160 THE PRINCESS OF WALES [1813. 



your Royal Higimess's notice, I must be allowed to 

 say, that in the eyes of an observing and jealous world 

 this separation of a daughter from her mother will 

 only admit of one construction a construction fatal 

 to the mother's reputation. Your Royal Highness will 

 also pardon me for adding, that there is no less incon- 

 sistency than injustice in this treatment. He who 

 dares advise your Royal Highness to overlook the 

 evidence of my innocence, and disregard the sentence 

 of complete acquittal which it produced, or is wicked 

 and false enough still to whisper suspicions in your 

 ear, betrays his duty to you, Sir, to your daughter, and 

 to your people, if he counsels you to admit a day to 

 pass without a further investigation of my conduct. 

 I know that no such calumniator will venture to re- 

 commend a measure which must speedily end in his 

 utter confusion. 



" Then let me implore you to reflect on the situation 

 in which I am placed : without the shadow of a charge 

 against me ; without even an accuser ; after an in- 

 quiry that led to my ample vindication, yet treated as 

 if I were still more culpable than the perjuries of my 

 suborned traducers represented me, holding me up to 

 the world as a mother who may not enjoy the society 

 of her only child. 



" The feelings, Sir, which are natural to my un- 

 exampled situation, might justify me in the gracious 

 judgment of your Royal Highness, had I no other 

 motives for addressing you but such as relate to my- 

 self. The serious, and soon it may be the irreparable, 

 injury which my daughter sustains from the plan at 

 present pursued, has done more in overcoming my re- 

 luctance to intrude upon your Royal Highness than 



