place in times, when considerations of equity had little influence. The proposition made to them was, that they should now proceed to examine information of a nature totally ex parte, in a case directly affecting the character and honour of the Queen. This examination was to take place without affording her any means of explanation on the charges made against her -any opporturity of examining witnesses, or of saying any thing in her own defence. Upon such a partial examination their Lordships were to make a report with a view to some proceeding in that House. Be that proceeding what it may, her Majesty would inevitably be placed in a disadvantageous situation with respect to it, from the weight of their Lordships' report, in the first place, against her. Notwithstanding all his respect for the noble and learned Lord, he could not be satisfied as to those subtile distinctions, by which he endeavoured to prove that the Queen could not be arraigned as guilty of high treason. At all events, the House of Commons might impeach her as having acted in a manner unworthy of her high station. That illustrious person came before them in a character in which he believed no Queen of England had ever before appeared. She is a petitioner; she prays for a prompt inquiry, desirous that no delay may take place, but begs that she might not, by a previous proceeding, have the accusations against her sent forth into the world, not as the charges of her accusers, but as those of that House. He was far from wishing their Lordships to yield to any factious clamours; yet surely they ought to pay some regard to the character which their proceedings would have in the eye of the public. Their Lordships occupied a high station in the country, distinguished by a long line of ancestors, possessing wealth, rank, and everything that could entitle them to respect, and secure their perfect independence. Possessing these high advantages, they were bound to take the greater care how they brought the character of their proceedings into question. Secret committees had of late been too common in this House, and their very name stamped a suspicion on any proceeding connected with them. Were he a member, he would not hear the paper of accusation read, he would insist upon seeing and hearing the witness himself. The committee was entirely composed of ministers of the crown, and of persons devoted to them; and the report would be entirely their report. Was there any secret charm in the committee-room of that House, which was to inspire them with that energy, wisdom, and justice, which they could not find in their cabinet? The only mode of extricating them from the straits in which they had involved themselves, was by a fair, open, and impartial inquiry. This might be done either by judicial proceeding, by bill, or by a mixture of both modes. The conduct of ministers during the whole of these proceedings, had been most extraordinary, weak, and unjustifiable; and by their imbecility and vacillation, they had brought the question to an issue, which they could not pursue without danger, or retract without disgrace. It was now twelve months since they had the report of their commission in their hands, upon which they ought either to have acquitted the Queen, or commenced proceedings, which might by this time have been terminated. They entered into negociations, in which they coupled the menace of proving criminal charges, with the offer of an arrangement wholly inconsistent with them. They now sought to divest themselves of their official accountability, and to throw upon committees of Parliament their duties and responsibili colleagues for the last eight years. He was willing that their counsels and acts should be compared to the counsels and acts of the administration with which the noble Earl had been connected. The wish of ministers to avoid proceedings against the Queen, and to prevent her coming to this country, was approved of, he was sure, by nine-tenths of the nation. 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? He was conscious of nonę of that vacillation, of which the noble ty. 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 arosewhen the winds raged when the waves beat high, the vessel of the state was left by them, without compass or rudder, to the mercy of the storm. The concessions which they had made to her Majesty, and the panegyrics which some of them passed upon her, were totally inconsistent with the charges which they advanced. Her Majesty was accused-Earl had accused ministers. They the charges were in the bag-a committee had been proposed-and yet they paused, and agreed not to open the bag, but to address her Majesty, with all respect and submission, to surrender some of her rights, that inquiry might be prevented. Lord Gray concluded with moving 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 investigationthat 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. The Earl of Liverpool had been much surprised to hear the Noble Earl, after disclaiming any intention to make this a party question, conclude with one of the most inflammatory party attacks that had ever been made within the walls of Parliament. He was prepared to appeal from the judgment of the noble Lord to the country, to Parliament, and to posterity, and to be tried by them for the conduct pursued by himself and his had laid the papers on the table, and moved the appointment of a committee. A strong sense had been expressed in the other House, that an attempt at negociation should be made; and with this ministers had gladly complied; but they did not know of the motion to this effect an hour before it was made. Lord Liverpool insisted that the Chancellor was perfectly correct in his opinion, that the Queen could not be chargeable with high treason. She could be brought in only as an accessary; and where, as in the case of a foreigner, there was no principal, there could be no accessary. A legislative proceeding was the only course that could be adopted; and the House of Lords, from being accustomed to examine witnesses upon oath, as well as from other considerations, seemed the quarter from which it should originate. The next question was, whether there should be any preliminary inquiry. He could find no precedent of a Bill of Pains and Penalties, without some such inquiry; and, if there was one, it was surely prejudicing the cause less that it should be secret, than that it should be public. This was an accusation against the first subject in the realm, and the case could not be entered into without great difficulty and great delicacy. Was it fitting, he would ask their Lordships, that the House, on the mere ipse dixit of a minister, and without inquiring for themselves, should decide that there were grounds of proceeding against the illustrious individual who was accused? The noble Lord had assumed, and the assumption certainly was not Parliamentary, that this committee must report that there were grounds for farther proceeding. There was no such necessity; it might report that there were not, as well as that there were grounds. He agreed, that full opportunity ought to be given to the Queen to prepare for her defence. He thought that she and her counsel should have their choice as to the time at which the requisite delay should be granted-whether it should be before the trial commenced, or after the charge and the evidence in support of it had been brought forward. But the inquiry before the secret committee did not imply any charge. Their Lordships, by referring the papers to a committee, were not by that proceeding making any charge against her Majesty, but were merely ascertaining whether any charge should hereafter be made. He would not suffer himself to be swayed by arguments, grounded on the clamour of the factious and discontented out of doors. The members of the commit tee consisted of Peers, as honourable and as well qualified as could possibly have been chosen. Lord Erskine had originally supported the motion for a secret committee, as the most tender way of dealing with the accused. After what had passed, however, and after the petition presented by the Queen herself on the subject, he conceived there was no longer any possibility of avoiding a public trial, and thought the House should at once proceed to it. VOL. XIII. PART I. The Lord Chancellor could see no change which had occurred in the state of the case. He conceived it quite clear, that there was no ground on which the Queen could incur the charge of high treason. It was by a forced construction at best, that adultery in the Queen Consort was made to infer such a charge, even when committed with a subject; but when it was committed with a foreigner, there did not appear to him the slightest pretence on which it could be founded. In regard to the mode of procedure, he would state, and he wished that his voice was loud enough to convey the opinion from one corner of the empire to the other, that those brought a most abominable and unjust charge against his Majesty's ministers, who said that they were desirous of disposing of this important question in the most offensive way that the public imagination could conceive, when it heard the words "secret committee." His obligations to the Crown were very great-still no punishment would be too severe for him, if he, during the prosecution of the inquiry into which they were about to enter, holding the high judicial situation which he held, was willingly to lose sight for a moment of the great principles of English justice. He admitted the full responsibility of ministers on the present occasion, but considered that responsibility as a point of very secondary importance, in a question where the King and Queen were personally interested. Ministers, therefore, were the better able to endure the taunts of ignorance, stupidity, precipitancy, and vacillation, which were so liberally thrown out against them. As for the argument, that the members of the secret committee, after pronouncing an opinion, could not sit in judgment on the question, it was one which had never before been held. L Whenever there had been such committees, as was usual upon bills of attainder, bills of pains and penalties, and bills of impeachment, the noble Lords who had sat on such committees had never been suspected of performing the duties which devolved upon them in subsequent stages, with less fidelity on that account. How would noble Lords, who held that opinion, propose to do in cases of bills of impeachment, brought in by a Committee of the whole House? He had been accused of being too much addicted to delay; but though he would willingly grant all the delay which appeared to be necessary, impartiality seemed to require, that no more should be granted. If further proceedings in this important inquiry should be deemed necessary, he should enter upon them in the spirit so ably described by an eminent English Judge, who declared that he had made a covenant with God and himself, that neither affection, nor any other undue principle, should ever make him swerve from the strict line of his duty. The Marquis of Lansdowne and Lord Holland supported the motion for inquiry, which was opposed by the Earls of Donoughmore and Lauderdale. The question being then called, the motion was negatived by a majority of 103 to 47. On the day previous to the above debate, the House of Commons had under their consideration the course which they were to take on this great question. The debate was introduced by Lord Castlereagh, who supposed that every effort, both on the part of his Majesty's Government, and of Parliament itself, to avert inquiry, had now been exhausted, and that nothing remained but to put both parties, as speedily as possible, into the situation which they were to occupy, pending the course of a ju dicial inquiry. The mode of proceeding adopted by ministers, was that which appeared to them consonant to the soundest views of Parliamentary practice. Although they would not have hesitated, upon the evidence in their possession, to bring the subject in a distinct and intelligible form before the House, yet it appeared to them incumbent, first of all, to enable Parliament to ascertain whether there were prima facie grounds for entertaining such charges. One hope was also, that, during the sitting of a secret committee, means might be found to avert the necessity of a mere public and extended investigation. The case had now undergone an important change: Her Majesty had repeatedly protested against any secret inquiry, and represented it as an injury done to her. In consequence also of proceedings in this House, every attempt had been made to effect an accommodation. Without attempting to cast blame upon any quarter, he might say, that something was fairly anticipated from the disposition professed by the Queen to yield to the judgment of Parliament. It had been thought, that from the moment her legal character and dignity as Queen were satisfactorily recognized-from the moment her rank and honour had ceased to be implicated-that all other matters would be secondary and subordinate-and that she would be willing to submit to the arbitration of one or more respectable individuals, regarding the questions of reception, patronage, and income. In favour of this supposition the House had given its solemn judgment. It was not, he believed, saying too much to state, that the records of the country might be searched in vain for any approach by the House to a member of that illustrious family, or to any individual connected with the throne, more calculated to conciliate the feelings. Her Majesty had disregarded the opinion of the House of Commons in a manner which could not have been done by the other side of the royal house. The most serious and solemn appeal ever made to a member of the Brunswick family, had in this instance proved unavailing; and the House must feel, that it had exhausted every thing in the way of the exertion of its influence and authority; and that the only course, consistent with its dignity and the principles on which it had acted, was now to consider how it could put in a train of judicial investigation those charges, an inquiry into which it had made one of the greatest efforts in the history of Parliament to avert. In these circumstances, the motives which had induced to recommend a secret committee, seemed no longer to exist. He was, therefore, ready to submit to the House a motion, which, without any further preliminary, might put it in possession of the charges contained in the information now on the table. He conceived it, however, to be of advantage, that the measure should originate in the Upper House, which was in more judicial habits than the House of Commons. He should therefore propose an adjournment from the present Monday to Thursday se'ennight, by which time they might be able to judge of the view which the House of Lords was taking of the case. He proposed also, that the debate on the King's message should be adjourned to the day immediately after Thursday. He had heard it insinuated, that the address to her Majesty had been of such a tenor, that the resolutions of the House were ipso facto buried in oblivion; and that no future step, preliminary or direct, could be taken with regard to these charges. Nothing certainly could be farther from the tenor of Mr Wilberforce's speech, which merely proposed this as the best means of averting an inquiry, otherwise inevitable. An individual of the illustrious rank of Queen of these realms, could not be placed in a situation of charge, without injury to the dignity of the Crown, and the best interests of the country, whatever might be the result. He trusted, that neither in reason, nor in common sense, would any man attribute to his honourable friend, who served his country so usefully, disinterestedly, and ably, so extravagant and untenable a proposition, as that the resolutions he had proposed should at once put a stop to all future proceedings. He trusted that no more would be heard of such quibbling reasoning. He was confident, that the manly mind of the right hon. gentleman (Mr Tierney) disavowed it. The calamity, indeed, had fallen upon the country-no honourable exertions had been able to avert it; and he hoped that Parliament would now resume its ancient character for dignity and moderation, and that, in the course of the distressing examinations which now appeared inevitable, the voice of party would sleep, and the efforts of faction be suspended. The House, as the great council of the nation, ought to be divested of all angry passions, and free from the influence of all personal interests. Most of all, he hoped that that tone of feeling would be absent, which, though it might belong to politics, could not belong to justice. Mr Brougham most cordially joined in the appeal made at the conclusion of the noble lord's speech. On the part of her Majesty, he had to express his infinite satisfaction-a satisfaction which was but the reflected image of her own-that at length justice was to be administered according to law, and on the principles of the constitution; that they were to hear |