[168] Colonel, afterwards Sir John Stewart, Bart., of Grandtully. The marriage took place on the 10th of August, 1746. He died in 1764. It appears from the pleadings that when he married Lady Jane Douglas he was reduced in health, spirit, and circumstances, but was a man naturally of an ardent temperament, and had led a bustling dissipated life.—E.
[169] She was delivered of twins on the 10th of July, 1748, at Paris, in the house of Madame le Brun, in the Fauxbourg St. Germains, according to the evidence in the cause.—E.
[170] It should be observed, however, that in the judgments they delivered in the House of Lords, both Lord Camden and Lord Mansfield argue very strongly from Lady Jane’s conduct to her children that she was their mother.—E.
[171] This was the general impression. Lord Mansfield, on the contrary, was satisfied that the children in every way resembled Sir John Stewart and Lady Jane,—“the one was the finished model of Sir John, the other the exact picture in miniature of Lady Jane.” (See his Speech.)—E.
[172] The Douglas cause began in 1762. The judges in the Court of Session were divided—being seven to seven. The casting vote of the Lord President gave the decision to the Hamiltons. This judgment was reversed in the Lords on Feb. the 27th, 1769.—E.
[173] Lady Susan Stuart, daughter of the Earl of Galloway, and third wife of Earl Gower, was the intimate friend of the Duchess of Hamilton, and governing her in all other points, was very zealous for her in this cause, and had engaged the Bedford connection to support it.
[174] The speeches of Lord Mansfield and Lord Camden are to be found in the Collectanea Juridica, vol. ii. p. 386, and Parliamentary History, vol. xvi. p. 518. It is scarcely possible that the report of Lord Mansfield’s can be correct. It is equally poor both in composition and in argument; the main argument, indeed, being that a woman of Lady Jane’s illustrious descent could not be guilty of a fraud. The report contains none of the invectives against Andrew Stuart to which the text refers,—an omission which has been attributed to Lord Mansfield’s extreme caution or timidity,—and had no other effect than to encourage Mr. Stuart to attack him afterwards with greater fierceness; whilst against Lord Camden, whose speech was at least equally severe, he made no assault whatever.—(Lord Brougham’s Historical Sketches, vol. iii. p. 195.) Lord Camden’s speech has been reported with unusual care, and is no doubt a fine specimen of judicial eloquence. Still, it does not fairly grapple with the difficulties of the case, and some of the strongest objections, too, in the way of the Douglas claim are left entirely untouched.—E.
[175] Mr. Johnstone Pulteney was the second son of Sir James Johnstone, Bart., of Westerhall, and brother of Governor Johnstone. He married the rich heiress and niece of Lord Bath, whose frugal habits he seems to have closely imitated. Wraxall says that his figure and dress answered Pope’s description of Sir John Cutler, his whole wardrobe being threadbare.—(Posthumous Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 280.) He died in 1805, at the age of eighty-four. His daughter was created Countess of Bath.—E.
[176] These letters are intituled “Letters to Lord Mansfield on the Douglas Cause, 1773,” 4to. They partly deserve the commendation bestowed on them by Walpole, and may still be read with almost unabated interest. Mr. Stuart had been a Writer of the Signet in Edinburgh. He was the proprietor of a fair estate called Torrence, in Lanarkshire, and for some years he represented the county in Parliament. In the Letters cited above, he calls himself “one whose birth entitles him, when provoked by injury, to feel no inferiority” to Lord Mansfield. The Appendix to his work contains letters to him from Charles Yorke, Dunning, Wedderburne, and Sir Adam Ferguson (who had all been of counsel for the Hamiltons), testifying to his honour in the conduct of the cause. It is difficult, nevertheless, to acquit him of very reprehensible tampering with the evidence. He wrote several tracts on Indian affairs, and likewise “A Genealogical History of the Stuarts, from the Earliest Period to the Present Time,” a work more curious than valuable. It led to some controversy long since forgotten. He died in 1801.—E.
[177] Without examining the records of France this fact cannot safely be altogether denied; but after many inquiries both among Scotch and English lawyers, the authenticity of it seems to rest with Walpole alone. Had it happened before Mr. Stuart’s Letters was published in 1773, of course he would never have omitted so important a fact; but neither in his Letters, nor in a French account of the Douglas cause published in 1786, nor in any other publication that has fallen in the editor’s way, is there the least notice of any such thing: besides this, nobody remembers even to have heard of it; and it is not a story likely to be forgotten, had it ever been mentioned.—E.