GENERAL H I S T U Y. 



[145 



tion of tlie house to a letter to the 

 chair from the Princess of Wales, 

 ill which she intimated that it 

 would be more satisfactory to her 

 if the vote of the committee for an 

 allowance of 50,000/. per ann. 

 were reduced to 35>000. His 

 lordship said, that he should not 

 have thought of submitting to the 

 house the proposition he had made, 

 if he had not previously a[)prized 

 her Royal Highness of the intend- 

 ed measure. In her reply to this 

 communication, she had stated her 

 willingness to accept the grant 

 offered her, as it was clogged with 

 no conditions derogatory to her 

 honour, and was not an act of grace 

 or favour from the crown, but of 

 justice. Conceiving, however, the 

 letter to the chair as more conclu- 

 sive of her wish, as being more spe- 

 cific, than that addressed to him- 

 self, he should follow its intention ; 

 but he hoped that if parliament 

 thought proper to agree to a dimi- 

 nution of what it had voted as an 

 act of justice, no persons would be 

 allowed, on that account, at any 

 future period, to revive in that 

 house discussions connected with 

 the royal family. He ended with 

 moving the reduction of the sum 

 Voted, as desired by the Princess. 



Mr. Whitbread affirmed that the 

 first letter of the Princess, written 

 without any adviser, was only to 

 intimate a general acquiescence in 

 the measure proposed, without re- 

 garding the amount of the sum. — 

 He had no hesitation in saying, 

 that when consulted on the subject 

 by her Royal Highness, he had 

 given it as his opinion that the sum 

 was larger than circumstances re- 

 quired, and that o5,000/. would 

 be amply sufficient for all her pur- 

 j)n»ie8. But whether the sum were 



Vol.. |,V| 



larger or smaller, he thought it left 

 things precisely in the same situa- 

 tion as before, and did not render 

 the Princess less in need of the pro- 

 tection of the House. 



We shall not report any farther 

 particulars of the conversation on 

 this occasion, which terminated 

 in adopting Lord Castlereagh's 

 amendment of 35,000/. instead of 

 50,000/. ; and a bill was ordered to 

 be brought in, conformably to the 

 resolutions. It afterwards passed 

 into a law. 



The trial and conviction of cer- 

 tain persons on the charge of a con- 

 spiracy to defraud the Stock Ex- 

 change, which forms a memorable 

 article in the judicial history of the 

 present year, and of which a sum- 

 mary will be found in another parr 

 of our volume, also furnished a 

 topic of parliamentary debate, too 

 interesting to be passed over. 



On June 10, Mr. Broadhead, in 

 the House of Commons, adverting 

 to the trials which had recently 

 taken place in the Court of King's 

 Bench, observed, that a charge 

 having been established against two 

 members of parliament f I^ord 

 Cochrane and Mr. Cochrane John- 

 stone J, deeply affecting their pub- 

 lic and private honour, he felt it 

 to be his duty at no distant period 

 to call the attention of the House 

 to the subject. And after some 

 conversation on matter of form, he 

 gave notice of a day on which he 

 should move for a copy of the con- 

 viction. This instrument ^ being 

 accordingly laid before the House, 

 the Hon. Gentleman, on June 24, 

 moved for its being taken into con- 

 sideration on that day se'nnight, 

 and that Lord Cochrane should be 

 brought up, if he desired it, on that 

 day by the Marshal oF the King's 



