INTRODUCTION. INSTRUCTED by experience in the legal dangers and penalties that attend the premature disclosure of historical truth, I do not nourish the intention of permitting these memoirs to see the light till I shall have been removed from the scene. I have done more: I have taken effectual precautions to prevent the possibility of their being published during the life of his present Majesty George the Fourth. In fact, the mention which I made of Count Woronzow, when relating the circumstances connected with the marriage of the Princess Royal to the late Duke of Wirtemberg, in the "Memoirs of my own Time," published in April 1815, constituted only the ostensible pretext for the judgment then pronounced against me. My real offence consisted in the facts or opinions respecting men and measures recorded throughout that work. Garrow, then attorney general, who was retained by Woronzow, levelled his severest censures, not so much against the particular passage for which I was prosecuted, as against the memoirs themselves, which he depictured in colours the most calculated to produce a rigorous sentence. The court condemned me, for an unintentional fault, to six months' imprisonment, together with a fine of five hundred pounds. How averse Count Woronzow was that such a judgment should be carried into execution, he demonstrated in the most unequivocal manner. On the very same day, the 16th of May 1816, when I was sent to the King's Bench, he applied in person to Lord Sidmouth, then secretary of state for the home department, to solicit the immediate remission of my whole sentence. He repeatedly urged the same request to the Earl of Liverpool, and to Lord Castlereagh. Nor did he stop at the ministers, but twice personally addressed the regent himself on the subject. Finding, nevertheless, that all his efforts were ineffectual, and that ministers treated with neglect every application in my favour, he sent his son-in-law, my friend the Earl of Pembroke, to inform me of the circumstances here related. That nobleman having called on me while I was walking in the marshal's garden, on the twelfth of July, expressed in the strongest terms Count Woronzow's concern at the inefficiency of his exertions to procure my liberation from imprisonment, as well as the remission of the fine. He at the same time disclaimed, on the part of the count, his having ever authorized the attorney-general to call for a vindictive judgment against me; his only object in the prosecution having been to clear up his diplomatic character, as minister of the Empress Catherine the Second at the British court. Some days, however, previously to Lord Pembroke's visit, as early as the sixth of July, I had received a verbal message from Viscount Sidmouth, delivered by General Manners, first equerry to the king. It informed me, that if I would petition the regent for my liberation, Lord Sidmouth would lay it before his royal highness; which step would probably be productive of immediate and agreeable results. I instantly replied, that I preferred remaining in confinement until the 16th of the ensuing month of November, when the period of my detention would expire; and then to pay the fine, rather than submit to present a petition. I added, that having only wounded Count Woronzow's feelings, without malice or design of any kind, by the mention of an historical fact,-for which unintentional offence I had made him the most prompt, public, and ample reparation in my power, I had already acquitted myself towards him ;-but that, nevertheless, I was ready to address a respectful letter to the regent, requesting him to remit my fine, and to abbreviate my imprisonment. Having received in the course of the same morning, from General Manners, Lord Sidmouth's assent to my proposition, I immediately drew up a short address to his royal highGeneral Manners conveyed this letter to its destination, and the regent laid it before the chancellor, Lord Ellenborough, and the cabinet ministers. With their approbation, it was determined to remit my fine, and to liberate my person; but, not till towards the close of August. This resolution was communicated to me verbally from Lord Sidmouth, by General Manners, on Saturday the thirteenth of July, the day subsequent to Lord Pembroke's visit; which ness. |