very short time before, had happened to say, that he expected almost immediately a courier from Paris. Her majesty, conceiving that the only object of a courier from the capital of a country, which had treated her with marked neglect, must be a hostile one, and probably might end in intercepting her journey, took the resolution of setting off that very instant, lest the delay of a few minutes might allow time for the arrival of a messenger with powers to refuse her the means of travelling; and, under the influence of the same idea, the moment that she reached Calais, she went on board an English packet boat in the harbour, from an apprehension, that, if she remained on shore, difficulties might be thrown in the way of her embarkation. It will readily be believed, that her suspicion was entirely groundless, and that she had mistaken lord Hutchinson's ineaning. The courier, to whom he had alluded, was merely to bring an answer from his nephew, then resident in Paris, to whom he had written, requesting him to come and assist him as his confidential amanuensis.

So little did lord Hutchinson, either from what he had seen, or from what Mr. Brougham had communicated to him, expect this precipitate departure of her majesty, that, at the very time when it took place, he was engaged in writing the following letter, which was addressed to Mr. Brougham, and delivered to him after she was gone.

"St. Omer's, 5 o'clock, June 4, 1820.

66

My dear Sir-I should wish that you would enter into a more detailed explanation; but, to show

you my anxious and sincere' wish for an accommodation, I am willing to send a courier to England to ask for further instruction, provided her majesty will communicate to you whether any part of the proposition which I have made would be acceptable to her; and if there is any thing which she may wish to offer to the English government, on her part, I am willing to make myself the medium through which it may pass.

"I have the honour to be, &c.

"HUTCHINSON."

This letter was sent after the queen, in an inclosure from Mr. Brougham. It was received by alderman Wood on board the packet, about 1 o'clock in the morning; but, as her majesty was then asleep, it was not delivered to her, till two hours afterwards. As soon as she had read it, she desired the alderman to acknowledge the receipt of it, and to add, that she saw no reason for altering her course.

Such was the inexplicable course, and the very natural result, of the negotiation at St. Omer. If Mr. Brougham's steps in the preceding stages of this transaction are involved in mystery, here the darkness becomes still thicker. He has in his possession a written memorandum, containing the terms which the king is willing to offer to his consort: yet he never shows it, or mentions it, to her. He suffers her to negotiate through him with lord Hutchinson, and to demand from his lordship what it was in his own power to produce. She calls for written terms; lord Hutchinson has none, and can only detail to her the substance of conversations with the prime mi

nister. Yet Mr. Brougham never hints, that he has the written terms of the minister in his possession. Lord Hutchinson, in imparting to her, according to the best of his recollection, the terms which the government were willing to grant her, falls into some mistakes, and makes the conditions appear not a little harsher than they really were. Mr. Brougham does not correct the mistakes, or point out to his royal client, in what points lord Hutchinson had misapprehended the terms proffered by the government. Yet these points were of such considerable importance, that it is impossible to say, how far her majesty might have been inclined to adopt a course different from that which she actually pursued, if they had been fairly explained to her. According to lord Hutchinson's letter, her annuity was to be subject to such conditions as the king might impose; in lord Liverpool's memorandum, there was no such limitation of it. By the former, she is to be prohibited from bear ing any title connected with the royal family of England; according to the latter, she is at liberty to assume any title except that of queen. These were important differences in the matter of the propositions; but, perhaps, the variation from the manner, in which the government expected that they would be brought be fore her majesty, was of still greater consequence. It was intended, that they should be brought under her consideration by her attorney-general, and sanctioned by his recommendation; in fact, however, they were submitted to her by her husband's friend, and her attorney-general did not utter

one syllable in their favour. It was intended, that they should be laid before her in a conciliatory manner, unaccompanied by any words that might be construed into a menace, nor was any hint to be given her of the proceedings which would be adopted, if she finally refused the terms, till all Mr. Brougham's endeavours to effect an arrangement should have been baffled. But so far was this intention from being acted upon, that lord Hutchinson, by being brought into the fore-ground at the very commencement as the bearer of the terms, was forced, at the same time that he communicated them to her, to give her intimation of what would be the consequence of a refusal.

never

Mr. Brougham has deigned to give any explanation of this apparently inconsistent, wavering, mysterious conduct. If we might presume to account for that, for which he has not thought it prudent to assign any reasons, we should be inclined to believe, that he originally thought, that the terms contained in lord Liverpool's memorandum were such, as her majesty would do well to accept; that he flattered himself with the hope of recommending himself both to her and to his sovereign by being instrumental in effecting an arrangement which would be conducive to the tranquillity of both and that, even when he left England, he had still hopes of prevailing on her to enter into negotiation. When, however, he arrived at St. Omer, he found that she was under the influence of different counsels; and, from observing the plans which she had adopted, he did not think it prudent to. diminish his credit with her, by

declaring himself the bearer of terms to which she was not then likely to accede, much less by recommending them to her acceptance. He, therefore, thought it wise to throw the task of negotiation on lord Hutchinson. If she refused to listen for a moment to the proffered terms, he had avoided the risk of exciting her displeasure and her suspicion as to the sincerity of his zeal in her cause. If, on the other hand, she should think it worth while to deliberate upon them, and her acceptance or rejection of them became a matter of doubt, he could then interfere with advantage; and his advice, which would now have more weight than if it had been offered earlier, might turn the scale, and determine her to conclude an amicable arrangement; so that he might have been regarded by the king as the preserver of our internal tranquillity, and his very departure from the course, which, according to the understanding with the ministers, he was to follow, would have been a proof not of dubious honesty, but of superior sagacity. From the violence with which lord Hutchinson's proposition was rejected, he saw, that it was in vain to stem the current of her will. He therefore stood by, a silent and inactive spectator.

Perhaps we ought not to refuse the praise of prudence to this conduct; but it was surely wanting in firmness and sincerity. We do not see how Mr. Brougham can make out, that he did not, at the time of his departure from England, approve of the terms contained in lord Liverpool's memorandum, and that he did not give the government to understand, that he would lay the terms

before his royal mistress, and support them by his authority. Whatever her disposition at St. Omer might have been, it was his duty to have fulfilled the engagement, express or implied, into which he had entered. He ought to have submitted the memorandum to her; he ought to have told her, that, judging from what he knew of the circumstances of her situation, he had formerly approved of it: and if, upon receiving from her additional information, he found reason to change his opinion, so that the plan, which he had once thought that she ought to adopt, no longer appeared to him in the same light, he could have declared his alteration of sentiments and advised her accordingly. Such a proceeding would have been open and manly: the path which he actually followed, is, to all outward seeming, dark and crooked.

It was about half past 5 o'clock on the evening of Monday the 5th of June, when her majesty left St. Omer. Bergami, her supposed paramour, had there requested and received his dismissal: Mr. Brougham remained behind: so that, exclusively of her menial servants, she was accompanied only by her protégé Austin, by lady Anne Hamilton, and by alderman Wood and his son. She arrived at Calais about eleven o'clock on the same evening. It was six o'clock on the following morning, before the packet could work out of the harbour: and at one o'clock on Tuesday, the 6th of June, her majesty, after a six years absence, once more set her foot on British ground. She was received with a royal salute by the commandant of the garrison of Dover, who, having received no special in

structions, conceived, that he should best discharge his duty by complying with the general rule, and receiving her with the honours usually shown to royal personages upon their arrival.

On her landing, she was received with the most cordial welcome by an immense multitude, who had assembled on the beach, dressed in their best clothes, as if for some great holiday festival. She proceeded to the inn in a kind of triumphal procession, preceded by flags with appropriate inscriptions. On the same evening, she received an address from the inhabitants of Dover, congratulating her on her accession to the throne. Her answer was mild and becoming. She declared her delight in being again united to so noble and generous a nation, and expressed her hope, that the time would come, when she would be permitted to promote the happiness of her husband's subjects.

About half past six in the evening she left Dover. She spent the night at Canterbury; and arrived in London on the afternoon of Wednesday. On every part of the road, her approach was hailed by multitudes, and her progress was even retarded by their eager ness to show their devotion to her. As she drew near to the metropolis, the cavalcade swelled into an assembled nation; and it seemed, as if London had poured out its myriads from every street. The procession passed with exulting shouts along Pall-Mall, in order that she might enjoy the triumph (if she felt it to be a triumph) at the very gates of her husband's palace; and it finally stopped at the house of alderman Wood, in South Audley-street, where she had determined for

the mean time to take up her abode.

The excitement of the people did not cease with her retirement from the scene. A mob remained for a long time collected around the alderman's door, while others traversed the streets, and clamorously insisted upon the illumination of the houses. Some had voluntarily exhibited this mark of exultation; but the greater number did so, to humour the populace, and thereby save their windows from destruction, In the course of that and the following evening, many outrages were committed.

The reception, which her majesty had hitherto met with, probably exceeded her warmest expectations. There are a variety of causes, which contributed to the cordiality with which she was welcomed home by a great part of the middling orders, and by nearly the whole of the lowest classes. There had always been a general opinion, that, in the first stages of her married life, she had met with undeserved and cruel treatment from those who were bound to have cherished and protected her: so that she had scarcely been here a few months, when she became the object of public sympathy. Ere long she was separated from her husband, though no fault was alleged against her: and the state of loneliness in which her days had henceforward been passed, interested many of the best feelings of the human heart in her behalf. Her honour, too, had been more than once attacked, but she had always triumphed over her accusers; and if any indiscretions were imputable to her, the blame, which might have been attached to them, had been

swallowed up in the eclat of acquittal from more serious charges. Her general conduct had always been conciliating and popular. Affable, generous, and disinterested, she was known to the people of England, at the time of her journey to the continent, only as an injured and highminded woman; and not long before her departure, she had received, at Kensington palace, the felicitations of the metropolis on the failure of a fresh assault which had been made upon her character. One of the latest acts by which she had been known to them-her refusal to accept of more than 35,000l. a year, when 50,0001. a year was voted her by parliament was well fitted to secure their good opinion. Her daughter soon afterwards became an object of increasing interest; and when she was removed by a death, the circumstances of which were of a nature to excite pity, even if no attachment to her had existed before, much of the affection which bound the nation to the unfortunate princess Charlotte, settled upon her still more unfortunate mother, as claiming, by a legitimate title, the compassion of England. Had her majesty, therefore, come to our shores encompassed with royal pomp, to take uncontested possession of her throne, she might have been expected to have been hailed with acclamations. But

the simple mode, in which she arrived among us, was much better calculated to awaken a deep interest, than all the glare of courtly splendor. There was nothing between her and her subjects. She came without retinue, unfriended, and unprotected. She came to throw herself into the

arms of the country. There was something striking in the apparent courage, which the step, she had taken, displayed. She was the object of hatred to her husband: she was accused of an offence, which, it was imagined, affected her life as well as her dignity: the whole power of the state was to be directed against her. For a lonely woman to venture to combat such fearful odds, seemed a magnanimous enterprise to all, who were not aware of the omnipotence of law in England, and that even the feeblest hand, armed with the law, may defy the utmost violence of overgrown power. The rumours, affecting the propriety of her behaviour on the continent, had never been much the subject of conversation among us, except in the higher classes. What was generally known was indefinite and vague, so that it might easily be rejected as fiction; and even if a suspicion that it might be true, continued to lurk in the mind, it would make little impression on the fancy. Such were the causes that produced the cordial reception which queen Caroline experienced on her return; and, under the circumstances as they were then generally known, that reception was such as to do honour to the feelings of Englishmen. How she ought to have been received, or would have been received, if the whole truth had been known, is a very different question.

Neither must it be forgotten, that political party spirit made the presence of the queen acceptable to many, who cared nothing about her, except so far as she was a means of annoyance to ministers, and who, even in former