280 TWO CHAPTERS ILLUSTRATIVE OF 



all mouths, at the same time, were open to declare. But though his 

 implied suspicions were made less invidious by the corroborative 

 misgivings of many others, yet it must be admitted that he has here 

 overlooked the important distinction between the truth of opinion 

 and the truth of fact. What Hume has remarked on this subject 

 appears to be founded on such sentiments as both nature and reason 

 must approve. " If Somerset," he sagaciously asks, " was so great 

 a novice in this detestable act that, during the course of five months, 

 a man who was his prisoner, and attended by none but his emissa- 

 ries, could not be despatched but in so bungling a manner, how 

 could it be imagined that a young prince, living in his own court, 

 surrounded by his own friends and domestics, could be exposed to 

 Somerset's attempts, and be taken off by so subtle a poison, if such 

 an one exists, as could elude the skill of the most experienced phy- 

 sicians ?"* The only thing, indeed, which can furnish any plausi- 

 ble pretext for the idea that Henry was poisoned by the minion of 

 the king, is to be found in the following story related by Sir 

 Charles Cornwallis, treasurer to the prince, and is to this purpose : 

 That Rochester had addressed a letter to the prince, in which he 

 had signed himself " yours before all the world." Henry directed 

 Cornwallis to reply to this epistle, but, perceiving, when he was 

 about to fix his signature to it, that his treasurer had concluded in 

 a very complimentary form, he ordered the whole letter to be re- 

 composed, declaring that Rochester (for though he does not actually 

 name him, yet it is beyond all question the reference is made to him 

 only) had dealt with him unfaithfully and falsely, and that his hand 

 should never attest what his heart did not dictate. In opposition, 

 however, to these surmises, and others that are discoverable in the 

 secret histories or memoirs of the time, respecting the death of this 

 prince, there exists the most positive and authentic evidence, col- 

 lected from the journal of his last sickness, and from the reports of 

 the surgeons who opened his body, that he died of a malignant fe- 

 ver,t a disorder which probably would not have been fatal, had the 



■ History of Englund, vol. vi., p. 71- 



f It is singular that Mr. Fox, if he had perused the discourse of Sir 

 Charles Cornwallis on the life and death of Prince Henry, which contains 

 a minute detail of all the symptoms of the prince's case, extracts from 

 which may be found in Birch's Life, should have stated it as his opinion 

 that he was poisoned. See letter from him to Lord Lauderdale in the 

 preface to his History by Lord Holland. A high authority, the French 

 ambassador, Spifame, in one of his dispatches to the Minister Puysieux says 

 speaking on this subject, " I hold the death of Prince Henry to have been 

 natural." llaumer History of the XVI. and XVII. Cent., vol. ii., p. 222. 



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