, and which certainly is a most natural one, the conduct of this individual is supposed to have become suddenly insolent and overbearing towards his fellow servants, and impudently and improperly familiar towards the mistress with whom he is supposed to have been so connected. Such is the charge that was opened by my learned friend; and such are the facts from which, if they had been proved in evidence, I feel that only one conclusion could have been drawn. But, my lords, if it shall appear, upon looking narrowly at what has been proved and sworn, that no one of those important facts that can be contradicted is in fact true—if it shall be proved, that instead of her royal highness ordering the change of rooms, that was done by the master of her household, of his own authority, without her knowledge or consent, and to remedy the inconvenience that had resulted from the bustle of a new arrival on a former night—if it shall appear, that it was considered unsafe for her royal highness to sleep so near the garden without a man in that cabinet, and that consequently Sicard was the person who there allotted the bed for Bergami—if it should further appear, that so far from constantly sleeping in the room of her royal highness, and so far from the removal of that boy being a pretence for the purpose of indulging in licentious passion, her chamberlain had long before remonstrated against the propriety of his being allowed to remain so near her at night, the age of the boy being, not six or seven, as stated by the Attorney-general, but thirteen or fourteen—and if it shall appear, that in consequence of that remonstrance, a change had taken place before her royal highness's arrival at Naples—if it shall appear, that so far from returning early home from the Opera, that night she remained unusually late; that Demont, instead of being-there, was actually sent for to witness this supposed detection—if, instead of going secretly home, she was attended to the door of her room by her chamberlain, sir William Gell—and if, instead of being locked up with this courier, as is falsely said, to a late hour, she came down the next morning at her usual hour, according to the evidence of witnesses called to condemn her—if there is a total want of proof, that Bergami was missed at breakfast that morning, or was noticed for any thing particular by any of the witnesses on either side—and if it shall further appear, that no persons of rank were refused admittance, and that nothing took place to mark the conduct of either of those parties—then, my lords, I say, have I not a right to ask, that the single witness who is discredited by those numerous contradictions, with regard to all the nu- merous facts to which she can be contradicted—is it too much to ask, that her testimony should be doubted at least, if not intirely disbelieved, as to the two or three facts which rest upon her evidence alone, and admit of no further inquiry? For she says, that her royal highness's manner was agitated. Now, in the first place, there can he nothing more vague than that description; but, in the next place, are we to trust to the observation of one who has stated so falsely all the facts that accompanied this supposed agitation? Then, as to her going towards the room, that also rests on Demont alone; and as to the state of the beds, I submit to your lordships that the mode in which that fact is disproved, is sufficient to discredit the witness altogether.

My lords; it is my particular anxiety, even at the hazard of being extremely tedious, which I fear I must be to your lordships, to be perfectly accurate in every statement that I shall make, I therefore beg leave to refer your lordships, distinctly, and point by point, to the evidence which proves that all those allegations are false. If, through error, I should make one single mistake in the evidence that I bring before your lordships, I shall take it as a most serious favour, to be corrected, either by any one of your lordships who may detect such error, or by my learned friends, who, of course, will watch the statement that is made. The object is, my lords, not now to deal in general observations; it is not now to get rid of the effect of things by showing how improbable, how incredible, how impossible, they are; but the object is, to show distinctly, that, by reference to the evidence itself, and upon every fair consideration that it can receive from any impartial mind, not only is that important case of the Opera night at Naples not proved in the sense in which it was opened by my learned friend, but that it is expressly negatived in many points by his own single witness, and in many more points by those whom we have been able to call before you. Therefore I will take the liberty of stating, that the evidence of Sicard at page 566, and page 593,^* of the printed Minutes, goes to negative the fact of her majesty having made the change in those rooms; that page 594 will show that it was his act to put Bergami to sleep ^* See p. 364, and p. 405, of the present volume. in that apartment and not the act of her majesty, for the reason that he gives, namely, that she required a guard. The evidence of Mr. Craven, in pages 537 and 543, that William Austin had been represented to her majesty as unfit to continue longer in her room, and that he had actually, on some occasions in Germany, slept out of it. You will find it sworn, in page 700, by Carrington the witness, that he made a bed for Austin in another room of the inn than that of the princess, whenever the rooms gave him an opportunity of so doing, before he came to Naples. You will find, on the evidence of Mr. Craven and sir William Gell, in pages 535 and 551, that these gentlemen remained at the Opera unusually late with her majesty, and for reasons which cannot be supposed to be incorrect. You will find on the evidence of Demont herself, in page 219, that she was not there by accident, but was actually sent for, to witness all which can be supposed in that scene. You will find, in the following page, that her royal highness did leave her apartments in the morning at her usual time. You will find in sir William Gell's evidence at page 560, that he actually attended her royal highness to the door of her bed-room. Then, my lords, there is an absence of all proof, either that Bergami was missed at breakfast, or that any thing of that sort occurred to make it probable, that he was locked up with her majesty: and with regard to what follows, his supposed difference of conduct, his supposed assumption of consequence, from the favour to which he had been admitted, I adopt, in the fullest terms the observations of my learned friends—most undoubtedly that would have been the necessary consequence of the sort of intercourse that is imputed to have taken place. But, there is scarcely a page of the whole evidence that we have called on the part of her majesty, that does not go to negative the necessary inference from the supposed connection. My lords, if that individual had been indeed called to the embraces of his royal mistress, it is quite impossible that his manners should not have betrayed him; but we find, on the contrary, that from the first to the last moment of his being in her house, he conducted himself as a respectable servant to a mistress, kind and affable it is true, but who, in her affability, never lost sight of her dignity; that, from first to last, he was performing the duties of the station in which he was placed, first, in the humble situation of a courier, and next in that very confidential one to which he was afterwards raised. Much commentary and much criticism have been attempted upon the supposed manners of this individual; but I think the answer Mr. Keppel Craven gave, was quite satisfactory upon that point. I believe it was not taken down, but I heard it and it appeared to go to the whole history of that part of the case—" Were his manners the manners of a gentleman?" "I do not know what can be meant by the manners of a gentleman in the station of a courier: as a courier he conducted himself perfectly well, and when I afterwards met him at the table of her royal highness he conducted himself in the same manner"—always attentive, always respectful, always consistent with the distance of rank between those two individuals; but which had, according to my learned friend, the attorney-general, been effectually broken down and could never be repaired, if it was indeed true, that an adulterous intercourse had taken place on that night at Naples.

Now, my lords, as to the state of the beds, of which we have heard so much. At page 253, you will find it stated by Demont, that no person had slept in the little travelling bed, but that the great bed by the side of it had been extremely deranged and appeared to be very much tumbled in the following morning. Now, my lords, supposing that any intercourse took place between the parties on that night, one is a little curious, to know where her royal highness could have slept. It can hardly be supposed that she remained on the counterpane of the larger bed the whole of the night. It appears difficult to conceive that there should not have been some opportunity of repose taken. And, then, why not in that little bed? It could not avoid being disturbed, if that was so; but, supposing there was any improper connection between the parties taking place, it is utterly impossible that that precaution should not have been taken for the purpose of veiling that connection. And when this chambermaid states, that, for two whole months, the little bed never exhibited any appearance of being slept in, she states that which must on the face of it, be false; for it is utterly impossible that any woman, fogetting her virtue, but still having some regard for her reputation, should have avoided taking that precaution, to divert the attention of those in attendance upon her. If that was the case, Demont was actually in the secret. I say upon all possible probabilities, that fact is false, and that she who has been so contradicted in every other fact which goes to the making up of this case, is contradicted in the nature of the circumstances, in regard to this small bed, in which her majesty had been in the habit of sleeping before.

But, my lords, we have a little more as we advance: and when my learned friend, Mr. Williams, with the great ability he discovered, pressed her further upon the subject of the state in which this bed was found, then it was, indeed, that she held the very same language; adding only, that there was a pressure in the middle of the bed, but nothing beyond derangement, and that there was nothing, as far as appeared, that indicated any criminal connection. Why, my lords, it is utterly impossible but that my learned friends must have been instructed by this witness, as to what she was capable of proving upon this subject. Now, she does not state, in the first instance, any thing like a proof of a sexual connection having taken place upon the bed; and when my learned friends apologize for her not having done so in the first instance, in consequence of the difficulties imposed upon them by the rules of examination in chief, it is ludicrous to hear men of their station and ability setting up such a case at all. What! is there no means of setting up a casein chief? To suppose that they were not furnished with the important fact, if Demont would have sworn it, is perfectly inconsistent with all we know of the history of the human mind. But, on the third or fourth day of her examination when a noble lord puts that question to her distinctly, as to the state of the beds, having considered probably the glory acquired by Kress by that modest piece of evidence given at your lordships bar, on which I shall not fail to observe, stung to resentment by the recollection of the cross-examination, or induced by the hope of reward, she stated to your lordships a fact which I am sure you every one disbelieved; for then she introduces those stains upon the outer covering of the bed, which would convert a doubtful and suspicious appearance into a clear and deliberate crime—at the same time adding by way of cover for her modesty, that she did not know what they were, that she had never seen any thing of the sort before. However, she came then to State, what it would have been her duty to have stated in the outset, and what my learned friends would have had no more difficulty to have got her to state, if the facts had been true, than they had in getting out the insignificant facts. Then, for the first time, she thinks fit to fix her mistress with the clear proof of crime, which she had not sworn to before. It is in page 362 of the Minutes, that this extraordinary statement appears.^*

My lords; supposing that Demont's evidence was as clear and unsuspicious in its manner as it is the contrary, still I say, that when a witness deposes to facts which, if they existed, could be only in her own knowledge, and is contradicted by facts in the knowledge of other females, it would be most preposterous for any court of justice to give belief to any of the facts proved by that witness in the first instance, or which she may afterwards bring forward for the support of any case. My lords, I do think there never was an opening made by any counsel in any court of justice, in which the evidence so completely proved the contrary in the course of his own case, and was so completely disproved by the adverse proof. But then, let us consider what is the effect of destroying this Naples case. My lords, the suspicions which have arisen in your lordships minds may be traced to a variety of sources. The numerous circumstances which have been opened by my learned friends, the numerous facts they have undertaken to prove, the numerous witnesses who have sworn to disgraceful and degrading facts—all these things, taken together, have produced that impression which it is impossible not to have seen existing in your lordships minds. After that case was proved, it had no less than three weeks to make its deep impression, and that impression it is which alone I dread; but that impression I am sure your lordships candid consideration of the complete disproof of the important circumstances against us will at length effectually remove.

My lords; in a publication to which I have accidentally referred—the Quarterly Review just published—I find such an admirable observation upon this subject, that I must beg leave to quote it— ^* See Vol. 2, p. 1211. "It requires more time and cost to repair an edifice, than to damage it; and certainly more zeal to defend the calumniated, than care to raise the calumny. An attack, if it deserves notice, is necessarily lively, and our attention is roused by that air of novelty it carries with it; but a defence can only boast the honest intention of carrying us back to the same place we had formerly occupied; and nothing short of a miraculous demonstration will so completely eradicate a false or an aggravated charge, as to leave no traces of it behind in the minds of those who have long received the erroneous impressions."

My lords; it is unfortunately too true; and in a case where female honour is concerned, the very existence of the charge is, in some degree, as great a punishment as if it was distinctly proved instead of being contradicted. The old adage, "Calumniando semper aliquid erat" was never more distinctly made out, than in this present case. The evidence of the infamous and diabolical persons brought forward against her majesty has had its effect; and although it has been disproved, I flatter myself, in a manner so satisfactory that no reasonable mind can believe any one of the particular charges adduced, still, the very unfortunate fact of their having existed, will leave punishment, will leave suffering, which no time, no reparation, will ever be able to remove.

My lords; the case at Naples, to which I have already referred, and which is supposed to be the root of all the evil that followed, was thus summed up by my learned friend, the solicitor-general—"Upon the following morning, after she was dressed, she retired into the small cabinet, and remained there for the period of an hour and a half." ^* My lords, of that fact I just observe, in passing, that there is no proof whatever. My lords, in the summing-up there was also this expression, "No man who hears me, can, fairly exercising his understanding, entertain a doubt as to the fact of adultery; that adultery was committed on that night; and that this was the commencement of an adulterous intercouse, between the parties." † Now, my lords, I do feel that it is impossible to replace me on the ground which I formerly occupied. Although this story is more ^* See Vol. 2, p. 1351. † Ibid. p. 1349. completely refuted than any story ever brought to impose upon a court of justice, yet the impression in some degree, remains; and when I see the effect of minds labouring under their fresh impressions, dwelling upon that faith which has been built upon a series of circumstances, all but one of which is disproved, but the want of disproof of that one still appearing to sanction the faith so improperly excited—I feel the utmost horror at the effect existing in your lordships minds, even from that story which, I flatter myself, is entirely disbelieved by you.

My lords; there are other charges to which I shall now refer; and the second count, as I shall call it, is what passed at the masked ball when the king of Naples was entertained by her royal highness. Here, also, is a statement raising a presumption of guilt. "Her royal highness," says my learned friend, the attorney-general, "retired into a room with Bergami alone, for three quarters of an hour, while her dress was changed, keeping her maid in the anti-room, which dress was most disgusting. She afterwards attired herself in the dress of a Turkish peasant, and Bergami, attired in a similar dress, accompanied her majesty in that disguise to this entertainment; but he did not remain long at this place; be returned alone, apparently mortified from some circumstance which probably bad occurred at that entertainment. Her majesty returned, and pressed him to go again with her; but he declined. Her majesty was much disappointed at this, and returned alone to the ball." ^* My lords, was there ever any thing more effectually disproved than this? In the first place, it is utterly incredible that this illustrious lady, if she had wished to retire from that ball, could have done so without being missed by all the company; it could have been proved by every one present. But, if she had wished to retire with her chamberlain for three quarters of an hour for criminal purposes, is it to be believed she would take her chamber-maid with her to the door, keeping her in an anti-room, to witness the fact of her so retiring? We cannot disprove that Demont went up stairs with her royal highness, and that her royal highness went into the room with Bergami, because Demont states, that nobody else was there. It was ut- ^* See Vol. P. 749. terly impossible for us to enter into a dispute upon that subject; because she is the only person who states this. If her story is true, there is nobody to confirm it; and if it is false, there is nobody to contradict her. And yet we are told, on the other side, "then why do not you cross-examine the witnesses more; why do not you enter into particulars which will enable you-to show, cither that the facts stated by them were false, or that there are other facts which render the matter innocent?" My lords, can any thing be more unreasonable than such a call? We say, and we prove, that she is a witness who comes to state that which is untrue. Are we to ask her to more facts? We know she has come here to deceive us; and the more we inquire of her, the more we shall be deceived; unless indeedf—which is not to be supposed after three years rehearsal—we shall find her so bungling in her story as to forget the facts.

My lords; I remember having a dispute with a gentleman, who related to me an anecdote. I said, "the fact is not so, and I have good authority for saying so."—"Yes," says he, "I know your authority; I told that gentleman, and I made the story myself, therefore it is clear I have the best authority;"—and it turned out, that he himself was the framer of the anecdote. And so is Demont the framer of this story; and as it is utterly impossible to trace it higher than the fountain-head, so the more we asked her questions as to the nature of her conduct and her evidence, the more facts she would have heaped upon us, in the ardour of her invention, to disgrace her royal mistress. But, my lords, it happens, that she is contradicted here in almost every essential point; for sir William Gell, in page 562,^* "I believe she had a very great number of attendants;"—which is the probability of the case. Mr. Craven says, at page 536† and sir William Gell at page 552†, that so far from being indecent or disgusting, the dress of her royal highness was extremely proper and modest. So far from any improper inference being drawn from her royal highness and Bergami wearing the same dress of Turkish peasants, it is proved, at p. 571,‡ that all the other domestics formed a group in ^* See p. 363 of the present Volume. † Ibid, p. 333, and p. 347. ‡ Ibid, p. 406. the same dress; and so far from Bergami retiring apparently mortified, of which no sort of evidence was offered, though the solicitor-general made it one of the topics of his summing-up, it is proved by Mr. Craven's servant, that he was walking about for his amusement through the rooms, and that he was seen serving refreshments, the same as the rest of the servants.^* It is at page 255, that that supposed fact of Bergami retiring with mortification ought to have been proved, if at all; but there is not a particle of evidence of that kind. Then, as a last resource, it was attempted to show, that, as a Turkish peasant, her royal highness had dressed herself in a manner not consistent with female delicacy, for that she had worn trowsers. Sir William Gell states how that was; that it was a simple petticoat, with a stitch through the middle, which did not make it approach in the least to indelicacy.†

My lords; there is another point, not expressly made a charge by my learned friend, but which goes to show the nature of the evidence brought against us; and that is the supposed walking arm in arm, in the garden at Naples, with a person in the situation of courier. What is the fact? In the first place, they endeavour to make it out by Majoochi.—He, at page 7,† says, that though it was Bergami's duty to keep the key of the garden, he never saw him and the princess walking in it at all. Demont, at page 255, is asked upon the same subject, and the answer she gives is, "I saw her once walking upon the terrace with monsieur Bergami;"—and being desired to describe how they were walking, she says, "The princess was under the arm of Pergami.§" So that the whole of this frequently walking in the garden, resolves itself into this—that he was once seen walking with her in the garden, and that they were arm in arm together. This is a most important observation; because it proves, that we have to deal with a witness who not only is capable of telling direct falsehoods for the purpose of blackening that character to which she has paid a homage, which she would be glad now to unsay, but that her principal artifice has been, to engraft falsehood upon truth, and to give to it a character which it has not. That is the most dangerous adversary with whom an ^* See p. 384 of the present Volume. † Ibid, p. 363. ‡ See Vol. 2, p. 808. § Ibid, p. 1118. individual can have to contend; and that is proved to be the character of Demont in every page of her testimony; but in no one more than in this; for it was she that has placed them arm in arm. The fact is, they were together in the garden, when there was some work to be done, or some trees to be planted. Her majesty was walking with Bergami in the garden when there were some Italian servants at work, with whom she could not communicate, and wanted the aid of an interpreter. But you have Mr. Craven and sir William Gell stating, that she once walked in the garden, and that one of them, Mr. Craven, thought it his duty to state to her royal highness, that she was doing that which was imprudent, because he understood there was a person sent as a spy upon the princess, and disposed to put the worst construction on the most innocent acts of her life. Mr. Craven's evidence will be found at page 540, and sir William Gell's at pages 557 and 562,^* and your lordships will find this important fact stated by sir William Gell, that the view of the terrace on which the Queen and Bergami were once seen walking, could be seen from every one of the surrounding houses. So that this supposed escape of two lovers into a garden for criminal purposes, turns out to be the walking of a lady in her garden, in the face of day, under the observation of numerous persons, and with an attendant for the purpose of giving directions in Italian to those labourers with whom she was unable to converse. Now, is it possible, my lords, for any incident to be more free from guilt? And yet this is one of the circumstances which this artful chambermaid has prevailed upon the attorney-general to bring before your lordships, as proof of guilt between the princess of Wales and her courier, when at Naples.

My lords; my learned friend, the attorney general, has told us frequently, in the course of this discussion, that he, indeed, has no particular anxiety upon this subject—that he has no personal interest to serve in bringing forward this case—that he attends by your lordships' command, and as the minister of substantial justice. I think, however, that my learned friend soon felt, in the course of this proceeding, that substantial justice was not to be attained, without the manly contention of adverse parties; and he assum- ^* See pages 342, 353, and 363, of the present Volume. ed, in the outset of the proceeding, that plain, intelligible attitude of contest which one likes to meet with, which one knows how to deal with, and which does honour to the individual who carries it through with skill, dexterity, and boldness. More skill and dexterity than have been witnessed in this case I have never witnessed. The most starving attorney who, for the sake of his miserable costs, brings the most paltry and most pitiful action to the consideration of an indignant jury for an assault and battery, never yet obtained a counsel who carried, thro ugh his case with 60 much skill, so much dexterity, so much management and manœuvring, as have been displayed on the part of the Crown, in this greatest of all criminal prosecutions. I do not complain of it on the part of my learned friend, the attorney-general. I think that if the case is bad, the counsel who undertakes it has no choice. I impute it to his instructors and his clients, and not to him. I impute it to those false witnesses who have deceived himself and his instructors. They have left him no course but that indirect course of management and skill, which, I say, we shall be able to show in every stage of this extraordinary case. But when my learned friend, the solicitor-general, came to state the case to you, he, indeed, put it on rather a different footing; and when we thought we had been engaged in an equal struggle with antagonists at the bar, we then first discovered that they had been acting with all the dignified impartiality of judges—that they had begun their case with summing up what they should prove, and that they had closed it with summing up, not as advocates to impress the minds of your lordships, but as judges instructing a jury as to the propriety of the verdict they ought to give, upon the facts proved. And my learned friend, the solicitor-general, who takes such peculiar credit to himself for having called all the witnesses—every part of the evidence—which they thought material to this point of the inquiry—without regard to the influence or impression it might make, says—"We thought it our duty fully, fairly, and candidly, to present it to your lordships. I trust, that in pursuing this course, we have faithfully discharged the duty that your lordships imposed upon us. We felt we were not to make ourselves parties in this inquiry: we were acting under your lordships' directions; and we have pur- sued that course which I have stated, honestly, faithfully, and fairly to the best of our judgment and our ability.^*" Now, my lords, we are placed, I confess, in two very different situations, with regard to my two learned friends. Certainly, there is a considerable difference between an eager advocate on the one hand, and an impartial judge on the other. As I suppose we are to consider, that on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, they assumed one character, and on the other days of the week we are to meet them in the other, I do not know how the evidence will bear that out. My learned friend, the solicitor-general, after having stated that in which it is impossible to contradict him—after having thrown out every species of defiance to us, and stating, that those witnesses which we may be bold enough to call in our defence can do us no good, concludes with a sincere and fervent prayer—not only sincere, but which comes "from the bottom of his heart"—that her majesty may be able to establish her full and entire innocence. My lords, it is gratifying to hear that prayer so breathed, I believe it is the first that has been breathed for her majesty by any public officer who happens to be in the service of the government. I trust it is a happy omen; and I hope the granting of this prayer, which my learned friend must have perceived with much joy, as the case has gone forward, will be the first step to restoring her majesty's name to the public offices of the Church, from which it has been so improperly and so illegally removed. It is therefore necessary to deal in a different way with the observations of one who is so devoutly anxious to see her majesty acquitted, from those which may proceed from any other quarter; and consequently I think I ought not to leave this part of the subject without congratulating my learned friend, that the witnesses have so completely failed in making out the case which they were called upon to prove—in the words of Cicero, when speaking, not of a witness, but of another person,—"Nequa calumnia, nequa fraus, nequis dolus adhibeatur."—Your lordships have seen those witnesses, you have heard them—you have heard their testimony,—you have seen their countenances. For the last time, you have looked at that Demont, whom I take to be the origin of all this mischief—whose de- ^* See Vol. 2, p. 1345. clarations put her out of the case as a witness, and make it imperative on your lordships to look to the other parts, as if she had never had the impudence to come here, and depose to the falsehoods to which she has deposed.

But, my lords, the thirdcase—thethird count of this indictment—was not opened by my learned friend the attorney-general; but was thrown into the bargain by Demon t, and opened, therefore, by my learned friend, the solicitor-general, with a great deal of pomp and ceremony. It seems, that Demont has thought proper to state, that at one time, when leaving the door of the princess, she saw Bergami come out of his room, and come into the passage. It is of the highest importance that your lordships should see how that is proved. At page 251 of the Minutes, there is this statement:

"Do you remember ever seeing Pergami at night in the passage of which you have made mention? I do.

"Where was her royal highness at that time? In her bed-room.

"Was she dressed or undressed, or in what state? She was undressed.

"Where were you standing? I was near to the door of her royal highness.

"Where did you see Pergami? I saw Pergami come out of his room, and come into the passage.

"In what direction; towards the princess's room, or how? He was going towards the bed-room of her royal highness.

"What was the state of Pergami's dress at the time you saw him going towards the bed-room of her royal highness? He was not dressed.

"When you say he was not dressed, what do you mean? what had he on? He was not dressed at all.

"Do you remember what he had on his feet? Slippers.

"Do you remember whether he had any stockings on? I saw no stockings.

"Had he any thing on more than his shirt? Nothing else.

"You have said that the princess at that time was undressed; had she got into bed or not? She was not in bed.

"When you saw Pergami coming along the passage in the direction of her royal highnesses room in the manner you have described, what did you do? I escaped, by the little door which was near me, out of the apartment of the princess." ^{* *} See Vol. 2, page 1116. This was the account, my lords, given by Demont; but my learned friend's cross-examination, at page 317, drew out this further fact from her, that in making this escape, it was necessary for her to approach nearer to the individual who was coming towards her—that instead of running further from, she came towards him, and then went out at a small door which went up a stair-case.^* She never went back to see what became of him; and so put a negative upon the case. The answer is that just read to your lordships; and I submit, that supposing it to be all true, it is just as much a case to prove adultery between Bergami and Demont, as between him and any other person. And the very words she uses, "I escaped," leave the impression that her mind was pointed to that conclusion. There is positively nothing in it. I call upon your lordships to consider what state any individual is in, who is called upon to account, at the end of six years, whether Bergami might be in a passage, a water-closet, or following any of the servants of the family, or taking any other course he might choose to take in the night—I call upon your lordships to say, whether any thing could be more iniquitous against her majesty, than to prove that Bergami's bed was in a particular situation on a particular night? Can any thing be more barbarous, more like the infliction of torture, than to turn such a fact against her? Prove him to be in the bed-room of her royal highness, and then his absence from his own becomes comparitively immaterial, but can there be any thing more wicked than the course pursued on this occasion? This illustrious lady is to be convicted of adultery, and plucked down from the throne which she fills, because she cannot prove what Bergami was doing on a particular night, at Naples, or at Genoa—not, indeed, a particular night, for the night is not fixed. But, my lords, unless you choose to give effect to those two former cases, which are expressly disproved, and if they import into this meeting in the corridor that which is disproved in those cases, there is nothing in those two pieces of evidence which I have just read to you.

But, my lords, the evidence does not rest here; for if your lordships will turn to page 360, you will find that there, that evidence which is so contemptible and ^* See Vol. 2, p. 1158. imperfect, and which really is perhaps nothing, is made to prove a case against her majesty—at least a case of suspicion and of inference and of surmise. For how is it my lords? My learned friend the solicitor-general, on the 2nd of September, in his re-examination,—this woman having been examined in chief, I believe on the 30th, and cross-examined on the 31st of August—having had two days to consider how far the case was imperfect, and what circumstance was wanting to make something of it, my learned friend, in a manner of which I beg leave most distinctly to complain, thinks proper to proceed in a course which I undertake to say, would not have been attempted in any court of justice in this country. My lords, the rule in a court of justice is, that you have no right to ask a witness to any facts on his re-examination, unless that right is given by something which occurs in cross-examination. If you wish to introduce any new fact, you are to give the adverse counsel notice of it, that his attention may be distinctly drawn to it, and that he may cross-examine to it if he likes.—If you wish the Court to re-examine for you, you apply to the discretion of the Court, and the Court will judge, under all the circumstances, whether that discretion will be fully exercised in putting such a question to the witness. On this occasion, my lords, when I suppose our attention was diverted, when in the vast mass of evidence which has been produced, we were perhaps talking over other points, without any permission of your lordships, my learned friend suddenly takes the witness back to Naples, and makes her state, that the moment she had gone out, the door was locked, and the key turned upon her,—"I saw, that they shut the door"—"Je vis que l'on fermaitla porte."^* Then, if your lordships suppose that the princess and Bergami were the only two persons in that part of the house, it does become a matter of suspicion, that he was not pursuing Demont, but another person. It struck me with surprise when I read the evidence; and I am perfectly sure, that if my learned friend had asked your lordships to put that question, you, and every judge in Westminster-hall, would have refused it. For what is the consequence to parties? Here is a witness two days away, to consider the effect of that which she has proved. Why was not that fact asked to ^* See Vol. 2, p. 1210. in the outset? Will it be said, that the rigid rules of examination in chief precluded her being asked what was done with the door? Was it right that, our attention in cross-examination not having been called to this, she should be allowed, after two days consideration, to make a fresh case, by adding a new and important fact, as to which my learned friend had no right to examine her? What would have been the conduct of the Lord Chief Justice? He would have said, "if you ask the counsel on the other side, you may do it, they having the liberty of cross-examination; but if you apply to me, I must exercise my discretion upon the subject; and if I find that a suspicious witness has been five minutes only out of court with the power of persons conferring with her who may instruct her, I will not permit the question to be put." My learned friend, however, put the question—the answer came—and it was from that answer so given that this part of the case became worthy of one moment's consideration. I put this to your lordships as a specimen of the equal holding of the balance which my learned friend has displayed; and I leave it without further observation—my object being to pursue the facts as closely as I can.

Now, my lords, we come to that other fact—indeed, two of them—which I suppose we are to take as charges made of an adulterous intercourse. Bergami, indeed, was ill; but that appears to have been no bar at all to the sort of connexion imputed to him and the princess—When he is ill, he appears to be most an object of her attachment and affection—forshegoes into his room and remains there just long enough to permit him to enjoy those embraces which she is supposed to tender to him." And now your lordships are expected to believe, upon the evidence of that wretched discarded servant, living three years in the service of her royal highness and coming here at the distance of six years, stating no facts to which the shadow of a contradiction can be expected to be brought—your lordships are expected to believe, that this man is speaking the truth, when he says he was sleeping in a cabinet, and that her royal highness passed through his room to that of Bergami. And am I to ask what is to become of human life, if such evidence is to affect any human creature? Good God! there was a passage to which no interruption was offered—a passage known to all the parties, and which it would have been equally easy for any infatuated woman to have taken—but instead of that, she chooses to go into a room where a fire is burning, where a servant is lying to watch a sick man—a man who had just come into the family, and therefore not in confidence in the service—to pass him twice on the one night, and twice on the other, giving him the chance of detection, and not at all knowing but that that detection would have been made instantly public, the moment it took place. And thus a person who is supposed to be pursuing her violent attachment, still with the greatest caution, who is supposed to be throwing a veil over all that is improper, nevertheless passes through the room of this man at twelve o'clock (for he gives us the precise time)—and she is supposed to give the means of contradiction to this man! I really, my lords, do not know how to go on with such a case: but, however, it is not proved; because, it is opened by the attorney general, that her royal highness staid ten or fifteen minutes at one time, and fifteen or eighteen on the other; and my learned friend, apologizing for the distrust he must necessarily have caused by the statement, says this man overheard kisses.^* This man, however, when called says no, no kisses for that night. There are two or three kisses which he throws in afterwards, but he appears not to have been drilled to the statement of kisses on that night. He hears "whispering conversation;"† and when, to be sure, if the thing actually occurred, kissing was the more probable thing to have occurred than any thing else, he confines it to whispering, and will not carry his evidence any further. Now, my lords, with regard to this man Maioochi—if it is necessary to proceed further with him than to state the enormity of the story he tells, and the consistency between the instructions and the evidence he has given—one would first state, that he is expressly contradicted by Dr. Holland, as to the fact of his having seen him in the presence of Bergami, when he was dressing the foot of that servant. At page 6, he says, "The first time that I saw her royal highness was in the presence of Dr. Holland, who was dressing his foot."‡ To that point, Dr. Holland is asked, at page 618, "Do you re- ^* See Vol. 2, p. 751. † See Vol. 2, p. 808. ‡ Ibid, p. 807. collect the princess coming into Pergami's bed-room during any part of that illness?" The answer he gives is, "To my knowledge never."^* Then, my lords, how meet we here? As Dr. Holland must have been vouched by this man, that the story he told to my learned friends was true, why did they not take that opportunity of examining Dr. Holland, as to whether it was true. Whenever this man vouches another, was it fit that such a person should be left to his own unsupported testimony, and that he should be encouraged to blacken the character of the Queen, when he gave an opportunity of ascertaining the truth of the fact by vouching another person? and this after the undertaking which was given by my learned friend, that he would call all the witnesses, in whatever way their evidence might operate, whether on this side, whether on the other. Without regard to parties, with the most judicial and impartial care, we were assured, that every one of them would be called—first, by the king's ministers, who think proper to institute this prosecution; and in the next place, by those legal agents who conduct the business in this place. Here is a man telling a most improbable story—a man of the most detestable reputation vouches a respectable person, and yet that respectable person is never called. How came it, my lords, that Dr. Holland was not referred to, for every part of her royal highness's conduct, while he was not in her service? Surely his opinion was as much to be attended to, as that of a man in the low capacity of Majoochi. And surely these observations will equally apply to those persons who were in the service of her royal highness at the time this supposed adulterous connexion began. Would it have been possible to have concealed such a fact from her ladies of honour? and do not let it be said that they are bound to conceal it. Ladies of honour, appointed by her royal husband, had no duty so imperative as that of declaring the truth upon the subject. If they had been examined it is impossible this wretched case could have been brought here. And yet we are to be told, not only that we are to be fixed by the primâ facie case brought against us, but that my learned friends have taken the utmost pains to call every possible witness who could throw any light upon it, ^* See p. £24, of the present Volume. whatever the result of their evidence might be!

My lords; there are other contradictions to this individual, if it were necessary to go through them, which most undoubtedly make him a witness not to be believed for one moment. At page 13, he speaks of a secret staircase. And here again, is one of the facts of which we have just right to complain. If any one of your lordships were to be charged with any offence which happened six years ago, and which is to be established by the plan of houses, and the arrangement of the family, could any one of you tell me how those arrangements were at such a distance of lime, particularly if you were brought to trial without any specification of the places where those things were supposed to have happened? And such was precisely our situation until my learned friend let us into the secret in his opening speech. And, my lords, the greater the innocence, the greater the difficulty of giving proof of that innocence; for it is the character of guilt to guard itself with precautions; but he who is proceeding in the carelessness of innocence, entertaining no suspicions, would be deprived, in the most effectual manner, of the means of proving that innocence, by the absence of such precaution. The witness, Majoochi, says, "This was a secret staircase, which led also into a small apartment, but it was not frequented, people did not frequent it."^* Lieutenant Hownam says, at page 703, it was not a secret staircase, it led to my apartment. There was a door that went to the chambers of the servants, of the lower servants."† Majoochi then says, that Bergami "always sat at table with her royal highness at Genoa."‡ For the contradiction of this, I would refer your lordships to the evidence of Dr. Holland in page 619, Mr. Hownam in page 702, and lord Glenbervie in page 511, because that nobleman appears to have dined with her royal highness two or three times a week during her residence at Genoa, and it does not appear, that on any one of those occasions was Bergami admitted to the table. These things evince the determination of the witness to show himself a labourer worthy of ^* See Vol. 2, p. 813. † See p. 498 of the present Volume. ‡ See Vol. 2, p. 814. See p. p. 426, and 497, of the present Volume. his hire, and determined, like an honest man, to do the service for which he is paid; he, on three or four important occasions, swearing expressly to facts in which he is positively contradicted, and by which it is shown, that he is manufacturing that which he could not by possibility, know to be true, and which it is just as likely that he should, at the time he was swearing it, know to be false.

My lords; other observations occur on the testimony of Majoochi. I confine myself to those contradictions. But when the observations on that man's testimony are attempted to be got rid of by a few observations on his "Non mi ricordo," it appears material to remark, that the imputation is not on his forgetfulness, but on his remembrance. He comes to speak of periods, and plans of houses or things, which happened six years ago. That is the circumstance of which we complain, and we prove, that he does not remember them. And we prove, that when he states those facts, he states that which is utterly false; for that circumstances much more likely to be impressed on his memory, much more recent, had been utterly expunged from it. His non mi ricordos show, that he has not a perfect recollection; and I do think there never was any witness so entirely demolished by his own cross-examination. My lords, it is said, he is not contradicted: and contradicted he cannot be. Who is to say, whether he laid with his eyes half open when the princess passed through his room? The fact speaks for itself, and disproves itself. But, as to Majoochi, shall I call your lordships recollection to him, when he lets out to you by dribblets what he has been doing since he left the service of his royal mistress? The last answer is quite sufficient. I will read no more, but will refer your lordships to it: "What is the answer you mean to give upon the subject of your receiving money at Vienna from my lord Stewart, the British ambassador there? I remember to have received no money when I arrived at Milan; I remember I did not: non so:' I do not know: 'piu no:' more no than yes; 'non mi ricordo;' I do not remember."^* My lords, supposing that this man's memory is honest and is frail, what reliance can be placed upon such a memory, as to these stale transactions? But ^* See Vol. 2, p. 873. the supposition cannot be made. It is obvious, be his memory what it will, that his principles are infamous—that he has come here, as one of that conspiracy, which I shall point out to your lordships indignation, determined to ruin his royal mistress, and defeating himself by nothing but that contradiction of himself which he has thought proper to make.

My lords; I shall not go through all the particular facts stated to have passed at Genoa and at other places; for they are proved by Majoochi and Demont alone, and therefore I conceive it unnecessary; but this fact is not unimportant, that at the numerous places at which her majesty stopped by the way during her long journey from Milan to Naples-rat Civita, at Leghorn, at Rome, and at other places, they do not affect to say, that there was any thing particular, even in the arrangement of the bed-rooms of Bergami and of her royal highness. How was this violent passion to be gratified, at the moment when it is supposed to be at its height? It could not be in the day-time, when her majesty was living with her ladies of honour and with other persons, and in the night they do not attempt to give any information during the whole of that period—not a very long one, but an important one; because then it was, that this passion was supposed to be most alive.

I was going to pass over a very important part of the case; that is, the visit stated to have been made by her royal highness to the theatre of San Carlos. My learned friend, the attorney general, tells us, that "the dresses chosen by her royal highness on that occasion was of the most indecent description—of such a description, that upon her entrance into the theatre with those persons, Bergami and Demont, attention was generally excited; so much so, that they were received with considerable insult upon that occasion—I mean marks of disapprobation were shown by the persons present, insomuch that they were under the necessity of retiring, and they withdrew home hastily from that masquerade, long before the entertainment would otherwise have ended, in consequence of the observation her dress occasioned. Perceiving that she was discovered."^* Now, my lords, supposing this to exist, this Miss Demont, instead of speaking of an indecent dress, ^* See Vol. 2, p. 753. stated, that her royal highness had a large red dress, a domino extremely unbecoming, and wore a large hat, and that they were surrounded by a set of ugly masks, who made it unpleasant for them to remain^* Then, is there, my lords, any thing in it? But, when I am told by my learned friend, the solicitor-general, that this is not invention, that whatever observations may be made upon it, it is very clear that was the occasion of her royal highness's leaving the theatre, what is the conclusion to which that must lead? I beg to say, that I find no difficulty, and I believe your lordships will find no difficulty in saying, that it probably was invented, that it rests on the evidence of a witness entitled to no credit and no respect, and that she has misled my learned friend in the account of it, is absolutely clear, from the discrepancy between her evidence and the facts which they have stated as introductory to it.

My lords; the inventions of this person's mind are not easily to be traced. We hear that she talked about leaving the princess, because the family were in mourning, that she held out ideas of her soon returning, and that she gave false accounts of her own conduct. If we show contradictions in declarations she has made, and of the most important description, what is to be thought of her evidence? But then, say my learned friends—and the observation has been repeated by some sagacious persons out of doors—this cannot bean invention and conspiracy, because it has not gone far enough. I would abstain from travelling over the ground which my learned friend has touched, and therefore I shall only repeat this observation—that if the facts are proved, enough is made out; but, if on the other hand, we are told, that the facts are left short upon particular occasions, can there be the smallest doubt, that that has been done from cunning and management, and from a wish not to appear too eager, or to prove too much; and from a dread, too, that she might have been contradicted, if she had ventured to state facts that were in the knowledge of other persons. And there is one circumstance, my lords, running through this case, which makes that observation conclusive in favour of our defence. For when we hear of adultery resting on presumption and on inference, no doubt it must do. so ^* See Vol. 2, p. 1119. in a great measure; but it is not so entirely different from all other offences, that there is no proof of the corpus delicti, independently of such evidence. It may be made clear, independently of the proof of the actual fact; and then the question would be, who were the parties who committed it? It is undoubtedly true. Here you draw inferences both as to the facts and the individuals actually guilty; which is seldom the case in other instances, because, generally speaking, it is clear, that the fact has existed, and the only presumptive proof applies to the parties charged. But the fact of adultery is by no means difficult of proof, and particularly when it is stated to have taken place for two years under the observation of the chambermaid who is so willing a witness to depose against her mistress. My lords, she has talked at the close of her evidence, as if she repented of not having said enough on the subject of stains upon the bed; and it is perfectly impossible but that, during the whole of the facts that are charged to have taken place, if they had existed, such stains would have been susceptible of the easiest proof. This woman does not think proper to swear to any such fact. Why? Because there are persons who could have pointedly contradicted her upon that fact. My learned friends, in their desire to bring all the witnesses forward to elucidate the case, however the facts may appear, have the chambermaid who made the beds during part of her royal high-ness's residence at Naples, Demont making them during the rest of the time. Yet they never ask Demont as to the state of the beds or the linen; and this Annette Preising they never call before your lordships at all. My lords, if this case rested upon the transactions at Naples alone, I would not say one single word more; because I am quite sure, that while justice retains its name and its principle, it is a direct acquittal of the Queen. For, can your lordships for a moment suppose that those persons who have had the ransacking of every foul-clothes-bag, who have not disdained to hire the footmen and chambermaids of the princess, who have raked all the shores of Italy, and who have betrayed all the confidences of private life, who have told you as a matter of cross-examination the jokes which may have fallen from noble peers who have been summoned as witnesses at the table of cabinet ministers, who have called upon a noble lady to state here her poverty, her working for her husband, who to that husband has made confidential communications as to the conduct of her royal mistress, and then with astonishment and indignation has found her letters to her husband in the hands of my learned friends opposite-can your lordships, I say, for a moment suppose, that they who have resorted to such mean and filthy practices would have stopped short at producing such a witness as Annette Preising, if they thought that her evidence would have borne out the testimony of Demont? But, my lords, they have stopped at the very threshold of their case. They have the chambermaid, who could have proved those marks, and that person who made the bed during that' time', and they dare not call her. By this single fact, such a suspicion is cast on all that follows, that f am sure your lordships will look at it with the utmost disposition to find it false—that you will think that a case so got up, is so far from being entitled to favour and indulgence at your bands, that it ought to be scouted out of every honest court of justice, where an honest prosecutor can lift up his face, and where a man can tell you his motives for bringing such accusations, and can submit the whole of his conduct to that test, without which no justice can be done between man and man.

My lords; we proceed to Genoa. And there there is not a single fact against her royal highness, that is stated by any other witness than this man. Then we proceed to various places, to return to Sicily; and at Messina, at Catania; and on other occasions, facts are supposed to have occurred, which are to lead to an inference of guilt. My lords, at Gatania, there is a fact which requires observation; and I will take that as one of the facts opened by my learned friend, and will refer your lordships to that which is proved, upon the subject of what passed at Catania. It is supposed, that Bergami was locked up in the room of his sister, the countess Oldi; that the maids slept between that room and the room occupied by her royal highness; and that one morning, when they were later than usual in their room, her royal highness passed from the countess Oldi's room to her own, with her pillow' in her hand. My lords, this rests upon the evidence of Demont only; and it is quite remarkable to see with what caution she abstains from naming any one person to vouch her testimony. She says, at page 282, "At the time when her royal highness came through your room in the manner you have described were you alone in that bed? "I was up", "Was any other person in the room?" As far as I can recollect, my sister was in the same room with me.—" "Do you recollect whether your sister was up or in bed"? "My sister was up".^* So that here she does not venture to swear, that her sister had an opportunity of witnessing the same occurrence. She does not venture to recollect, whether her sister was up or in bed. She is doubtful whether that sister was in the same room at the time. My lords, I take that circumstance to be most decisive against the truth of the case. It appears to me to be so perfectly impossible that such a thing should have happened in the presence of one woman, and she not know whether it happened in the presence of another also, or that those two sisters could have been present, and she not distinctly remember it. It appears to me, upon the plain statement of the case, to be so perfectly impossible, that even if it rested upon other evidence than that of Demont, I would pursue it no further. There is no voucher of the sister, but a cautious avoidance of it. There is enough to make it doubtful, whether the sister was there. And it is remarkable, that this is the only fact in the whole of her statement, in which that sister's knowledge is called into question in the slightest degree. There is not one other particular on which the one could be expected to contradict the other; and that is introduced under such terms, that even if Mariette had stated, "I was not in the room," it would not have been a contradiction; for she does not state positively that she was there. Then she proceeds to tell, that her majesty looked extremely alarmed and agitated at seeing her—that her majesty looked at her as if she was convicted, and that when she saw her in the morning, no words passed as to the circumstances in consequence of the discovery made. But, my lords, it was no discovery; for the fact of her coming out of the room of Bergami could add no conviction to the mind of the chambermaid, who, according to her own story, must know that her royal highness's ^* See Vol.2, p. 1137. bed was deserted every night. This therefore is one of the mere inventions of this miserable woman, as to whom I shall not at present say any thing further, than that any fact vouched by her alone is unworthy a single remark; and I shall leave it without any more observations.

My lords; there are several other distinct facts which are opened by my learned friend. And before we come to the particular consideration of them, having now travelled through all those which rest upon the two main pillars of this respectable case, Demont and Majoochi alone, not even each vouching the other, and neither of them vouching any other person, we now come to other facts, in which we certainly do think it our duty to call your lordships attention most distinctly to the situation in which her royal highness then stood, and the kind of proof by which she is assailed. My lords, we charge, without the least hesitation, that she is now attempted to be made the victim of perjury and conspiracy; and I shall show to your lordships, in what sense I employ those words, and I shall show your lordships how justly they are applicable to every part of this case without exception. We proceed, my lords, to the Italian witnesses who, at so much cost and with so much zeal, have been brought over to this country for the sake of introducing a precedent unknown to it before, and dethroning a Queen, for supposed immoral conduct, when it is quite clear, that as a wife, she could not be affected by that immoral conduct, even if it was proved to have taken place.

My lords; the word "Conspiracy" seems to excite a sort of horror, as if it had never been heard of till within the last six weeks—as if it was quite new to I the history of mankind, and particularly to the history of England, that such a thing should have been ever attempted or devised—as if there was something so abhorrent to the character of all mankind in bringing forward a conspiracy, that all proof of adultery ought to be slight and presumptive, and that the mere imputation of it was sufficient, rather than suppose a conspiracy to have happened. My lords, it so happens, that since the time your lordships assembled, there have been two cases tried at' Guildhall, in which individuals have been convicted of the most extensive conspiracies—not Italians, but English—committed under circumstances the most flagrant, the most cold- blooded, and the most corrupt. The one was the case of a young lady of great respectability of connexion, who in the country had charged a young man with carrying her away, by the help of his relations, who are supposed to have laid a scheme for her abduction, and who carried her to a considerable distance, where, by threats and violence, they compelled her to submit to be united to him in marriage. This fact was told with a degree of circumstantial detail almost unknown in the history of courts of justice. It was told in a manner the most imposing and the most satisfactory; and no witness ever gave her evidence so completely with the concurrence of all who heard her, as that unfortunate young woman. She underwent an examination of above six hours; and at the end of the case, the Judge turned to the jury, and asked them, whether they could entertain the smallest doubt that that conspiracy was distinctly proved? I believe that no less an individual than Mr. Bankes, the member of parliament, was the foreman of that jury; and he instantly, without hearing the summing-up of the case, declared the unanimous opinion of the jury to be so strong and so clear, that to hear the evidence again detailed would be an idle waste of time; and therefore, with the fullest persuasion that they were doing the clearest justice, they pronounced, that young lady's evidence to be true, and convicted six or seven persons of a family I of a conspiracy. A new trial was afterwards moved for, on affidavits, which were encountered by other affidavits, and that new trial was refused. However, the whole of the facts were brought before the Court upon those affidavits, and some of the parties who deposed against the defendants, and particularly the prosecutrix herself, Miss Glenn, were indicted for perjury, in having conspired to accuse those individuals of a conspiracy; and it is only last week that her trial took place. She was convicted of perjury—her servant maid was convicted of perjury—after the fullest inquiry; and no human being now entertains a doubt that she was guilty of perjury, of falsehood, and of conspiracy, from the beginning to the end of the original case. But, my lords, that discovery came too late to restore to life one of the sisters of the young man, who had been accused, herself a defendant, who was convicted ofhaving joined with him in that conspiracy, and in pursuance of that conviction, confined for a long period of time in prison. It came too late to save their circumstances, or even entirely to restore their character; but I trust it does not come too late to operate upon the minds of every court of justice that may ever have to try a similar case, to convince them, that it is possible, that even the best and the most respectable appearances may be delusive—that speaking to recent events, that speaking to subjects on which the parties could not be deceived, they may yet deceive others—and that conspiracy may be successful for a time. But this was a peculiar case; this was a case in which a young lady was to defend herself, by some imputation on. others, from the circumstance of having run away with a young man. But, my lords, this is not the only case of conspiracy. We have them by profession. We have persons who make a trade of perjury. There are numerous individuals read, at any hour, to come and swear for five shillings to their possessing property to any amount, for the purpose of becoming bail for persons who may think proper to bring them into court. The fact is notorious.

My lords; another case, tried since your lordships sat here, is a conspiracy in respect of a man made a bankrupt on the ground of a fictitious bankruptcy, by persons who are in the habit of bringing forward false debts, and by a series of perjuries committing frauds on the honest creditors. I allude to the case of the King versus Cohen, decided a week or two ago. There was a similar case a little more than a twelvemonth ago, in which it appeared, that this was every day practice, and that witnesses might be hired—that they were doing but their ordinary daily work when hired to make those fraudulent depositions. The very same thing occurred a year and a half ago—a case in which I was concerned—where not less than ten persons were convicted and six or seven let oft"; and that was followed by another case, where I believe no less than 100,000l. in value had been gained of the merchants who were deluded by those who imposed upon them. My lords, this happened in England, where there was an opportunity of inquiring into their history, their conduct, and. their character—where there was nothing but the wickedness of conspiracy that carried it through, and where it was demonstrated, that such evidence was as much a matter of hiring, as any lodgings which could be taken in the west end of the town. Is it necessary to go further back on this subject of conspiracy? Do we forget that there was the case of Elizabeth Canning, who after convicting some unfortunate persons, was herself convicted of being the instigator and planner of the conspiracy, for the excuse of herself and for more vicious purposes? But, my lords, where is the popish plot? Is Titus Oates only the subject of a poem? Is it true, that during the same æra, when the then duke of York was doubtful whether he should renounce the wife whom he had married abroad, the daughter of lord Clarendon, when his friends were willing to assist him in getting rid of her—is it not mentioned by the count de Grammont, that four of these friends met together, and that three of them stated circumstances affecting her character for continency, and the fourth, that the last favour had been granted to him. No doubt can be entertained, that there have been in all ages persons who have been ready to gratify those importunate monarchs who have granted the greatest favours to the lowest places, and who have held out the hopes of reward, not, perhaps, by words, but by their conduct, to persons who would volunteer to serve them in those kinds of proceeding to which I have been now alluding. But is it not true, my lords, that in the reign of Henry the eighth, one of his wives was convicted of incest with her brother, because that monarch wished to get rid of his wife? That also happened in England—in a country where we hear with such horror the name of conspiracy. I do not make the application from former times to the present; but I say, that the facts against Anne Boleyn were quite as strong as the facts now proved against the Queen, and rested on evidence of a more respectable character. But, my lords, I need not go so far back as that fact. Most undoubtedly, in our own days, there have been some facts which savoured pretty strongly of conspiracy on subjects like this, and of which it was intended this illustrious person should have been long ago the viotim. We cannot have forgotten the inquiries in 1806. We cannot have forgotten that most properly, in consequence of certain circumstances which had occurred, there was an inquiry into the conduct of her royal highness, the effect of which was, to cover her accusers with infamy, and to raise jealousy and care in looking at any other case which might afterwards be presented.

My lords; it is well known, that in 1813, when it was the will of his royal highness, the prince regent, to separate the mother from the daughter, those facts were alluded to, which were proved to be founded in perjury; and, strange to say, those very individuals who had been her majesty's defenders against the charge, produced those who were to exclude her from the society of her daughter. My lords, was there no perjury there was there no subornation of perjury? If not, it was quite unnecessary for the counsel to enter that minute which I will now read to your lordships, and in which they thought it necessary to acquit a particular individual never charged, to pronounce a sentence of acquittal in his favour. This was very strange; for he was never charged with any thing of the kind. But at least, admitting that there had been subornation of a most base and wicked description, in February 1813, this minute of council is to be found—"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 so serious a nature to be passed over without observation. We refer to the words 'suborned traducers.'" Do they deny the truth of that expression? No. They deny its application to the party to whom it is supposed to refer. "As this expression, from the manner it is introduced, may perhaps be liable to misconstruction (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"—addressing this to the prince regent, and tendering this voluntary acknowledgment—"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 there is not the slightest foundation for such an aspersion." How it was possible for any documents to contain ample proof of such a proposition, I have always been at a loss to discover; but these documents are supposed to remove, that impression. I am sure I have no wish to cast it; but I quote this minute only to show that there; were "suborned traducers" known to exist; at that time, and that it was thought proper by the privy council of the prince regent to pronounce an acquittal in his favour lest he should be supposed to have suborned those traducers.

I think, my lords, we may approach this doctrine of conspiracy, without being supposed to introduce any thing very new into the history either of Italy or England; but most undoubtedly, if any individual should wish to get up such a conspiracy, and should cast round for a place where the materials to form it with effect could be most easily found, I think he would cast his eye upon that country where assassins may be hired—where a price is put upon an oath—where the superstition of the people has made them the instruments of every fraud and every kind of tyranny—and where the individuals when coming here, cannot be considered, as standing in an English court of justice, entitled to any credit at all; but particularly when, at the distance of six years, they come to state that which cannot be supposed to have passed in their minds; and, still more particularly, when there are such imputations cast upon them, from the knowledge that such information could not be given by them, whether true or false, without entitling them to that very reward in question the most likely and most able to repay them with interest for all the sacrifices of principle which they might make.

My lords; I ought perhaps to observe, that in the course of my learned friend's opening, there is another count, as to what happened at Zavouan, on the coast of Africa. There it is stated, that the bed rooms were the most convenient, that every thing was placed in a situation, the most suited for criminal intercourse—that Bergami was the only person who had the means of access to her royal highness's room—that the bed was of a large size, and evidently showed upon the following morning that her majesty had not reposed in it alone, but that two persons had slept there. "In any ordinary case," says my learned friend, "that fact alone would be sufficient to decide any person who had to decide upon it, that adultery had been committed that night."^* I know my ^* See Vol. 2, p. 779. learned friend did not cast those imputations at random. I know he was instructed to this point; and there was but one witness by whom he could have been so instructed. It is Demont—probably her written depositions taken at Milan. But she does not dare to state one single syllable of this part of the case. There is not the slightest particle of her evidence which justifies such an imputation. At Varise, upon the subject of which no evidence is given, we hear of adultery. Then we hear of adultery at Lugano. No evidence is given upon that subject. And here I complain, and have a right to complain, of the conduct pursued upon that occasion. I do not believe that there is any material witness from Lugano capable of proving any such fact. I do not dispute the word of my learned friend, that he has been so instructed, but I do think he should have paused before he made that application to your lordships, which gives a handle for persons who are willing to believe any thing against the Queen, to state that there might have been more evidence, if time had been given to produce it. All the circumstances connected with this case show distinctly, that there is not a witness capable of deposing to any fact whom it would not have been perfectly easy to bring to depose to it. And as to their pretence of a riot at Dover, and their having been driven back on the 27th of June, and not being able to come over here before the 7th of September, it is a little too much to call on any body to believe that statement,—always supposing that my learned friend had received that statement, but always denying that there can be a single witness who has not been called, and always complaining that we had not notice, that we had not a previous statement, that such witnesses were expected. If there has been any warmth in our address—any invective—our excuse is, that we were taken entirely by surprise; and I am sure that would form an ample apology for all our transgressions of this description. And with regard to what took place yesterday, we were certainly taken by surprise, by that most extraordinary application, upon which one word may yet be said.

Now, my lords, I do ask again—Was there ever an Opening so completely disproved by the evidence? Was there ever, in the memory of any legal man, so total a failure? Sometimes one is taken by surprise—one has not read one's brief—one is not prepared—our witnesses have not arrived.—But, can that be said for the failure of my learned friends? They have had their Milan commission—they have had their spies) through the continent of Europe—they I have fixed their own time—our prayers upon that subject have been overruled and refused. They have had a total absence of other business, at the period immediately preceding, to enable them to become acquainted with the facts. My learned friends are not so young in business as not to be able to state the case—they are not so deficient in powers, that they are not able to lay their case before the judicature. Quite the contrary. And yet they have entirely failed in making out any fact, between the arrival of the Queen at Naples and the circumstances to which I now refer, on which a charge can be made; and therefore it is with some degree of confidence, that I now proceed to make observations on the further part of that case, as it is disclosed to you. May I be allowed to say, that though we have some proof in England of what conspiracy and perjury may do, and though there is no country in which they would be so little likely to be successful as our own, there are some specimens of that laxity of conscience which grows in respectable persons who have to deal with such characters, and I should like to refer to a Roger North's Life of his brother, Sir Dudley North, a merchant in Turkey, in which he describes a number of his proceedings—how he used to see the judges before-hand, and tell them a little of his case, not to endeavour to pledge them to an opinion, bat asking them to dinner, and treating them with consideration—and how he always got the cadi to tell him what was fitting to be done, so that when the case came on, he was always prepared. And with regard to witnesses, he says, "Our merchant found, by experience, that in a direct fact, a false witness was a surer card than a true one; for if the judge has a mind to baffle a testimony, an harmless, honest witness, that doth not know his play, cannot so well stand his many captious questions as a false witness used to the trade will do; for he hath been exercised, and is prepared for such handling, and can clear himself when the other will be confounded." And hence he draws the inference, that it is much better to have a false witness than a true one. This, my lords, is as respectable a Turkey merchant as ever carried on business in that country. It is remarkable, that whenever our great dramatic poet wants a witness to blacken the reputation of an innocent wife, he lays his scene in Italy—he goes to Naples, Messina, or Venice. Whether it is Iago, Iachimo, or be it who it may, that is the scene from which he takes his witnesses; from that country where, speaking in plain language, they are used to perjured witnesses and forsworn persons. I would refer to the language in which Shakspeare has described two gentlemen of Messina. I do not know whether they were a Captain and his Male; but, what is very remarkable, they had a thousand ducats for the evidence they gave, to convict a virtuous and innocent lady of incontinence; and that evidence I am going to quote, in the words of a very dignified person, a model of official dignity, and he takes care to be very cautious in the language he employs. He is asked, "Which be the malefactors? '' To which he answers, "Marry, that am I and my partner." That was a mistake; but not a very unnatural one; for he was a commissioner for conducting the inquiry. But when he is asked the reason of those persons being kept in prison, he says, "Marry, Sir, they have committed false report; moreover, they have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanderers; sixth and lastly, they have belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust things: and, to conclude, they are lying knaves." Now, my lords, I have thought it necessary to copy this passage. I have often endeavoured to remember it, according to the order in which the gentleman expresses himself; for I never could find words more appropriate to my present purpose, than those which your lordships will find in the last act of "Much Ado about Nothing." But then, my lords, those two persons Gargiulo and Paturzo, "how very well dressed they were! how very much entitled to every respect that can be paid to gentlemen!" Why, my lords, they ought to be well dressed; for I never heard of any persons who were paid so well for the evidence they gave, and I think it not immaterial to consider under what circumstances they came to this country. Gargiulo was the captain of the ship—he would have sunk Mr. Flinn upon your lordships altogether, if it had not occurred to us to know that lieutenant Flinn had some command in this ship. Mr. Gargiulo has 750 dollars a month for the use of his ship, for the use of his crew, for the interest of his money, for the expenses which would result from the voyage; but he looks forward to the" uncertain benefits "likely to result from the employment of royal persons—he hopes for 6,000 dollars, but is disappointed; and Bergami is the person who disappoints him; and then he engages to come to England at a thousand dollars a month, which is an income equal to the income of a prince-cardinal at Rome during a whole year. But he comes here with a claim on the English government, with a claim of 6,000 dollars, which had been withheld from him; he makes his application to the English government, and it is by that circumstance they find out who he is. Do not your lordships imagine, that this man would think his claim was likely to be enforced with success in proportion to the evidence he gave against her majesty. My lords, it is idle to talk of impartial witnesses, in a case of this description. It is impossible that any man so circumstanced should come with an unbiassed mind to the investigation of this question. It is therefore absolutely necessary that every witness should stand clear of every imputation of bribery, and of every other description of charge. This man comes to your lordships bar, to do precisely that which was done by Demont, and so many other of the witnesses; that is, to add a falsehood to a truth, and to give to innocent circumstances the appearance of guilt and of infamy. My lords, is it really to be believed, that her royal highness when she goes on board the polacre of which we have heard so much, should let down the awning of that polacre in the day time, when she is sitting on a sofa by the side of Bergami, or sitting on the bed for the purpose of every thing like an improper intercourse—ray learned friend says, "to exclude the observations of the crew," but I say, to attract it. I say, if such an absurd proceeding was to take place when such a thing existed in her mind, there could be no mode more capable of making known what was passing; and my learned friend says that when that fact is accompanied with kissing and caressing, you may believe that fact to be true; but without that, the last inference could not be drawn from such circumstances. My lords, I say, these kisses and embraces were what the thousand dollars a month were given for—these are the statements for which the payments are made. Having got a frame-work of suspicion, in the ready promotion of this man to the office of chamberlain about her royal highness, and in her royal highness's condescending manner to all who approached her, these individuals thought they would try how they could add to the facts by those inventions. Then comes the nephew. Why is he to be called alone? He is to be sent out of the way, lest he should see this kissing and caressing. There never was so happy a prospect of a settlement to this family, as the payment of a thousand dollars a month to the one, and eight hundred to the other, for coming to state that, in addition to the lying under the tent, there were those familiarities going on betwixt the parties, which led to the belief of a guilty intercourse between them. Now, I ask your lordships, who know what the characters of nations are, whether it is possible to believe, that any Italian or Sicilian would have hesitated to make that deposition, in addition to any thing he might have seen, for the sake of a thousand dollars a month, and for the sake of providing for his nephew? I think I can almost tell the form of the letter he would have written—"You have only to come and say so and so—that you saw them sitting on a gun, with the arm of one round the other. You may marry and settle, and you are happy for life; and there is a prospect, as this will last for a year, of your fortune being made, or a foundation laid for it. Come to England with me; and as to the rest of the crew who might confirm the fact, they are no relations of mine; let them stay at home; it is not worth while to let them into the secret at all." My lords, I say that those twenty-two men who walked the deck ought to have been called—that if those facts are to be made the foundation of gross and wicked suspicions as to what passed under the awning on the deck in the Mediterranean—those indecent facts to which they depose, as speaking the character of guilt, ought to have been supported by some of those two and twenty men who walked the deck—more especially by the steersmen, who, better than any, could have spoken to them. And yet, not one of them is called to prove these facts. My lords, I say the absence of those men is criminal; that the silence of these men makes out the defence of the Queen; and that when lieutenant Flinn was the English person who managed the ship during the whole of the voyage, it was criminal of those who conducted this prosecution, to found any grave inferences on what passed, until they had examined lieutenant Flinn. What pretence is there for this? They say that her royal highness was sending away all her English attendants, that she might pursue her course with this man. What is the reason? Rumour and report, say my learned friends, sent them all away. I think it would have been proper to have asked these individuals themselves, whether they knew of any facts which created that motive in their minds. I. say, that every one of those persons who are mentioned as having left her majesty's service, ought to have been examined previously put of court before this process was instituted, and in court, after it was-begun; particularly as both sides were to be called, without any reference to the effect of their testimony. I say, that to mention these rumours and reports against her majesty, in the presence of the court, is doing an act of the greatest injustice, which no judge would permit. If a counsel mentioned rumours, the judge would say, "Good God, what do you mean by stating rumours and reports? If they rest upon evidence, prove it: if not, you have no right to mention them here. "They may be the offspring of that very malice in which the prosecution originates. The fact, in this case, is notoriously so. We know perfectly well, that from the year 1806 to the year 1813, these kind of imputations were constantly cast upon her majesty. And that very circumstance could not fail to produce in the minds of some a servile readiness to listen to such reports; and we complain that these rumours and reports, which became the foundation of the present proceeding, are now made the evidence of the truth of the facts. My lords, I say that lieutenant Flinn ought to have been examined on the other side, before any other case was brought; and I wish also to observe upon this, that he was a person who was introduced into the service of her royal highness, not because she wished to run away from the English, but because she wished to have Englishmen always about her—because, after her suite had departed from her, as they have actually accounted for having done, she was free from all impertinent intrusion, if she wished to be so. But, leaving Sicily with a Sicilian crew, she takes care not to leave it until she has applied to captain Briggs for an English captain to be the witness of all her conduct on board that vessel. Then, what becomes of that imputation of her wishing to avoid the English, and of the whole of the evidence being, as my learned friends would have implied, necessarily given by the Italians and spies who have appeared before your lordships in support of this prosecution?

My lords; her majesty went originally from Syracuse to Jaffa, and then there was a short journey performed by land; and on that journey one of the facts is stated, on which my learned friend finds this imputation of an adulterous intercourse. It is to be found, my lords, in page 23 of the Minutes It is in the evidence of Majoochi alone, and it is contradicted by the evidence we have called upon the other side. He states that at Ephesus, under some vestibule, under the ruins of a mosque, her royal highness, in that part of the day devoted to repose; had her travelling bed brought, that she sat upon that bed, that Bergami sat at her feet; and that they remained at that place a considerable time, all the rest of the suite being kept at a considerable distance.^* My lords, it is remarkable, that mademoiselle Demont, who must have known something on the subject, is not called; that Birollo, in page 148, is examined upon that subject, but that he had forgotten he was expected to prove it; and that neither Paturzo nor Gargiulo, both being with her, are asked to that fact; and Mr. Hownam states, in p. 705, that in that place, where the ruins attracted considerable attention, nothing of the sort took place upon that occasion. †

The Earl of Lauderdale.

—My lords, if it should be the wish of the learned counsel to retire during the course of the morning, probably this would be as convenient a season as any.

The Lord Chancellor.

—Certainly, Mr. Denman, it must be the wish of every noble lord that you should have an opportunity of delivering your self in a mode most consistent with your own convenience, and with the reservation of your strength. If ^* See Vol. 2, p. 820. † See p. 500 of the present Volume. you wish to postpone being further heard till to-morrow morning, I have no doubt that time will be granted; or if you rather wish to retire for a time, and return again, you have nothing to do but to express your own pleasure. Do you wish to retire for a time?

Mr. Deuman.

—If your lordship pleases, for about half an hour.

[The House then adjourned for half an hour; when Mr. Denman proceeded as follows:]

My lords; about the period to which I was alluding when your lordships were so good as to propose that indulgence for which I am extremely grateful, it occurred to her royal highness to carry into execution a design which she had long formed of visiting the Archipelago, Athens, the ruins of Troy, and the Holy Sepulchre; and on that occasion she hired a polacre in Sicily, which carried her out to Jerusalem, and afterwards carried her back to Italy. In the course of that journey, it appears, that she was frequently retiring under a tent; that she was living in a camp, that she was surrounded by her followers, almost like the native inhabitants of the deserts of Arabia; that she was reduced to great hardships—not hardships of which she wished to complain, but which rather endeared the kind of enterprise on which she had entered; that she was living on terms, I would say, of delightful familiarity with all those who were attending her upon that great expedition; that in the course of the day, after the fatigue of the journey she had performed on the night, she rested under a tent, and my learned friends, I think, have made it one of their cases of adultery against her, that under that tent she reposed on one bed, while Bergami was reposing upon another. My lords, this, perhaps, is one of the facts which illustrate more clearly than almost any other caution which I should wish to infuse into your lordships minds upon this subject; because it is quite clear, that the fact to which I now allude, may be stated in such a manner as to raise almost an indisputable inference of guilt; and yet I think it is clear, when the real truth of the case is considered, that for that suspicion of guilt there is not, in truth and in honesty, the slightest foundation. Her majesty was two days and a half in performing the journey. Majoochi tells us, that her royal highness re- posed under the tent, and that Bergami reposed there also—but other witnesses let us into the fact that the countess of Oldi was under the same tent, and the child Victorine was there also; and Majoochi afterwards tells us, that he and another individual in the service of her royal highness were constantly in the habit of taking their rest in another tent contiguous to that of her royal highness, and which commanded a view and a knowledge of all that could pass within. How long her royal highness travelled at a time, that honest witness would not fix his memory to recollect—it might be two hours, or it might be eight; but the fact is proved by the evidence of lieutenant Hownam, that she was constantly very much fatigued in the performance of that journey, that she required support, and that she fell asleep more than once in the course of her travels and performed them with a great deal of labour and fatigue. Under these circumstances, my lord, is it possible I should be called upon to argue, that this is not a case of adultery? Is it possible, that there can be one mind in existence so uncharitable, so uncandid, so unjust, as to adhere closely to the mere words in which a fact can be related, and to lose sight entirely of the bonâ fide meaning and intent of the whole transaction? I defy any one honest man to lay his hand on his heart and tell me, that he believes, that adultery was committed upon that journey by land. It seems to me, that I should but waste your lordships time by entering into any further particulars upon that subject; not but that some attempts were made on the other side to introduce other circumstances, but the failure of those attempts I take to my side of the account. It shows, that as the facts now stand, they were not considered sufficient; and it shows, that sufficient proof has not been obtained to warrant my learned friend in calling upon your lordships to come to that conclusion, that a guilty intercourse had taken place. "Were the beds regularly made? Were the beds regularly prepared?" is the expression of my learned friend the solicitor general, in leading the witness to the question. A regular preparation of beds is a regular preparation for the enjoyment of matrimonial intercourse. But it turns out, that though the beds were regularly prepared there were no bed-clothes, no linen They were made in' no sense in which beds can be said to be made; and these two parties, who are supposed to recline under this tent for the purpose of criminal intercourse, slept at a distance, the one pulling off her silk pelisse and the other his travelling coat; but all the remainder of their dress continuing precisely as it had been during the journey. Mow this Demont has taken great pains to state as undressing in the strongest possible terms—she has endeavoured to carry that as far as possible into the nature of the intercourse between two individuals who lay aside their clothes and go into the same place of repose, for whatever purpose; but, in the course of her cross-examination, it was perfectly clear, that the extent of undressing is no further than that to which I have alluded, and that the encampment was continued with as much innocence and as much purity as any persons have ever reposed with, even under the most separate roofs.

Now, my lords, we come to the polacre; and I assure your lordships it is with no small satisfaction that I approach that part of the subject; because I think it is most perfectly clear, that there is no more ground to suppose, that any illicit connexion had taken place before these parties entered on board the polacre, than there is for any one of your lord ships to suppose that any female of your family, whom you left at home this morning under circumstances which gave an opportunity of connexion, has therefore been guilty of such a crime. If the whole of the scenes at Naples were negatived—if the very foundation upon which these facts are stated to rest are proved to be untenable—if it is not only perfectly clear, that the imputations were made upon facts that do not bear them out, but that direct falsehoods have been uttered, and that the worst of all falsehoods has been perpetually resorted to of giving the appearance of truth to that which is known to be a lie—in that case I say, that her royal highness the princess of Wales goes on board the polacre without one single taint of suspicion, resulting from any thing that has gone before—I mean, my lords, as to facts that are directly imputed to her as crimes. I do not at this moment refer to that supposed inference from the elevation of one of the party concerned, on which I mean to offer my observations very fully to your lordships hereafter, observing at the present moment that it is impossible for you to consider those facts of his elevation and promotion, as alone sufficient to guide you in your decision; for if that had been the case, it would have dispensed with the whole of this inquiry—it would have been utterly unnecessary for us to have entered into the statement through which we have been travelling, and we should have been only wasting time unnecessarily, improperly, and indecently, by entering into the nature of that precise proof attempted to be brought before you, as to the adulterous connexion said to have taken place at Naples. My lords, I have a right to say, that if there is truth in argument, or justice in inference, her royal highness steps on board that polacre without the smallest suspicion of any thing improper having passed between them. What the conduct of her royal highness was, after leaving that polacre, I shall hereafter have to observe upon: but, if you are satisfied, that neither before or after her being on board this polacre, there is the slightest proof from which any one can draw an inference of guilt, I call upon your lordships to consider, whether, in this case of dethronement and degradation, in which the evidence ought at least to be clear in proportion as the punishment is heavy and overwhelming, you will be satisfied that, under such circumstances, the mere possibility of an intercourse having existed on board the polacre can make out that adulterous connexion, upon which alone I am calling upon your lordships to pronounce.

My lords; the encampment that took place on shore was not immediately continued on board; because her majesty at first, it seems, slept in the cabin, and the other arrangement of her cabins took place as it had done before; but, in the course of the voyage, probably very soon after the going on board, some of the horses or other animals, became troublesome below, and on account of this, her majesty thought proper, the weather being very hot, to take up her station on the deck. Now, I ask your lordships whether, if her majesty had been the blind victim of an adulterous attachment to this man, that could have been the course she would have pursued? Is it to be believed, that a trifling inconvenience of that nature would have stopped the tide of irresistible passion? Is it to be believed, that she would have withdrawn from his secure embrace, where no eye could witness what passed, and where nobody pretends to have seen any thing which reflects upon her, and that she should have transferred herself from the cabin to the neighbourhood of the steersmen, to the constant interruption of the crew; and if there, should have placed herself under what is called the tent? A tent! Oh, no! any military officer, if I run away with that phrase, would correct me at once, and say, "it is not that close and small chamber in which such acts can be safety performed." It is the awning of the ship round the pillar placed to receive it. It hangs loosely. There are two beds placed at a distance in this which is a large room, and the hatchway is always open—a fact let me again call your lordships recollection to, which was never opened, which was never stated in the examination in chief, which was discovered either on cross-examination, or I believe by a subsequent witness; because I believe Ma-joochi did not prove it all, but that important fact, that the hatchway was always open,; and that the party were all therefore sleeping as in a camp on the land, was suppressed from your lordships, for the purpose of making an impression not at all warranted by the truth.

My lords; we are told, that during the night these things took place, and that during the day this awning was let down. I really do not know how to deal with such a fact. If it is possible to suppose, in the first place, that two persons could at night repose innocently under an awning, what would their conduct be but that of challenging all mankind on board that polacre, by the mode of living that existed in the course of the day, and by exposing to the observation of them all, and to the suspicion to arise there from, the mode in which they frequently occupied those beds. It could not be for the purpose of adultery. The period during which this voyage took place, appears, I think, to be from the 20th of July to the 17th of August. During the whole of that period her royal highness was extremely fatigued with her journey—extremely annoyed with what she had undergone. Her personal inconveniences are stated by the witness, Mr. Hownam. It was absolutely necessary she should be attended by some person: and what person could attend her so properly for the purpose of protection, for the purpose of convenience, for any purpose whatever, to a princess residing in such an uncomfortable situation, as that person whom she had appointed as her chamberlain, to be in constant per- sonal attendance upon her. Her clothes are worn during the whole of that voyage. There is no situation in which she is stated to have been without them. There is only one night on which both of the parties are found to be sleeping under the tent; and they are at that moment perfectly clothed. My lords, if I were disposed to quibble—if I were disposed to ask for an Old Bailey verdict—I might successfully ask for it upon this fact, that there is no proof that these parties resided during the whole night under that tent; for there is no one who states, that he saw them under the tent, and the only proof is, that when they were alarmed by a storm, Mr. Hownam saw her royal highness coming down from the deck handed down by Bergami on the one hand, and Mr. Flinn on the other. I do not deny that it is probable that Bergami slept under that tent on other nights; but then it was on abed which had no bed-clothes, at a distance from that of her royal highness, and under circumstances negativing guilt. The light is continued, there is no mystery, as Mr. Hownam says. A most important observation is, there is nothing showing a desire to deny the fact. Her royal highness, an unprotected female, but the boldest of the party, wishes, on account of the heat, to remain on deck. There were two and twenty sailors constantly walking the deck. There were the steersmen and persons regularly continually passing. There was a constant liability to interruption; and yet the only period at which it can be inferred they were upon the deck at night is, that in which Mr. Hownam states, that the two gentlemen were leading down her royal highness, in consequence of the alarm that had taken place. But, my lords, in the absence of that direct evidence, we have a specimen of the mode in which this case is attempted to be extracted from the witnesses who came on the part of the Queen: and inasmuch as lieutenant Hownam, with the candour and the frankness which belong to his manly character, has admitted, that he believed her royal highness did sleep in the one of those beds on deck, and that Bergami slept on the other, we hear a triumphant echo from all parts of the town, and a triumphant murmur from my learned friends when the admission is made, and all that he believed and all that he admitted, both at the same time and at all other times, as to the conduct of her royal highness, is to be excluded from your lordships recollection, and you are to fix on that single and solitary fact, of his believing, that under that tent both these parties slept.

My lords; in what situation are parties accused to stand, if the counsel for the Crown, in a case of the utmost gravity and importance, are to make out their proof, by disgraced witnesses, by discarded servants, by miserable contradicted and discredited persons, come from God knows where, to tell your lordships that which they are paid for telling you! But are you to set up what is called a primâ facie case, to call for an answer, and are you from that answer to pick out a particular point of belief from the witness, and excluding all the other admissions and all the sworn facts of the answer so called for, to make out a case of a criminal nature? My lords, I believe it is quite unheard of in a court of criminal justice. The question itself, as put to Mr. Hownam, might perhaps have been objected to. The belief of Mr. Hownam is no evidence in the case at all. It is proper to be put to him perhaps; but only proper to be put to him as a mode of trying his credit; and then, when he answers that question in a manner to do him the highest credit, my learned friends take that point up"n which they found those inferences so injurious to the Queen, and so contrary to all the other evidence which captain Hownam has given. My lords, he says there was no mystery; and he says it was necessary the Queen should there have a protector. He says, that from that fact being necessary, he could hear of the fact taking place without discovering any degradation or any sin. And when your lordships consider, that during the whole of the three years through which his evidence has run, my learned friends have had an opportunity of sifting his mind to the very bottom, and of knowing from this private secretary all the secrets which belonged to the household of her royal highness during the time when this passion is supposed to have betrayed her to the very last of crimes, during the whole of that period, there is not one single circumstance that he states from which it is possible to infer that that crime was committed which they wish to infer by dismembering his evidence, and taking one part of his belief against his positive testimony as to all the rest.

My lords; lieutenant Flinn, who was not called by my learned friends as he ought to have been, was called by us; and I beg to bring him before your lordships under the circumstances in which he presents himself to you, not having been summoned by those to whom lie could have given the most material information. Residing in Sicily, without the smallest connection with the Queen of interest, of service, of office or correspondence, he sees in the public papers that these proceedings are instituted, and that they are to run over the course of time to which he can become a material witness. Does he wait for his hundred dollars a month, or see whether he can get as much as the mate of the Sicilian barge? He comes immediately to England, and, like a gallant and honourable man, he comes to tender his evidence to the Queen on facts more within his knowledge than that of any other person, and he comes to your lordships bar to depose to them to the best of his remembrance and belief at a time so distant as that to which he is examined.

My lords; it is quite, evident, that he has never been in a court of justice before, and that no individual who ever gave evidence in a court of justice did it with a stronger sense of the dignity of the tribunal before which he stood, and of alarm at the presence which surrounded him. Your lordships saw how frequently he gave answers which certainly he did not intend. Your lordships, and particularly the learned lord who presides, will recollect, that when he was asked whether those papers in his hand were faithful copies, he said they were, not meaning distinctly that they were, and a more nervous and alarmed witness I never saw, being at the time, I think, under some indisposition. Then, on the other side, he is to be asked as to his belief; and I think I will venture to say, that a more accurate evidence on the subject of belief was never given by any witness than was given by lieutenant Flinn; for he founds his belief upon the facts which he knows, and he thinks himself unjustified in stating any facts which do not refer themselves to his own knowledge. "What was the arrangement of the cabins when you went out from Syracuse to Jaffa?" Then he describes it. "Where did Pergami sleep on your return from Jaffa to Italy?" "I do not know. The Queen having gone up to sleep on deck, it was unnecessary for me in paying those morning visits which I was sometimes bound to do, to pass through the dining cabin in which Pergami's bed had been formerly placed. When I passed through that dining cabin to the room of her royal highness I know he was in his bed, behind the screen. Not that I always saw him. I saw him only once; but I frequently spoke to him and received his answer." I take upon myself to say, that a clearer account of his reason for knowing where Bergami slept in going out, never was given. And why did not he know where he slept on his return? Because he was not called to her royal highness to pay his respects, because she slept on the deck. Then he is asked, "What do you believe?" He states, that he has no ground for believing that Bergami slept under the tent, because there was that bed still there for him, in which he had slept in going out. But, was there no other distribution of the rooms on the homeward voyage? He says, none; it was unnecessary, the distribution had been already made, and I made no alteration whatever in it myself. Her majesty did what she pleased with regard to her sofa; but I, says the lieutenant, had nothing to do with that, and therefore it was perfectly out of my sphere to make any observations upon that subject. Then, my lords, I say, that this evidence is complete and distinct upon that point, and that when he is pressed upon the subject of his belief—a belief which may be founded on hearsay, which may be founded on scandal, which may be founded upon those rumours and reports of which we have heard so much—he is perfectly right, in my opinion, who looks to the facts he knows as the grounds of his belief; and, according to those facts, he would not have been justified in saying, he believed Bergami slept upon the deck. But I am not entering upon those points. No one can forget the mode in which that gallant officer was cross-examined. I do not undervalue the talents of my learned friend the solicitor-general; and I am the last man to undervalue that greatest of all legal talents, that highest exertion which the intellect of man is capable of displaying, that most important means of covering with a shield the interests of truth—I mean the talent of cross-examination; but, my lords, there are very different modes of cross-examining, according to the nature of the subject and according to the wishes of the advocate. I love to see the advocate who can drag the reluctant truth from its lurking place and show what the witness is most anxious to conceal, and show it the most when he is most desirous to keep it in darkness; but that sham-examination, that attempt to betray a man who is desirous of telling the truth into a confusion, taking advantage of that alarm in which he stands—though I have a great respect for the zeal which may be shown upon such an occasion, I feel a very inferior degree of honour for that mode of cross-examination, either in itself, or in its consequences.

Captain Flinn produces a paper just as immaterial to the case as the paper produced from Trieste yesterday, indeed, much less so. It was perfectly immaterial to the evidence of lieutenant Flinn, whether that paper had ever existed at all, or whether the facts which appeared upon that paper, which were only dates and places, had ever been set down upon it. However, thinking he is to be asked about that voyage, what does he do lately at Messina? He makes his clerk extract all the dates which have regard to her royal highness's voyage; he comes to England and he finds it so ill written and so ill spelt, that it is unfit to be produced in a court of justice; he therefore gets another person, the count Schiavini, to make a clear copy of that paper. It might have been as well in Sicily; it was perfectly immaterial to the cause. The dates were got from other witnesses; and the account got from him I do not believe varies from any statement by another. The dates were not part of our case. But then my learned friend, with his powers of mind, and with his great powers of countenance, and with his extraordinary promptitude in cross-examining this individual, certainly does betray him into a degree of inconsistency which, if the paper had been material, if it could have been an object to fabricate that paper for any purpose in the cause which might lead to a just suspicion, that it was fabricated for an object, but which can, when the paper is out of the case, lead to no such consequences. We know how often a brave man appears to little advantage in a court of justice—cedunt arma togœ—there is no case in which the gown has so great a superiority, and in which the brave man will, without any blame on his part, appear in a disadvantageous situation. But, instead of the parties being seen kissing upon a gun, and caressing in the presence of two and twenty sailors, and instead of summoning the captain and the mate to witness those indecent scenes which, if they existed, the parties would have been most anxious to hide in that night of which they had the complete dominion for their criminal purposes, no man can believe, after the evidence of lieutenant Flinn and lieutenant Hownam, that any of those indecent exhibitions took place which my learned friend opened. My learned friend opened, indeed, indecent exhibitions of another sort; and here again we have a complete breakdown of the evidence, that Bergami used to make indecent exhibitions of his person, to please her royal highness. That was the opening of my learned friend. What says Gargiulo? He played some apish tricks to please her royal highness. What says Hownam? That there was a consul on the coast of Africa pompous and strutting about in a way that excited laughter, and that Bergami once or twice put a cushion or two-under his waistcoat to imitate this man, and to play apish tricks to make the princess laugh. And this was the whole of the "indecent exhibitions" brought in evidence; and with respect to the facts of kissing and embracing—which are to give a colour to the connection supposed to take place under the tent, so far from it, I say the very reverse is the fact, that the just observation is this, that if they had intended to commit adultery on this occasion they would certainly have kept below, where they had a much better opportunity; and if they had intended to commit adultery on deck, they would have prevented any person seeing that they were under a closed tent in the course of the day—much more, they would not have done those acts which this captain and his blushing mate have stated.

My lords; it is not a little extraordinary, that this tent on board the polacre is the last rag of the case presented against us. And if we show, that the whole of what is stated to have taken place before and after it, is entitled to no respect, I ask whether it is possible for any human creature to believe, that in such a place an adulterous intercourse took place? On the contrary, I will ask you, whether, if those facts had been distinctly opened to you, without the introduction of the Opera night at Naples, without the familiarity in the garden, without the change of chess at the masked ball, without those facts stated by Domont and Majoochi, you would have permitted this case to be brought before you, and whether any judge would not have told a jury, that without antecedent facts it was utterly unworthy of investigation? My lords, we are trying the first subject in the country; and I beg there may be no miserable middle course taken—that you will not say, because there is no corporal punishment, loose evidence ought to be received, because the punishment is lighter. I say, the punishment is more severe; and loath as I am to appear before your lordships for a moment in a state of exaggerated sentiment, which perhaps my situation might excuse, and yours not go along with—I will yet venture to say, that I would rather that my royal mistress were trying at the bar like Anne Boleyn, for her life, than that it should depend upon your lordships to pronounce that sentence, of surviving her own degradation which is sought to be extorted from you by evidence like this. Much rather would I hand her to the scaffold, where she would have to lay her august neck on the block, with all the firmness and manly courage that belong to herself and her illustrious family, than consent to see her leave this country, or live in it a degraded and miserable outcast, the object of general pity or more general scorn, and one whom, though we could not but look upon as brought to it by the misconduct of others, we could but consider as one of the strongest evidences of the degradation of rank and the loss of female character. Therefore, my lords, I say, you ought to regard it as if you were trying her majesty for an act of high treason, committed on board that polacre, and I ask your lordships, thus viewing it, what would be the language of any judge to any jury, who should find a variety of false charges brought and rebutted, and the whole case which rested in impression upon those charges, confined to a single one that is supposed to have existed on board this polacre—what would that judge have to say to that jury, when he told them there was no direct proof of intercourse, the witnesses for the prosecution have not made out that fact, they have not even shown the parties together, there may be a probability and surmise, but there is no proof of the fact, but one of the witnesses for the defence has let out the fact that he believes there might have been that sleeping in the tent at night by these two parties, while at the same time he negatives the criminal intent, and gives the excuse and justification by the same breath—the judge who did not tell a jury that such a person ought to be acquitted instantly, would deserve to be impeached at your lordships bar for a gross and infamous dereliction of his duty.

My lords; am I to go to this bath—am I to enter again into the fables of Majoochi and Demont, who here, for the first time, speak of one another, and who, in vouching one another, contradict each other? The question is, in what room was the bath? The one says, in the one room, the other says the other; and the witnesses for the defence state, that the room where it was stated to be, was too small to receive it. It follows, therefore, that it was received in the cabin, and under circumstances in which your lordships will suppose that the chamberlain did what was right in bringing the water, and feeling the temperature of it. But it is impossible to suppose that he remained to see the bathing. Where the facts rest upon the testimony of these witnesses, they are good for nothing; and if equivocal facts are to be brought before your lordships as proving a case of this description, you will look to the negative facts which have gone before, and follow after it. My lords, for the making out the case of the prosecution, there never was such a witness brought into a court of justice as lieutenant Hownam was for the crimination of the party charged, if there had been a case against her. He joined her royal highness at Genoa, when the supposed passion was at its height. He continued with her about three years; leaving her, I think, at the Villa Caprili at Pesaro. During those three years my learned friends had an opportunity of torturing his recollection, from the moment her royal highness left her bedroom, till she returned to it; and though they endeavoured to prove certain facts by two or three masons, and three or four white-washers, and five or six discarded servants, they do not venture to put to him a single question as to any fact of that kind passing before him. He negatives it in the most distinct manner, and both he and lieutenant Flinn give the most pointed contradiction to those facts sworn to by Gargiulo and Paturzo, as to the conduct of the princess and Bergami on board the polacre.

My lords; we now come to the Villa d'Este; and here again we get into a charge. But before I notice it, my learned friend reminds me of an embrace supposed to have taken place at Terracina, when Bergami went on shore for the purpose of putting an end to the quarantine—a circumstance for which her royal highness was extremely anxious in her state of fatigue. What is the proof upon this subject? Majoochi says, that below the deck the princess and Bergami being together, thought proper to have him as a witness to their kissing one another upon their lips. It may be so. There is no contradicting it. Majoochi has taken care that there shall be no person present to tell a syllable upon that subject. I say, if you look at the whole of Majoochi's evidence, he is not to be believed; but, upon this particular occasion, there is that foundation for the fact, which becomes the greatest falsehood, with regard to all those witnesses; because when he parted with her upon the deck, all the witnesses proved that he kissed her hand,—but it appears also, that the other persons who attended her royal highness upon that occasion, had the same honour, and that they were all in the habit of doing it, when the princess took leave of them on any occasion whatever.

My lords; there was another kiss which I passed over. I should like to-know the price of them. There was a kiss at Messina. Majoochi swore that Bergami being about to go to Messina, at the distance of one mile from the princess's then dwelling, to purchase some articles, there was a kiss to be given, and that lie was to be the witness again. He says there was no witness present; but Miss Demont having had an opportunity of reading his evidence, says there was a kissing on that occasion. But how does she state it? Her back was turned. She could not see what passed. There was a kissing; which might be the kissing of the hand or the face; and if it were a kissing of the face, then it would appear to be a confirmation of Majoochi, though he states there was nobody present on the occasion. Can any one doubt, that upon both those occasions, her royal highness gave her hand to receive the usual token of respect? I feel that it is not necessary to waste a single observation further upon these witnesses. We come, then, to the Villa d'Este, where that valuable member of society, a gallant officer in the army of Napoleon, Mr. Sacehi, was first taken into the service of her royal highness. And, my lords, it is a little worth while to consider upon what the case rests. We have two discarded servants, Demont and Majoochi, proving that which took place on board the polacre. We have now two new discarded servants, Sacehi and Restelli, to prove facts which it pollutes the lips of man to allude to—which no person of proper feeling would have ever disclosed, and which I should have thought no husband of any feeling would have permitted to be given in evidence against his wife, even if she had deserted his fond and affectionate and faithful embraces, instead of being discarded by himself. Why, the worse he makes his wife, the more profligacy he imputes to her, the more he increases his own shame in having thus thrown her abandoned on the continent of Europe. We have heard of examples supposed to be similar to the present taken from English history; but, for my part, I find no example in English history. I can find no example in any history of a Christian king, who has thought himself at liberty to divorce his wife for any misconduct whatever when his own misconduct in the first instance was that which threw her into temptation and vice. I find some little resemblance—I find a case in some degree parallel—if I go back to the history of imperial Rome; and, upon that subject, I will venture to call your lordships attention to the only case in the history of mankind, that appears to me to bear any close resemblance to that which your lordships have taken upon yourselves to try. My lords, scarcely had Octavia become the wife of Nero, when almost on the very day of marriage, she became the subject of his unjust aversion. She was repudiated and dismissed on a false and frivolous pretext. A mistress was received into her place, and before she had been very long banished from the house of her husband, a conspiracy was set on foot against her honour, to impute to her a licentious amour with her slave; and it is stated by the great historian of corrupted Rome, that upon that occasion some of her servants were induced, not by bribes, but by tortures, to depose to facts injurious to her reputation; but that the greater part persisted in faithfully maintaining her innocence. My lords, it seems, that though the public were convinced that she was innocent, the prosecutor persisted in maintaining her guilt. He banished her from Rome. Her return was like a triumph. The generous people of that country received her with those feelings that ought to have existed in the heart of her husband. But, a second conspiracy was afterwards attempted; and in the course' of that conspiracy, it seems that she was convicted and condemned. She was banished to an island in the Mediterranean, where she was soon (and this is the only act of mercy), by poison or the dagger, removed from her miserable existence. My lords, the words of Tacitus are indeed striking. He says, "Non alia exsul visentium oculos majore mis ericordia afficit. Meminerant adhuc quidam Agrippin, à Tiberio; recen tior Juliæ memoria obversabatur, à Clan dio pulsæ. Sed illis robur ætatis affu- erat. Læta aliqua viderant, et præsen- tem sævitiam melioris olim fortunæ re- cordatione levabant. The death of her father and her brother deprived her of those natural protectors, who might, perhaps, have stood between her and misery and disgrace. But then, says Tacitus, there were still two disgraceful circumstances to afflict her while still under the roof of the palace: "Huic primus nuptiarum dies loco funeris fuit, deductæ in domum, in "qua nihil nisi luctuosum haberet erepto per venenum patre, et statim fatre. Turn ancilla domina validior. Et Poppaea non nisi in perniciem uxoris nupta. Postremo crimen omni exitio "gravius."

My lords; her royal highness, the princess of Wales, left this country when the first conspiracy only had been attempted and had been defeated—she left it, the known and unfortunate object of her husband's displeasure. Those who had most basked in her noon-tide rays, had then j deserted her. She went abroad to the continent with reports and rumours indeed of a most afflicting kind. Those reports and rumours have at length (perhaps we ought to thank them for it) assumed something of a tangible shape. They may now be grappled with in the shape of substantial charges; and I trust we have demonstrated to your lordships, that they are utterly unfounded and untrue. But it is in that situation, when deprived of her only daughter, when that unhappy child was removed from the means of any longer protecting her mother, in that fatal month which blasted the hopes of England, I mean the month of November in the year 1817, it so happens, that every one of the material witnesses in this case was discarded from the service of her royal highness. It was then that Demont was dismissed with all her secrets upon her head. It was then that Majoochi was turned out, with all the kisses that he could prove against her royal highness. It was in that month that Sacchi and Restelli, who had witnessed these disgusting scenes, if they speak the truth, were defied to prove them. And this lady, who is supposed to have been sinning with so much caution, and at the same time with such inconsistent enthusiasm, ventures to turn abroad upon the world when the demand of perjury is known to be so great, the very four individuals who can give evidence against her, and thereby bring her to that last climax of misery to which she had been so long exposed. My lords, they are discarded servants; and I would pause for one moment, upon that single but impressive phrase. I know that all phrases become hacknied in the mouths of men; but when we consider what is a discarded servant who is called at the distance of three years to prove guilt, and particularly the guilt of adultery against her master or her mistress, let us consider for one moment in what a state human society would be placed, if such persons were to find an easy credit. A reference was made upon a former occasion, to that Bill what has several times been introduced in this case, for making adultery a crime to be visited by the magistrate. That bill, however, of which a copy is preserved, excludes the husband who has colluded or connived at the adultery of his wife. I believe it was felt unjust, that that should be punished as a crime; but it was considered far more unjust, that such an encouragement to perjury, that such a premium to malignity, should be held out as that which would be held out to all discarded servants, if such things were permitted to be tried as criminal in an ordinary court of justice. Persons, who have committed adultery are guilty in various degrees; but particularly where the conduct of the husband has been irreproachable; and whatever may be said of the moral feelings, where the conduct of the husband has not been so, the public feeling will not go along with the charge. My lords, those discarded servants who may come forward to ruin the happiness of private life, I never can think of, without thinking of the immortal words of Mr. Burke, who has warned us against the employment of all spies; but, above all others, of domestic spies, by which "man is made to tremble at his very fellow-creatures, the seeds of destruction are sown in civil intercourse and happiness, the blood of wholesome kindred is infected, our tables and our beds are surrounded with snares, and all the means given by Providence to make life safe and comfortable, are converted into instruments of terror and torment." But, my lords, if such discarded servants should depose to facts, with regard to which they cannot be contradicted—if any man should dare to say, that the noble consort of any one of your lordships had got out of her bed in the middle of the night, and, unseen, but through the key-hole, or from the crevice of a door, had stolen to the bed of one of her domestics, consider how it would be possible to repel such a charge, except by the general conduct of the party who had ventured to dismiss the individual said to be in the possession of such a secret, and by the malice of the party, which appeared in the foulness of the charge. One of the wretched men who deposed against that empress to whom I have referred, examined her maid-servant on subjects of that foul and filthy description to which I have alluded, and she, true to her mistress, and firm to the truth, gave an answer full of virtuous indignation, which drew even the strong expression from her, which I shall venture to refer to in the most decent language, because the least understood— That, my lords, is the application I make to the evidence of Sacchi and Restelli, those wretches, those miserable men, who came here, the one in the situation, forsooth, of a gentleman, who receives a pension from his government, who had an ensign's commission given him upon the field of battle for his services, who talks of being a soldier and a gentleman, and shows that he is a soldier and a gentleman—by coming here to betray his benefactress. My lords, what great line is to be drawn between treachery and perjury, in such a case? What mighty distinction is there, in point of feeling and of character, between a man who will come forward to betray such truths as he may have become acquainted with from the extreme confidence placed in him, and that man who will deliberately frame them, for the purpose of receiving the reward of his infamy?

My lords; we know that a witness summoned to a court of English justice is bound to disclose the truth, and the whole truth; and we know, that when he takes the sacred volume in his hand, his conscience is that moment pledged to state all that is in his mind. But, why did Sacchi conic here? Why is he a witness upon the present occasion? Because he has been bribed to make these depositions. No summons was sent—no subpoena brought to him here—no force has compelled him to depose, any more than any duty called upon your lordships to try. But here he is, a witness for base and sordid purposes—equal in infamy, whether he comes to betray the confidence of his mistress, or to forswear himself, by saying that which is not true. My lords, the greatest of all traitors, of apostates to Christianity was not forsworn—he came to betray his master by telling the truth against him. And yet the execrations of mankind have followed him, from the moment of his treachery to the present time. My lords, I always think of that great prototype of treachery and infamy, when I see witnesses of this kind advance the Bible to their lips, and ready, like Judas, to betray God and man at once, by the same perfidious and unholy kiss. My lords, this Sacchi is discharged from her royal highness's service in the month of November 1817, and he, with all those dreadful secrets in his possession—what does he do? I say, my lords, that when these four discarded servants were gone from her royal highness's household, the conspiracy was already formed. If there had been no Ompteda—if there had been no Milan commission—if no inquiry had taken place before—if, instead of being expelled from her home, her majesty had left her royal husband for reasons of convenience and pleasure—the conspiracy was formed in their hearts and from that moment, and was sure of being carried into effect. But, my lords, there is indeed a period at which corruption takes place in the human heart, and there may be in the very worst of natures some moments of repentance and regret. Fortunately this Louisa Demont had disqualified herself as a witness against her majesty, by pronouncing in her favour one of the most candid, one of the most res- pectful, one of the most excellent panegyrics that ever proceeded from the mouth of a servant in praise of her mistress. That evidence must remain; and while it remains upon your lordships Minutes, it is utterly impossible not only to believe one word of what she has sworn in contradiction to that letter, but to believe any of the other witnesses who depose to the disparagement of her royal highness, the face of a character given under circumstances so unsuspicious, so unsuspected with such real sincerity stamped upon every part of it, and with such perfect knowledge of the facts of which she was speaking. It is indeed matter of congratulation, that this witness, who was induced, by her paramour, Sacchi, to come and destroy the good name of her royal highness, should have written that letter which she never expected to see more, and should have given a detail of the conduct of her royal mistress calculated to destroy the whole of her testimony. With respect to that letter, it is evident that it must be sincere. She is writing about her family, about her sisters—humbly intreating her mistress to receive one of them into her family, an innocent girl of eighteen; and she is making every arrangement that her sister who is already in the service, may remain. It is possible to believe, that if she had witnessed those facts at Naples and other places, to which she has deposed, she should have wished to have sent another sister, innocent as she was, into the family? It seems to me, that it is making human nature infinitely too bad; and if my learned friends can only qualify Demont as a witness, by showing her to be utterly discreditable to every particular of respect and credit—as she herself admitted—then, I say, it is utterly impossible to set her up as a witness. And it is by no means immaterial to call your lordships attention to what passed yesterday, when we saw an elderly person, from the neighbourhood of this individual, who having seen by the papers, the scandalous depositions she had made, could not but remember with indignation, the expressions she had used before, and could not but be struck with the difference betwixt one account and the other. What could be more proper or natural than that, seeing this examination that appeared here before your lordships, and which found its way into all the papers, to our disgrace, in the civilized world, she should come and tender herself as a witness, to prove how different were her expressions at the time?

My lords; the letters of Demont are an acquittal for her majesty. I do most positively declare, that if that witness had appeared in the box, and speaking to the character of the party accused under such circumstances, had expressed herself in the terms of these letters, it would have been a complete acquittal of the party of the crime of which she stood accused; because she knew all that had passed, she was perfectly in every secret. Her own account is, that she knows much to her royal highness's discredit now; but it is perfectly clear, from her previous account, that she could know nothing but what reflected honour upon her royal mistress. With regard to the linen—with regard to the beds—she was in full possession of every fact; and if she had come and sworn to the effect of that letter, the character she gave would have been a most complete acquittal and protection to the party accused. "But," say my learned friends, "we will show, that she is to be believed now, but not then; for that she was dealing in a species of falsehood; instead of its coming from the heart, of which it breathes, she was merely throwing out falsehood to delude those to whom it was shown." But, my lords, this is not the language of scheming and deceit; and surely it is fitting you should see what was then and what is now the motive to induce her to falsehood or truth. I say, those letters are to be received as evidence of her feelings at the time; and, when we are challenged to produce other witnesses, and when it is evident her majesty has been surrounded by dangers of every kind, let me ask, whether, if her majesty had been accused two years ago of these crimes now laid to her charge, she could have looked to any one as a protector, with more confidence of success than that individual who wrote those letters? And yet, that individual is the person who comes now to destroy her—a marvellous illustration of the truth of my learned friend's profound observation—a singular and a providential proof—that her majesty was to be overruled where she was placing, herself, too great a confidence—that it was for us, her advocates, to take the defence into our hands, and where no case had been proved, to meet it fairly and upon the absence of proof—where a case was proved, to meet it by satisfactory answer in evidence; but not to expose her ma- jesty to possible treachery—not to expose her to the consequences that might result from the state of witnesses such as we have seen asked as to facts at the distance of a hundred miles from the case on which my learned friends might take issue with them successfully, and show they were wishing to carry the point a little too far, or were forgetful of that which she might have been expected to recollect. My lords, under these circumstances, I trust we shall be excused by all mankind for resting satisfied with that which ought to satisfy any court. I think we have paid too much respect to the case by calling any witnesses at all. If this had been an ordinary case, there is not one of us that would not have called on the Judge to direct the jury to acquit. It is only the remarkable nature of the case which induced us to give any evidence; and we are now justified in resting where we are, and we are justified in drawing that acquittal from your lordships now, with the addition of satisfactory evidence which we should have been most clearly entitled to, if we had called no evidence at all. But, my lords, I am well aware that there is no end to the ingenuity of man—I am perfectly confident we shall hear observations from my learned friend, the attorney-general. He will ask, why did we not call Mariette, the sister of Demont, who could do more than give a satisfactory answer to a case already answered; and who might, by irritation or confusion, have been betrayed into some mistake. Of this we have had some experience before your lordships. We have seen already the sort of triumph which has taken place, in the evidence of that poor lieutenant Flinn, who introduced a paper for no purpose whatever, and who is considered as condemned to everlasting infamy—as more infamous than the discarded servants who came to depose against their mistress. My lords, it is a little curious to look at the examination of that person; for the last question on which my learned friend dismissed him as unworthy of any credit was—"Did you not say it was your own hand-writing?" Now, the fact is, he never said any such thing; and if your lordships will take the trouble to look back to the whole of his evidence, you will find that was put into his mouth as a thing he had said. His memory was not correct, whether he had said it or not, and it was utterly impossible for him to deny it, and therefore he said, "If I did say so, it was because I was in such a situation that I could not give my attention fairly to the question before me." Now, with this example before our eyes of lieutenant Flinn being considered as a perjured witness, and being held out by the government prints as a man who has saved this case by having lost himself in his evidence, I think we have exercised a sound discretion in that, if not in any other part of the case, that we would not expose nervous females to, the cross-examination and to the buffetting which they would have been subjected to if produced at your lordships bar. But, at whatever cost, it should have been done, if the case had still existed as a case of attack upon the character of the Queen. We deny that fact; and as I proceed to the further circumstances of the case, I trust that, at every step, the proof of her majesty's innocence will become more clear and more satisfactory.

The Counsel were directed to withdraw, and the further consideration and second reading of the said bill was ordered to be adjourned to to-morrow morning.