“I beseech your Majesty to do me an act of justice, to which, in the present circumstances, your Majesty is the only person competent, by acquainting those illustrious strangers with the motives of personal consideration towards your Majesty which alone induce me to abstain from the exercise of my right to appear before your Majesty: and that I do now, as I have done at all times, defy the malice of my enemies to fix upon me the shadow of any one imputation which could render me unworthy of their society or regard.
“Your Majesty will, I am sure, not be displeased that I should relieve myself from a suspicion of disrespect towards your Majesty, by making public the cause of my absence from court at a time when the duties of my station would otherwise peculiarly demand my attendance.
“The Queen has received, this afternoon, the Princess of Wales’s letter of yesterday, in reply to the communication which she was desired by the Prince Regent to make to her; and she is sensible of the disposition expressed by her Royal Highness, not to discuss with her topics which must be painful to both.
“The Queen considers it incumbent upon her to send a copy of the Princess of Wales’s letter to the Prince Regent; and her Majesty could have felt no hesitation in communicating to the illustrious strangers who may possibly be present at her court, the circumstances which will prevent the Princess of Wales from appearing there, if her Royal Highness had not rendered a compliance with her wish to this effect unnecessary, by intimating her intention of making public the cause of her absence.
THE ANSWER OF THE PRINCESS OF WALES TO THE QUEEN.
“The Princess of Wales has the honour to acknowledge the receipt of a note from the Queen, dated yesterday; and begs permission to return her best thanks to her Majesty, for her gracious condescension in the willingness expressed by her Majesty to have communicated to the illustrious strangers, who will in all probability be present at her Majesty’s court, the reasons which have induced her Royal Highness not to be present.
“Such communication, as it appears to her Royal Highness, cannot be the less necessary on account of any publicity which it may be in the power of her Royal Highness to give to her motives; and the Princess of Wales, therefore, entreats the active good offices of her Majesty, upon an occasion wherein the Princess of Wales feels it so essential to her that she should not be misunderstood.