1825,

the eleventh of peace, though not of plenty. It is true that public opinion now began to gain considerable ascendency, though every possible advantage was taken to undermine the liberty of the press, and heavy fines were imposed upon various persons for publishing facts disreputable to the lordlings in power.

In the January of this year, several most respectable individuals expressed an earnest desire to press for a public inquiry into the mysterious and hitherto-unaccounted-for death of her royal highness the Princess Charlotte. Among the rest was Lord Tullamore, who obtained an audience of the Earl of Liverpool for this purpose on the 18th. The premier, at first, treated his lordship with much coolness and reserve; but when Lord Tullamore mentioned the letter of Queen Charlotte to Dr. Sir Richard Croft, the noble earl exhibited signs of the most acute pain, and became dreadfully agitated. His lordship eagerly inquired if that letter was forthcoming; and admitted, that the subject had been mentioned to him before, but that the party was not so respectable as the present. Lord Tullamore then repeated those words from the other letter to the doctor—"Come, my boy, throw physic to the dogs,"—when the earl became so confused and

[[129]]embarrassed, that it was quite evident he was well acquainted with the contents of both those letters. Previous to Lord Tullamore's retiring from this audience, the premier requested to know if he had Queen Charlotte's letter in his possession, to which Lord Tullamore replied, that his instructions went no further. Though suffering exceedingly from the gout in his feet, the Earl of Liverpool politely rose from his seat, pressed his lordship's hand, called him his dear lord, and hoped to see him again.

When detailing the particulars of this interview on the ensuing day, Lord Tullamore said, that the noble earl had certainly admitted the fact of THE MANNER OF THE DEATH OF THE PRINCESS!

Shortly afterwards, a second interview took place with the same noblemen, when Lord Liverpool was more composed, and said the business did not rest with him, but that it must be investigated in the office of the secretary, by Mr. Peel. His lordship then, saying he was in haste, took leave of Lord Tullamore in the kindest manner, very different from the cool and reserved demeanour and address so conspicuous upon his first reception. Immediate application was made at Mr. Peel's office, but that secretary was not in the administration when the melancholy event occurred, and therefore could not be responsible for any circumstance attending it!!

Let the unprejudiced reader duly weigh this simple statement of facts, and judge dispassionately. Lord Liverpool was first lord of the Treasury at this time, as well as at the period of the princess' death;

[[130]]he was, therefore, of necessity the principal actor in all state business; he well knew that a secretary of state was answerable only for circumstances and transactions in his department during his secretaryship; no one could be amenable for that which occurred at the period his predecessor held office. Yet this premier, by the most unmanly and guilty-looking subterfuge, put off all inquiry upon such an important subject, pretending that it did not belong to his department, and then referring it to a secretary, by whom Lord Liverpool well knew the matter could not be investigated, for the reasons before mentioned. In consequence of these shuffling contrivances against justice, this most serious inquiry was negatived, while every principle of right was set at open defiance, and the most honourable of the community privately insulted. One fact, however, may clearly be deduced from this circumstance: that Lord Liverpool was TOO WELL INFORMED upon all this most heart-rending tragedy, and he therefore, for his own sake, put off the inquiry, hoping the subject would be either forgotten, or adverted to in a more agreeable manner.

While these unsuccessful attempts were making to obtain a public inquiry into the cause of the Princess Charlotte's death, the well-paid court-minions were busily employed in calumniating the characters of every person engaged in so laudable an undertaking. The most unfounded reports were industriously circulated to wound their good names, while reasons, the farthest from the truth, were injuriously

[[131]]assigned to blacken their motives. Yet, if we take into account the wickedness and voluptuousness of the court at this period, as well as the imbecility and arrogancy of the king's ministers, Surprise will naturally give way to Disgust, and Anger wonder at Toleration. The Junius that exposed and animadverted upon the ministerial delinquencies of a Bedford and a Grafton, a Sandwich and a Barrington, neither knew, nor could possibly imagine, the incomparably bolder task of doing justice to the public and private turpitude of a Liverpool and a Sidmouth, a Bathurst and a Canning, a Wellington and a Bexley, an Eldon and a Melville! To paint the characters of these men in their true colours would, indeed, be a difficult task. Our darkest tints and our deepest shades would give but a faint outline of the blackness of the originals. When we look back upon the accumulated burthens, the ills upon property and patience which they inflicted, what an ocean of insults and what a wild waste of oppressions do we behold! The three grand pillars of the state in its purity, and the people in their freedom, were nearly demolished. Magna Charta, the Bill of Rights, and the Family Compact, were scrolls mouldering on the shelves of these ministers, and ready to be swept out of their several departments, together with the copies of their oaths "to advise their royal master according to the dictates of their consciences,"—consciences, the only proof of the existence of which was given in their constant violation. If it be urged, that Lord Sidmouth, who

[[132]]was the home-secretary at the death of the Princess Charlotte, was not in office at the time of Lord Tullamore's interview with the premier, we can only say, his power to do harm was as great as if he had been, if not greater, and that he took especial care to exert himself strenuously, that no "inquiry" about the Princess Charlotte should be instituted.

The premier, at this eventful period, was eager to engage the assistance of all his Tory friends, whether in or out of office, to enable him to bolster up his own misrule. The ancient author who correctly observed, that "there are vices of MEN and vices of TIMES," would have improved, as well as have enlarged, his maxim by adding, that "bad times are made by bad men." Of the truth, that "bad rulers too often make a mean people," the ministerial subjugation of nations has afforded innumerable evidences. But, with science and the manual arts, the knowledge of the best means of banishing liberty and liberal sentiments had now wonderfully advanced. The proficiency in despotism to which the Earl of Liverpool and his junto had attained certainly entitled them to take precedence of any anterior ministry. These men, throughout their whole conduct, from the highest down to the humblest of their misdeeds,—whether they betrayed the king who received their services, or the people who paid their salaries,—whether they dishonoured the crown by insulting a virtuous queen, or injured the country by screening public plunderers and private murderers,—whether they outraged justice by

[[133]]acquitting the guilty and convicting the innocent,—were ever true to themselves. With all their arts, however, they could not destroy the SPIRIT of our free constitution; for that will ever remain immoveably fixed in the British bosom. The flame whose rays shot hence across the Atlantic can never be wholly extinguished. The sparks with which England herself animated the hearts of her regenerated colonists, warmly cherished by every American, will never cease to feed the parent fire. Lord Liverpool might have assisted to re-burthen France with the hated Bourbons, and other parts of the Continent with their legitimate despots; but this could only last for a time. The fire of liberty was but smothered for a season, as after events have sufficiently attested.

It will assuredly be matter of great surprise to posterity, how men of such circumscribed talents as were to be found in the cabinet of the Earl of Liverpool should find it possible to effect so much mischief. But Fortune delights in maintaining a sort of rivalship with Wisdom, and piques herself on her power to favour fools as well as knaves. These beings, however, were indebted to various aids for their long and too successful career; yet their principal dependance rested on the supineness of the people. The generous forbearance of Englishmen unhappily cherished the power which their patriotic vengeance should have destroyed. They were looking for gratuitous justice and liberality, instead of deserving relief by the ardour and nobleness of their

[[134]]own exertions. Had Britons but borne in mind that "zeal, without action, is nothing worth," their condition had been very different to what it was at the period of Lord Tullamore's praiseworthy attempts to obtain an inquiry into one of the blackest crimes recorded in our annals; for Thought is the projector, and Faith the encourager, of all our views and wishes; though it is only Action that can render them effectual and profitable.

At the period of Lord Tullamore's interviews with the premier, the Marchioness of Conyngham held an entire and very injurious sway over the actions of our voluptuous monarch; her will soon became an absolute law, and, to supply means for this lady's insatiable wishes, the nation was burthened beyond all honourable limits. Yet, strange to say, one of her ladyship's sons, Lord Mountcharles, professed himself most anxious to be entrusted with the previously-named "INQUIRY." His lordship was, consequently, allowed to undertake that the matter should be investigated; but no sooner had the marchioness' son obtained an interview with George the Fourth, than he hypocritically said, "The inquiry into the death of the Princess Charlotte is all useless. You may rely upon it, the idea has originated in some ungenerous feeling towards his majesty." But, in this particular, my Lord Mountcharles acted dishonourably to the trust reposed in him. From undoubted authority, WE KNOW that George the Fourth received Lord Mountcharles into his friendship to prevent the further elucidation of

[[135]]this matter,—at least, as far as his lordship was concerned. Another of the professed friends of justice, also, who was known to have been a witness upon this business, was speedily afterwards enlisted under the "royal banner," and, though previously poor and in "holy orders," soon found abundant means to play for no trivial sums in St. James'. But his principles may be more correctly ascertained by the fact that, after receiving the most generous services from his friends, he was mean enough to abscond from his bail, when fifty pounds was offered for his apprehension. Such was the Reverend Joseph B——, whose apostacy in this common cause fixes upon his name eternal discredit. Yet, notwithstanding his dissolute habits, this clergyman has very frequently occupied a seat at the table of Lord Teynham, and was in the habit of receiving considerable attentions from many of the lordlings in power. If his word might be deemed worthy of credit, he was no stranger to the friendship of his royal highness the Duke of Sussex, and other branches of the royal family. But of one point, we are well assured, that he who was mean enough to desert a post of duty, though it might be a post of danger, to revel in ease and luxury, was, at least, undeserving the notice of any honourable man. However strange it may appear, this divine (so called) was most unceasing in his endeavours to rouse the country to a due sense of the impositions forced upon it, declaring all consequent sufferings would be "light as dust in the balance," compared to the tortures of

[[136]]a guilty and harassed conscience. Thus, under the mask of religion and patriotism, did this faithless character hide his real sentiments and intentions, and while professing to serve the cause of liberty, he was in reality the aider and abettor of tyrants,—dishonourable in his engagements, and a disgrace to his order. We may pity and even forgive his want of honour to his friends; but the subject from which he shrunk was of such vast national importance, that his desertion of the cause of justice and his dereliction from the path of duty in this matter must always be considered as unpardonable offences.

Such vacillating conduct, however, we are sorry to record, was not confined to the two gentlemen just mentioned. Many, whose prospects of aggrandizement appeared upon the wane, exhibited an anxiety to ascertain the probable result of this inquiry. Amongst this number, was a fashionable fortune-hunter, who boasted of being the illegitimate son of a royal duke,—the sudden and unexpected death of whom, it was currently reported, had left this unfortunate offspring totally unprovided for. Added to a tolerably honest appearance and pleasant address, this gentleman possessed considerable talent, which he could exemplify in farce, comedy, or tragedy, as the circumstances might require. In the words of Lord Byron, "he had ten thousand names, and twice as many attributes." He also professed himself the uncompromising enemy of oppressors, and as being ever ready to

[[137]]hazard his life in bringing the murderers of the Princess Charlotte to their merited punishment. But exteriors are too frequently deceptive, and this self-styled patriot was ultimately proved unworthy of the notice of any respectable person. Under false pretences, he found means to reach "the board of hospitality," fed upon the ample provision, and then, like the reptile of eastern climes, stung the benevolent hand that had furnished the sources for his enjoyment, by an attempt to defame one of the proudest and most noble characters our country can boast!

Would that we had no more instances of treachery to offer; but too many others might be given of persons, calling themselves professional gentlemen,—particularly one residing in Duke-street, St. James',—who, after volunteering their services to bring this "hidden thing of darkness to light," forsook their friends, and accepted a BRIBE as a reward for their silence. We could also extend our record of mean expedients adopted by men in power to suppress this disgraceful business,—such, indeed, as would almost stagger the faith of those who had not been eye-witnesses of their depravity. Indignation rises in our breasts while contemplating such a picture of human wickedness! Our readers, we feel assured, do not desire more proofs than we have already given of the principal fact,—that the Princess Charlotte was poisoned, through the instrumentality of those who ought to have been the first to protect so amiable and virtuous a woman! It is,

[[138]]therefore, only a matter of minor importance to expose those who have failed in their loud professions of seeing justice enforced on her murderers. No history, perhaps, is richer in recorded crime than that of our own country; but neither the annals of this or any other empire can furnish a more striking instance of unmanly barbarity, of greater wickedness, or of more horrid depravity, than that of which we are now speaking. Let us hope the people of 1832 will seriously reflect on the enormity of this revolting act, and be no longer lost in an apathy that has already proved so disastrous to their liberties. Let them not suffer their good sense to be lulled and amused by the "raree-shows" of royalty, or by the glitter of any grandeur supplied by the produce of their own labour. Nothing confers, either on a king or his ministers, any real dignity or glory, except their virtue and their good deeds; and the people ought, therefore, not to suffer their courage to be deterred, or their judgment to be imposed upon, by the pomp and glare of state ostentation. The people, we say, ought now to make amends for their long neglect, and exhibit a stronger and more determinate resolution than ever for that "inquiry" which Lord Liverpool so often refused; for, so long as the death of the Princess Charlotte remains unavenged, so long will cowardice and ignominy be attached to the name of Englishman!

In the month of April, Mr. Brougham visited his native country, for the purpose of being invested with the title of "Lord Rector of the University of

[[139]]Glasgow." We should not have noticed a circumstance of such trivial importance to the public, did it not afford us an opportunity of introducing a most admirable speech, which that learned gentleman had an opportunity of delivering on the occasion by reason of some allusion being made to the trial of the late Queen Caroline. To explain the impropriety of calling such persecuting proceedings a "trial," Mr. Brougham said,

"If he could bring himself, on such a day as this, to those habits of contentious discussion to which he was sometimes accustomed, he should have to analyze his friend's splendid speech, and object to the whole of his eulogy. But there was one part of that speech which had caused him considerable pain: his friend had talked of 'the trial' of the late queen. Never had he (Mr. Brougham) either in public or private, before heard so great a profanation of the attributes of those judicial proceedings, which by profession and habit he had been taught to revere, than to use the name of 'trial' when speaking of such an event. It was no trial, he said, and so did the world. The subject was gone by, and not introduced by him; but still the phrase, when dropped, must be corrected; for 'trial' it was none. Was that a trial where the accused had to plead before those who were interested in her destruction?—where those who sat on the bench of justice, aye, and pretended to be her judges, had pre-ordained her fate? Trial!" continued Mr. Brougham, "I

[[140]]repeat there was, there could be, none, where every channel of defamation was allowed to empty itself upon the accused, borne down by the strong arm of power, overwhelmed by the alliance of the powers and the princedoms of the state, and defended only by that innocence and that law which those powers and those princedoms, united with the powers of darkness, had combined to destroy. Trial it was none, where every form of justice was obliged to be broken through on the very surface before the accusers could get at the imputed grounds of their accusations. This, forsooth, a trial!—call it not so, for the sake of truth and law. While that event deformed the page of their history, let them be silent about eastern submissiveness; let them talk not of Agas, the Pachas, and the Beys,—all judges, too, at least so they call themselves,—while they were doomed to remember they had had in their own times ministers of their own crown, who, under the absolute authority of their own master, consented to violate their own pledge, to compromise and stifle their own avowed feelings, and to act as slaves, crouching before the foot-stool of power, to administer to its caprice. Let them call that a trial which was so conducted, and then he would say the queen had been tried at the time when he stood for fifty-six days witnessing the sacrilegious proceeding. Did he now, for the first time, utter this description of its character? No, no; day after day did he repeat it in the presence of all the parties, and dared them to deny the imputation; he dared them then,

[[141]]but not now, lest he should be forced to see the same faces in the same place again, professing to exercise the same functions. If it were in his power to repeat in their hearing now what he had said in their presence before, they might, indeed, call that a trial in his case which they had called it in the other; but to whom it looked not like a chamber of justice, but rather the gloominess of the den; not indeed of judgment, for he could not liken it to such, but rather to others—(here Mr. Brougham paused)—But no, he could not sustain the allusion, lest, perchance, for the very saying of it, (for he could not be prevented from thinking of it so) he should again have to submit to the test of power,—an alternative which his veneration for the constitution of his country and its honours forbade him to precipitate.

"How many long years," said Mr. Brougham, "had they not seen, when to be an Englishman on the Continent was a painful, if not a degrading, condition? He meant, during that dark and murky night of power, when the machinations of the family of the tyrants of Europe were at work, and when they could reckon upon the minister of England as silently suffering, nay, permitting their deadly march against the liberties of mankind. England then had her fair name degraded by being considered as the ABETTOR of every tyrant's plan for the subjugation of his subjects. Then was the time when no despot could open his glaring eye, flashing with vengeance for his prey, without catching the

[[142]]glistening eye of the supplicant British minister. Then was the time when no tyrant could hold out his hand, after shaking in it the chains he had forged to bind and excoriate his people, without its meeting the cordial grasp of friendship of the British minister. Then was the time when the oppressor stalked abroad with the countenance of the rulers of that land, which was called the champion and the protectress of the free. Then did horrid tyranny, more grim in its blasted actions than even in the vices of its original debasement, disfigure the fair face of Europe, while linked and leagued (O, shame upon the pen of history!) with the freest government upon earth,—to which, nevertheless, the tyrant never turned his glance, or stretched his hand in vain, during such disastrous times. That black and disgraceful night of intellect and freedom had now gone down, the sky was clear, and the view was changed into a brighter prospect. Now," continued Mr. Brougham, "we can speak out, and look abroad with clear vision. What man is there now, I ask, in half-represented England, in unrepresented Scotland,—aye, where and which of you, in either country, or even in tortured, insulted, and persecuted Ireland,—where, I say, can the man be found, who dared to look forth in the broad face of day, who dared to raise his voice before his fellow-men, and say, 'I befriend the Holy Alliance?' Not only, I repeat, is there no such man, I will not say so wicked, but so childish,—I will not say so stricken with hostility to free principles, or so

[[143]]bent upon the destruction of his own individual character,—in the whole walk of society, as to avow such sentiments. O, no; not out of Bedlam could we find him!—hardly there, save in the precipitation of a maniac's rage, could we behold a being in the shape of a man to stand up and say, 'I am the friend of the Holy Alliance.' If there be the man where freedom shines, who could look with complaisance on the accomplished despot who fills the Calmuc throne, who can behold with meekness that specious and ungrateful imbecility which promised first, and then refused, free institutions to the Germans who had bled and died in thousands to restore his throne; if there be any man who can approve the scourge of fair Italy, and the tyrant of Austria; if there be, I repeat, any such man, so reckless of himself as to admire or approve, (for that is out of the maddest rage of speculation) but even to tolerate the mere mention of the name of that cruel tyrant of his people at home,—the baffled despot, thank God! of South America,—but whose sway it pleased Providence still to permit at home, and to suspend for a short season the doom of that nameless despot. If there be a man, I say, so monstrous and unnatural as to approve of these royal minions, then it was a consolation to know that he had the grace to confine his thoughts to the regions best adapted for their culture, to lock them up in the innermost recesses of the offices of state, or to confine his silent migrations to the merest purlieus of the court, or perchance to lurk 'behind the

[[144]]arras,' to live there among the vermin which were its natural tenants, and there to gloat upon the merits of Alexander, Frederick, Francis, or Ferdinand,—have I named him?—among the spiders, the vipers, the toads, and those who hated the toads, the lizards. To such an association and contact were these lovers of despots confined; not a word of approbation from any member of the government could be extorted for them. He had often seen much ability and ingenuity devised and exercised to endeavour to get out even a smooth word in favour of the Holy Alliance in parliament; but no, the attempt was fruitless,—all cheered the sentiments which were breathed against these tyrants. So that whoever loved them 'behind the arras,' had at least, if not the better principle, the better taste,—was, if not better in demeanour, at least more ashamed in practice to avow himself as their champion, and rather to prefer to hide himself from that sun of day, which would almost feel disgraced by being compelled to shine upon him in common with the better part of mankind."

The facts and well-merited castigations contained in this most eloquent address were not very creditable to the character of the voluptuous king and his servile ministers. Mr. Brougham here uttered some startling TRUTHS, and accompanied their recital with that keenness of remark for which he is so famous. We need hardly say how heartily we agree with him in the detestation he expressed

[[145]]against the queen's persecutors. Would that he had performed HIS OWN PART more consistently with her majesty's wishes and interests!

On the 6th of March, Science mourned the death of her favourite son, in the Reverend Doctor Samuel Parr, a celebrated philologist, erudite classical scholar, and a profound mathematician, in the 79th year of his age. The weekly, monthly, and annual registers, did not forget to name the transcendent merits of the deceased in literary pursuits; but they either forgot or declined to mention the interest this worthy gentleman had taken in the cause of the Princess of Wales, and also after she became Queen of England. The memorials and testimonies of Doctor Parr in her cause were not chimerical opinions, as some have imagined, but the real sentiments of his honest and manly heart.

The close of this eventful year was marked with unprecedented calamity. The "panic," as it was briefly termed, which prevailed in the city of London, seemed to have overtaken the most wealthy of its inhabitants, and poverty and consternation appeared in all their terrors. The political horizon was also of the most foreboding and gloomy character. The "House of Incurables," however, still arrogantly boasted of the "freedom and prosperity of the nation," and shut their eyes against all the proofs of a contrary nature.

There was a time when some atonement for unjust acts would have been instantly demanded from the sovereign by the people; for we read in

[[146]]"Rapin," that Edward the Second, when conquered and made prisoner by his wife, was tried by the parliament, which decreed, "that (though kings are supposed incapable of doing wrong) he had done all possible wrong, and thereby must forfeit his right to the crown." Again, for the sake of illustration, we may mention, that the parliament tried and convicted Richard the Second; thirty-one articles were alleged against him, in the form of an impeachment, two of which were very remarkable, though perhaps not uncommon; the first was, "that he had BORROWED MONEY WITHOUT INTENDING TO PAY IT AGAIN!!!" the other, "that he had declared, before witnesses, 'he was master of the lives and property of his subjects.'" What a lesson, also, does the wretched death of our first Charles offer of the imbecility of kings, and of their blind contempt for the people, from whom their crowns and their wealth must always be derived. But, with some men, example is disregarded, and advice neglected, if not despised. George the Fourth, for instance, reckless of all consequences, appears to have held it as a maxim, "I am determined to make every body as miserable as I can; and, so long as all my wants are supplied, no matter from what source they are derived!"

At an early part of