402 DEFENCE OF QUEEN CAROLINE. [1820. 



will be well. Should there be a change, my fixed in- 

 tention is not to take office. I shall remain quietly 

 in the law, and shall (if they come in) get them to 

 make Denman Solicitor-General under Scarlett, who 

 must be Attorney. My course is clear : I will not 

 lose my influence in the country, so capable of being 

 turned to the best purposes. This I should lose by 

 taking such a place as Solicitor-General, and I can 

 make as much money as I have occasion for, without 

 place. 



" If they come in, I shall be a far better support to 

 them if I am out of office. If they do come in, Kin- 

 naird must not only be made an English peer, but 

 hold some very great office. He is the cleverest man 

 going, as well as the most honourable and agreeable. 

 Pray remember me to him. H. B." 



Among the many things which have been suggested 

 by persons in criticising our conduct of the cause, and 

 which had occurred to ourselves and been rejected with 

 more or less of unanimity, that which a secretary of 

 Canning has given as his view of our error, certainly 

 never had for a moment occurred to any one of us. 

 He says that Canning charged me with a great error, 

 in not, when I delivered my address, at once reading to 

 the House a list of the witnesses whom I was prepared 

 to call; and this, it seems, he thought, would have been 

 enough to obtain immediate judgment against the 

 bill. I will venture to say that anything more absurd 

 never entered into any man's mind, I may say, in the 

 conduct of any cause or legal proceeding ; and I am 

 justified in supposing that he must have been mis- 

 understood. No one, how ignorant soever of law pro- 



