behalf of the Queen, and a Mr. Henry was selected for that important and arduous task. Every obstacle was thrown in the way of his effecting the purport of his mission, and the Queen was thereby deprived of many witnesses who would have been able wholly to refute the depositions of the parties procured by the exertions of the Milan commissioners. At this period of the history of these proceedings, it may not be improper to notice, that, the almost innumerable addresses presented to her Majesty, the processions which took place on their presentation, and the mobs which they collected, tended very materially to express the feelings of the nation as to the bill of pains and penalties, and confessedly to induce its withdrawment by the very minister who introduced it. Connected with such addresses, were public meetings of parishes, hundreds, and counties; and scarcely a public company or corporation existed which did not also join in such measures. The higher classes of society, indeed, did not generally connect themselves with these proceedings; but many exceptions unquestionably occurred even to that rule On the 19th of August, the Attorney-General commenced his statement of the charges brought against her Majesty, which he concluded on the 22nd, and then proceeded to call the witnesses for the prosecution. No event of importance occurred in the House of Lords! until the 26th of August, when a long discussion took place respecting the right of the Queen's counsel to two cross examinations, and the nature and extent thereof. This debate was adjourned to the following Monday and Tuesday; but it was finally determined in behalf of the counsel for her Majesty, by a majority of 15. It was remarkable that on this question ministers, differed; the Earl of Liverpool and the Earl of Harrowby supporting the motion, and the Lord Chancellor opposing it. a The examination of witnesses for the prosecution having closed, the Solicitor-General proceeded to sum up the evidence, after which the House adjourned from the 9th of September to the 3rd of October... Accordingly on that day the House re-assembled; counsel were ordered to be called in, and Mr. Brougham commenced his address, which occupied him two days to deliver. Those only who listened to this oration can form an adequate idea of its splendour and dignity. Though solely reported in newspapers, its beauties were as evident as its effect was surprising. To transcribe a part of this address may be regarded as a species of literary sacrilege; yet so just and appropriate is the following summary of the trials to which her Majesty had been successively exposed, that it is copied into these pages for the purpose of presenting a condensed view of her sufferings, notwithstanding the injustice which is thereby done to Mr. Brougham's oratory, by presenting one of his figures detached from its appropriate group. 6 It was always,' said Mr. Brougham, the Queen's sad fate to lose her best stay, her strongest and surest protector, when danger threatened her; and, by a coincidence most miraculous in her eventful history, not one of her intrepid defenders was ever withdrawn from her without that loss being the immediate signal for the renewal of momentous attacks upon her honour and her life. Mr. Pitt, who had been her constant friend and protector, died in 1806. A few weeks after that event took place, the first attack was levelled at her. Mr. Pitt left her as a legacy to Mr. Perceval, who became her best, her most undaunted, her firmest protector. But no sooner had the hand of an assassin laid prostrate that minister, than her Royal Highness felt the force of the blow, by the commencement of a renewed attack, though she had but just been borne through the last by Mr. Perceval's skilful and powerful defence of her character. Mr. Whitbread then undertook her protection; but soon that melancholy catastrophe happened which all good men of every political party in the state, he believed, sincerely and universally lamented. Then came, with Mr. Whitbread's dreadful loss, the murmuring of that storm which was so soon to burst, with all its tempestuous fury, upon her hapless and devoted head. Her child still lived, and was her friend: her enemies were afraid to strike, for they, in the wisdom of the world, worshipped the rising sun. But when she lost that amiable and beloved daughter, she had no protector; her enemies had nothing to dread; innocent or guilty, there was no hope; and she yielded to the intreaty of those who Sketched by A. Wivell. in the House of Lords H. BROUGHAM, ESQ. M.P. NOW LORD BROUGHAM AND VAUX LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR. TWright foulp "I pray Heaven for her, and here I pour forth my fervent supplications at the Throc of Mercy, that Mercies may descend on the people of this County, richer than their Ru lers have erred that your heart may Le tum 1 to Ju ties. advised her residence out of this country. Who, indeed, could love persecution so steadfastly as to stay and brave its renewal and continuance, and harass the feelings of the only one she loved so dearly, by combating such repeated attacks, which were still reiterated after the record of the fullest acquittal? It was however reserved for the Milan commission to concentrate and condense all the threatening clouds which were prepared to burst upon her ill-fated head; and, as if it were utterly impossible that the Queen could lose a single protector without the loss being instantaneously followed by the commencement of some important step against her, the same day which saw the remains of her venerable sovereign entombed-of that beloved sovereign who was from the outset her constant father and friend-that same sun which shone upon the monarch's tomb ushered into the palace of his illustrious son and successor one of the perjured witnesses who were brought over to depose against her Majesty's life.' Nor should the following bold, yet correct, and indeed inimitable peroration to this incomparable speech be omitted : 'Such, my Lords,' said Mr. Brougham, is the case now before you; and such is the evidence by which it is attempted to be upheld. It is evidence, inadequate to prove any proposition; impotent to deprive the subject of any civil right; ridiculous, to establish the least offence; scandalous, to support a charge of the highest nature; monstrous, to ruin the honour of the Queen of England. What shall I say of it, then, as evidence to support a judicial act of legislature-an ex post facto law? My Lords, I call upon you to pause. You stand on the brink of a precipice. If your judgment shall go out against the Queen, it will be the only act that ever went out without effecting its purpose; it will return to you upon your own heads. Save the country-save yourselves. Rescue the country-save the people of whom you are the ornaments, but severed from whom, you can no more live than the blossom that is severed from the root and tree on which it grows. Save the country, therefore, that you may continue to adorn it; save the crown, which is threatened with irreparable injury; save the aristocracy, which is surrounded with danger; save the altar, which is no longer safe when its kindred throne is VOL. II. 2 Q |