whole of these proceedings had been most extraordinary, weak, and unjustifiable; and that, by their imbecility and vacillation, they had brought the question to an issue, which, as he had said before, they could not pursue without danger, or retract without disgrace. He would not enter into all the circumstances of their singular conduct, but he would say that they had brought not only the honour of the Crown, but the interests of the country into peril, and that without necessity or excuse. It was now more than twelve months since the extraordinary commission was appointed to inquire into her majesty's conduct abroad-he could not say by whom appointed, or how it had conducted itself but it had been nominated to obtain the information on which ministers now acted. Nay, it was even twelve months since its report was received. Was it not the duty of his majesty's ministers, then, to take all the circumstances into consideration, and to act upon them, as it became them, for the honour of their royal master, and for the peace and welfare of the country? If, in their opinion, that report contained nothing which obliged them to bring any accusation against her majesty, it was their duty to have communicated that opinion to their sovereign, and to have set at rest reports which affected the character of the queen. If, on the other hand, they were convinced that matters of serious charge existed, and that that charge would be supported by the evidence which had been collected, it was their duty as soon as possible to bring forward the accusation, to bring it to the result which they foresaw it would have, and thus prevent all those dangers which might arise from suspending such serious charges over the character and conduct of her majesty. If they had preferred their accusation, collected their witnesses, served a notice on the queen, and brought the matter before parliament, the whole affair might have been by this time terminated, and all those evils which now threatened the peace of the country prevented or dissipated. If neither side of this alternative was expedient to be followed, and if the information collected regarding her majesty's conduct allowed the ministers of the Crown to think that the arrangement of her affairs admitted of negotiation and compromise they ought immediately to have entered upon that negotiation, and

ve made that arrangement without

impeaching her character. None of these three courses, however, had ministers pursued. They made offers of treating with her majesty, but they at the same time denounced a threat that all negotiation must terminate, and all adjustment be at an end, unless she complied with certain conditions, thus coupling a menace of proving criminal charges, with the offer of an arrangement wholly inconsistent with them. But how was it proposed now to proceed? When they found that her majesty would not attend to their offers, they now spoke of proving serious charges. against her; but they did it with hesitation and delay, and a desire to divest themselves of all responsibility-a responsibility from which they would never be relieved by him. This was not the only instance in which this loose, disjointed, and feeble administration had divested themselves of the official accountability that attached to their stations, and left the business of the nation to be performed by the legislature, had abdicated the powers of government and devolved upon committees of parliament their duties and their responsibility. At a season of great public distress and danger, at a moment of great peril to the peace and tranquillity of the country, they had shown themselves unfit for the emergency, and called upon their lordships for direction. When the tempest arose when the winds ragedwhen the waves beat high, the vessel of the state was left by them, without compass or rudder, to the mercy of the storm. The fury of the tempest increases-the crew becomes mutinous, and the pilot trembles;

Ipse pavet; nec se qui sit status, ipse fatctur Scire ratis rector; nec quid jubeatve, vetetve: Tanta mali moles, tantoque potentior arte est. One of the members of that administration (Mr. Canning) and of course one of the advisers of the accusation against her majesty, had since declared, in his place in parliament, that he did not concur with his colleagues in their present measures, and had added with great emphasis, "So help me God, I will never become her accuser." But what did the right hon. gen. tleman say more? He spoke from his personal knowledge of the queen, and he called her "the grace, the life, and the ornament of society." If she deserved this encomium-if she was the "grace, the life, and the ornament of society," why was she not a fit partner for the throne of England? and why, when his colleagues

necessary, should be prosecuted without delay, with justice and impartiality, with due regard to the character of parliament, and the honour of her majesty.-These were the grounds on which he made his motion to discharge the order for the meeting of the secret committee. He knew nothing of the accusation against her majesty nothing of the witnesses by which it was supported-nothing of the evidence by which it could be repelled. But on this principle he stood, that there should be no secret investigation-that there should be no inquiry that was acknowledged to be derogatory from the dignity of the Crown, and injurious to the best interests of the empire. He knew nothing of the charge or defence, but he saw no means of obtaining a proper adjudication but by a public proceeding. He therefore implored their lordships to desist from a secret investigation, as contrary to law, and exposed to odium and suspicion. The noble earl concluded by moving, that the order for the meeting of the secret committee to consider the papers referred to their lordships be discharged.

The Earl of Liverpool said, he had heard the speech of the noble earl with great surprise. The beginning of it contained a legal argument against the mode of proceeding adopted by their lordships, in which he said that the present was no party question, but that it ought to be decided by the principles of justice. How much, therefore, was he surprised to hear the noble earl, in the conclusion of his observations, so completely belying his professions, and making one of the most inflammatory party attacks that was ever made within the walls of parliament [Hear, hear!] This attack was general, and he (lord Liverpool) was prepared to repel it. He was prepared to appeal from the judgment of the noble earl, to the country, to parliament, and to posterity, and to be tried by them for the conduct pursued by himself and his colleagues for the last eight years. He was willing that their counsels and acts should be compared with the counsels and acts of the administration with which the noble earl had been connected. He would ask their lordships what now would have been the situation and prospects of the country, if the counsels of the noble earl and of his friends had been followed? He again declared that he was willing to be tried for the general conduct of admi

nistration by the country, by parliament, and by posterity. In the present case he had no difficulty in explaining or defending the whole of his conduct, and that of his colleagues, without reference to any parliamentary resolution. He was prepared to state, that proceedings against the queen would be an evil, that they could not be undertaken without great inconvenience, and ought not to be prosecuted unless to encounter a greater inconvenience. The principle acted upon to prevent her majesty's coming to this country was in his opinion wise and expedient, and was, he was conviced, approved of by nine-tenths of the country. Was there any alternative, then, when she arrived, between allowing her all the honours and privileges of her rank, or placing her in a state of accusation? Unless a message had been brought down to the House, containing charges against her, how could their lordships or the other House of Parliament consistently omit to present her with addresses of congratulation on her arrival? But after they had taken their ground the noble earl accused them of vacillation in their subsequent course. He knew of no vacillation; he had moved that the papers on their lordships' table should be referred to a secret committee, and that motion was adopted. It was true that a strong sense had been expressed in another House that a fresh attempt at negotiation should be made ; and that, concurring with the wishes and opinions of his majesty's ministers, had been agreed to by them. Words had been quoted in an irregular manner, as having been uttered in another place; but without meaning to say that there was any intentional misrepresentation, he could say, from inquiry, that they had not been accurately published. The resolution adopted in the other House had been called the resolution of ministers; if this meant that it had received their support, the assertion was true; but if it meant to insinuate that they had any knowledge of it, even an hour before it was moved, the statement was altogether unfounded. He was prepared to deny the doctrine of the noble earl with respect to the resolution and to maintain that though the trial of the queen might be a great public evil, still a greater evil might be encountered by not proceeding under certain circumstances. He trusted the House would believe that ministers wished to avoid investigation in the first instance, but if it was instituted

struction of this statute and contended, that as there was no substantive crime in the act of the woman, her guilt must be inferred on the ground that she was an accessary to the crime. If, then, the accessary were criminal; it followed that the principal must also be criminal; and, indeed, any other supposition would be absurd. But, in the present case, if the principal in the adulterous act was a foreigner, there was no treason on his part at all; and how could it be said that in such a case the accessary was guilty, since, in the eye of the law, the guilt of the accessary was the same as that of the principal, and here no principal was guilty? He confessed that for some time he had great doubts on this subject, but after consulting all the legal authorities to whom he had access, his doubts had been completely removed. But the noble earl had said, that though there was no treason in the present case there might be other great state offences on which their lordships might be required to decide judicially. He agreed so far with the noble earl; but if there existed any crimes of that description, they must be such as were known to the common law of the country, and therefore adultery could not be included in that class [A peer on the Opposition benches dissented from this opinion]. He said that adultery was a civil injury, but no crime, and that opinion had been distinctly expressed by a noble lord (the late lord Auckland), who had brought in a bill to make adultery a crime. That which was not a crime by the common law could not be tried before any of the ordinary tribunals of the country, and indeed, if that were not the case, there would be no protection for the subject. While he had any thing to say in that House, he would never endure the doctrine that they had a right to create for the occasion, a crime which did not belong to the law of the land. This matter being so stated, he now came to the consideration of what was the only remedy in the present case-of what was the only course of proceeding for their lordships to adopt. The only proceeding in his opinion, which was applicable to the present case, was a legislative one: might be a bill of Divorce, or a bill of Pains and Penalties, but it was necessary that there should be a legislative proceeding. He was likewise authorized by the precedents recorded on their Journals to say, that the proceeding might originate C

they did not wish to avoid responsibility. The first consideration was, whether the course of proceeding which had been proposed was wrong, as had been stated by the noble lord, with reference to the House of Commons: and the second, whether a preliminary inquiry by a secret committee was wrong, with reference to their lordships themselves. The noble earl called on their lordships to preserve the high character which they had in all times past maintained in the exercise of their judicial functions. He too hoped their lordships would not overlook this consideration; for it was matter of satisfaction to reflect, that if there existed in the world a tribunal whose character for strict justice and rigid impartiality was unimpeached, that tribunal was the House of Lords of this kingdom. But the noble earl said, that even supposing the course adopted to have been right in the first instance, circumstances had intervened that now made it wrong. He, on the contrary, maintained, that those intervening circumstances, so far from furnishing any reason for deviating from the original course, afforded their lordships additional inducements to persevere in that course of proceeding. It had been said that this subject had been taken up by the other House of Parliament, and, for aught their lordships knew, might be made the ground of an impeachment; and that therefore their lordships ought not to institute an ex parte inquiry into a matter on which they might be called on to decide in their judicial capacity. Now, undoubtedly, he conceived that the main cause of laying this charge before their lordships was the consideration that an adulterous connexion could not be made the ground of an impeachment, or of any other legal proceeding; and that ground he was prepared to argue with the noble lord, who appeared to question the law of his noble and learned friend on the woolsack respecting the proper construction of the statute. He would say of his noble and learned friend, that no one's opinion on legal questions had so much weight with him; but he could also say that every other legal authority that had been referred to and many other eminent authorities had been consulted-supported the same construction. By the statute of Edward 3rd, the violation of the king's wife, or his eldest son's wife, or his eldest daughter was declared to be high treason. The noble earl proceeded to argue on the conVOL. II.

it