To this letter there was no reply.
XVII.
During the eventful years over which this narrative has been rapidly gliding, the Heiress to the crown, who had already possessed herself of the affections of the British people, had expired (it was in Nov. 1817); and in 1820, as the Ministers, fatigued by their laborious efforts to excite alarm, began to allow the nation to recover its tranquillity, George III. (two years after his young and blooming grandchild) died also. The new King’s hatred, and Queen Caroline’s temper, rendering a more decent and moderate course impossible, occasioned the unhappy trial which scandalized Europe.
Nor was the question at issue merely a question involving the Queen’s innocence or guilt. The people, comparatively calm, as well on account of the recent improvement in trade, as in consequence of the cessation of that system of conspiracy-making or finding, which had so long kept them in a state of harassed irritation, were still for the main part thoroughly disgusted with the exhibition of fear, feebleness, and violence which, under the name of Lord Liverpool, and through the influence of Lord Castlereagh, had for the last three years been displayed. They detested the ministers of the Crown, and they were alienated from the Crown itself, which had been perpetually arrayed against them in prosecutions and almost as often stigmatised by defeat.
It was thus that Queen Caroline appeared as a new victim—as another person to be illegally assailed by the forms of law, and unjustly dealt with in the name of justice. Besides, she was a woman, and the daughter of a Royal house, and the mother of that ill-fated princess, whose early death the nation still deeply mourned. The people, then, took up her cause as their own, and rallied at once round a new banner against their old enemies.
On the other hand, the Government, urged by the wounded pride and uncontrollable anger of the Sovereign, consented to bring the unfortunate lady he denounced before a public tribunal, and were thus committed to a desperate career, of which it was impossible to predict the result.
Mr. Canning had long been the unhappy Queen’s intimate friend; but in adopting her cause, he must, as we have been showing, have adopted her party—the party of discontent, the party of reform—a party against which he had, during the last few years, been fiercely struggling. Here, as far as the public can judge from the information before it, lies the only excuse or explanation of his conduct; for it was hardly sufficient to retire (as he did) from any share in the proceedings against a friend and a woman, in whose innocence he said that he believed, when her honour and life were assailed by the most powerful adversaries, and by charges of the most degrading character.
He refused, it is true, to be her active accuser; but neither was he her active defender. He remained silent at home or stayed abroad during the time of the prosecution, and resigned office when, that prosecution being dropped, the Cabinet had to justify its proceedings.
The following letter to a constituent contains the account he thought it necessary to give of his conduct:
“Tuddenham, Norfolk, Dec. 22, 1820.