"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?"
When the law-officers of the crown declared, that "there existed no grounds upon which legal proceedings could be instituted," two obvious and distinct paths were open to ministers. They had their election to advise, either that her majesty should return to this country with all the honours and constitutional privileges belonging to her high station, or else that she should be prevailed upon to establish her court abroad. Yet ministers determined to deviate into a dark and crooked path. They did not venture openly to advise that the queen should return; and yet, as if determined that she should come to this country, they took care to render it impossible for her to remain abroad! Was not the name of the noble-minded Caroline insultingly excluded from the Liturgy? And what reason was assigned for so unjustifiable a proceeding? The Archbishop of Canterbury and other church pluralists gave this: "If any defiled name should there be inserted, the principles of morality would be invaded, the foundations of religion would be sapped, and the destruction of our constitution must inevitably follow!" Now, even allowing the queen to have been the abandoned character represented by her hireling enemies,--nay, more, had she been a MURDERESS,--these impudent and canting hypocrites need not have searched far for a precedent to prove her eligibility for a place in the Liturgy! Were Henry the Eighth, Queen Mary, Charles the Second and his queen, James the Second and his queen, all pure and undefiled? But the place-hunting clergy need not have gone out of their own generation for an example of infamy. What were Queen Charlotte, George the Fourth, the Duke of York, or, though last, not least in the VIRTUES of his family, the _undefiled_ Ernest of Cumberland? Our volumes fully explain what they were! and yet their names graced the Liturgy, as the Attorney-General has declared that the words "Royal Family" comprehend _all_ the individuals of the royal family. But it may be objected that the names of York and Cumberland were not _specifically_ mentioned in the days of Queen Caroline's persecutions. Well, then, the Prince of Wales' name, at least, did figure in our Prayer Book, and was he "pure and undefiled?" The _pious_ sons of the church formally prayed that "God would endue him with his holy spirit," &c.; but it did not appear, by his actions, that their prayers produced the least effect. When he became king, he was prayed for, "to be endued with heavenly gifts, to incline to the will of God, and walk in his ways." Did his infamous conduct to his wife, and his living in open adultery with the Marchioness of Conyngham and others, qualify him for a place in the prayers of the church, as "pure and undefiled?" If ministers, therefore, consented to deprive the queen of this dignity, because of her imputed immorality, might it not have proved a precedent against George the Fourth himself? The lawyers, even Lord Eldon, if it had suited his purpose, might have afterwards cited the case of Caroline as a case in point, while the country could not refuse to dethrone the king on the same plea as they had dethroned the queen, more particularly as it was so easy a matter to prove the gross adultery and immorality of George the Fourth; for his derelictions from virtue were as notorious as the sun at noon-day. Would to heaven, we say, that a king might have been dethroned for immoral conduct, as the world had not then been so cursed with their atrocious deeds. When at foreign courts, her majesty justly claimed the honours pertaining to her exalted rank, but was insultingly told that she was not known as a queen! Thus subjected, _untried and unheard_, to every indignity which could only have followed upon proof and condemnation, her majesty had no alternative left but to return to England, and boldly face her mean-spirited and unmanly enemies. Had her title been proclaimed, had foreign courts been instructed to receive her with the honours due to a queen of England, her continuing to remain abroad would not have worn the appearance of shrinking from the defence of her reputation,--a fear to which she was utterly a stranger. Her noble soul scorned danger; for a braver heart than her's never beat in human breast. But her husband's ministers rendered her absence from this country incompatible with her honour; they _forced_ her to return, and they, and they alone, were responsible for all the mischief that might have ensued to the country from such an unavoidable step on the part of the queen.