Some of our readers may probably view these reproaches as unmerited aspersions, or hateful invectives, proceeding from a vindictive, malignant, and democratic spirit, and their author deserving to be anathematized as the most execrable of the human race. But Truth, irrefragable Truth, is our defence; she has now burst her bonds, and will no longer be prevented, by the threats of power, from boldly speaking out! Common observation, indeed, might have ascertained that the unnatural and usurped power, which so long controlled the destinies of this country, was of a foreign character, and totally at variance with the constitution and chartered rights of Englishmen! Did not Junius expose the illegality of this power? and did not the noble-minded Chatham remonstrate against it? But though Tyranny and Corruption trembled to their very centres at the attacks of these champions of liberty, the base fabricks remained unimpaired till the death of their mistress,—the puissant Charlotte of Mecklenburgh Strelitz!

[[270]]We come now more immediately to the consideration of those political transactions that ensued when the final incapacity of George the Third to discharge the duties of his sovereignty was made known. At this period, Queen Charlotte, in collusion with her hopeful son, the Prince of Wales, came into full power, which she exercised with a spirit truly in accordance with her restless ambition and mercenary desires. A system of despotism, veiled under the specious garb of piety and the country's safety, was immediately put in force; and new taxes levied under various pretences, but in reality for the purpose of bestowing wealth on her zealous adherents. Indeed, in every proposition of the "devourers of the public wealth," for increasing the amount of "SECRET-SERVICE MONEY," a zealous abettor was always found in the queen. German craft is never at a loss for deceptive plans, nor is German prejudice easily pacified. No machinations were too hideous, nor too infamous, when suggested by the one to gratify the other. If the queen and her son had gained what they strenuously endeavoured to obtain—ABSOLUTE POWER—who would not have justly felt alarm, not merely for the liberties of his country, but for his own individual safety? The proscriptions of the Roman Decemviri and the more recent and horrible cruelties of the French Robespierre are appalling instances of what people CAN DO when armed with absolute power. Had these guardians of the British public, therefore, but succeeded in obtaining such power,

[[271]]to what lengths they would have gone may be estimated by the crimes they actually did commit and countenance without it! Where would the voice of mercy have prevailed on them to sheath the sword of persecution? Their ministers, by distorting the constitution from its original meaning, presumed to tear Englishmen from the bosom of their families, without any assigned cause, loading them with irons, and immolating them in damp and dreary dungeons! Some actually died, horrible as the fact may appear, under this treatment, while the survivers were released without any investigation, without any trial whatever,—nay, without their even being made acquainted with the nature of the suspected offence,—and denied the slightest redress for their cruel injuries! Considering, we say, that such monstrous injustice was practised, it is not too much to suppose that, with absolute power, the same parties would have erected the triangle at the Royal Exchange and at the Mews! We might then have expected to see Englishmen running naked through the streets of London, with caps of burning pitch upon their heads, and blood streaming from their lacerated bodies, or observed them hanging on the lamp-posts, or before their burning dwellings! Did not these horrors actually take place in Ireland in the years 1797 and 1798, when the tyrannical Castlereagh held a public situation in that betrayed, forlorn, and persecuted country? At the very time these atrocities were committed in Ireland, spies,

[[272]]informers, executioners, and all the refuse of society, were employed as the principal instruments of Castlereagh's government; and when Queen Charlotte and her son made that Hibernian monster minister of this country, Castle, Oliver, and Edwards, with many other such wretches, shared the smiles and favours of himself and his colleagues.

The history of Caroline of Brunswick, in whose unhappy fate every person possessed of Christian feeling and principle must be interested, also fully evinces the hateful passions of Queen Charlotte's heart. That victim of a detestable conspiracy was the object of a sanguinary determination from the moment she so unhappily came over to this kingdom. Queen Charlotte, finding herself then defeated in the ambitious desire she had always cherished, that one of her own relations should be the future queen of England, became this noble-minded woman's most uncompromising and inveterate enemy. Into the highest favour and most unlimited confidence, her majesty now received the abandoned Lady Jersey, though she pretended, with so much austerity, to preserve the unsullied PURITY OF HER COURT; but this pretension was only made the better to impose upon the country, and to effect the destruction of the guiltless and unoffending niece of the king her husband! Her majesty, however, did not live to see such a wicked scheme accomplished.

[[273]]When the husband of the unfortunate Caroline attained, by the death of his father, to regal authority, surrounded by the titled hirelings of his own creation and the dependants on his bounty, he judged the opportunity peculiarly favourable to the final ruin of his long-persecuted consort. Every plot, therefore, that could be devised by a servile ministry and a corrupt parliament, was put into active operation for the purpose of depriving her of those constitutional rights which the demise of George the Third had entitled her to expect. The Duke of York stipulated with the king that, in the event of a divorce being granted, his majesty should not marry again,—otherwise, he threatened to take part with Queen Caroline! So much for the consistency, love of duty, and purity of motive, which the duke boasted in the House of Lords as solely actuating him in the line of conduct he had followed in opposing the queen!

The injurious reports which ministers circulated regarding Queen Caroline's conduct rendered it impossible for her majesty to remain abroad, even if she had so wished; for they presumed to treat her as the most abandoned of the human race, and therefore it became necessary for any virtuous woman, thus publicly accused, to appear in person, and assert her innocence. In the whole management of the ensuing "trial" against this ill-fated queen, justice, feeling, honour, and common sense were all equally outraged! What was the tribunal

[[274]]before which her majesty was called? How was it constituted? Who sat there "to administer evenhanded justice?" The ministers who brought forward the charges against their queen, the officers of the king's household, two of the king's brothers, with many other noble persons closely connected with the court, who held places and pensions at its will, and looked up to it for new honours, for patronage, for wealth, and for power! Were such people, then, calculated to administer justice? Justice, indeed! Was the refusing a list even of the names of the witnesses impartial justice? Was it impartial British justice, when the ministers of the king sat as judges, jurors, and accusers? Like triple-headed monsters, did they not, in that joint capacity, most profligately bribe, clothe, feed, house, and amuse a horde of discarded miscreant Italian servants? Was the instructing, drilling, marshalling, living, and conversing all together of these wretches, who were watched and kept under lock and key by these Cerberi, an example of the impartiality of British justice? Was the permitting the witnesses instantly to return to their den and communicate all their evidence to those who had not been before the House of Lords another proof of the impartiality of what is commonly termed "the highest court of judicature of the first nation in Europe?" Was the treating her majesty as guilty before her trial a fair specimen of the beauty of this court? Monstrous profanation of terms! Was ever

[[275]]common sense so insulted? Was justice ever so outraged? Were those iniquitous proceedings an evidence of that

"Justice, by nothing biassed or inclined,
Deaf to persuasion, to temptation blind;
Determined without favour, and the laws
O'erlook the parties to decide the cause?"