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 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; 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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
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, 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 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 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 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 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
"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!"