farther comments upon them, Indeed the spirited and manly reply of Colonel Picton, prefixed to the "Evidence taken at Port of Spain," and the very able pamphlet of Lieutenant-Colonel Draper, which (though some parts of it have subjected him to legal prosecutions), betrays the spirit of a soldier, the mind of a gentleman, and the accomplishments of a scholar, reflecting equal credit on his head and heart, are entitled to particular notice. The more we investigate this transaction, the more we examine the circumstances connected with it, the more we reflect on its immediato and remote consequences, the more strongly are we convinced that Colonel Picton is a much-injured, and highly-persecuted man. We entered upon the inquiry with a mind perfectly unprejudiced; we had not exchanged a word with, we had never even seen, any one of the parties (Mr. Woodyear, who was then dead, alone excepted). The sentiments which we have delivered, as well as those which we may hereafter deliver, are the unbiassed result of deliberate conviction, founded on the closest investigation, and the maturest reflection. We have not,

we cannot have, any personal animosity against Mr. Fullarton; if we had, we can assure him, all incredible as the assertion may appear to him, that our sense of honour would have made us abstain froin the discussion of this question; his threats of prosecution and vengeance, therefore, we shall continue to treat with contempt. While we respect the laws of our country too much, to be guilty of any violation of them, we value the freedom of the press too highly to sacrifice it to the dread of personal inconvenience. Its licentiousness we abhor, but its liberty we will defend as firmly as we would the Dii Penates of our country.Dr. Johnson has somewhere defined a libel to be a satirical writing, intended not to reform, but to vex. Now, in writing on the Pictonian Prosecution, we have no intention to vex-but we have a most earnest wish to reform. A different definition has, indeed, been given, by an authority, certainly respectable, but, as experience has proved, not infallible; it has been said, that if in the discussion of the public conduct of a public character, the writer hurts his feelings, his production is a libel. This, we boldly affirm, is not the law of England. If it were, the press would be as much fettered here, as it is in France; and it would be extreme folly, it would be adding insult to injury, to talk of its freedom. But, when such a dictum has gone forth to the world, it ought to meet with the most public, and the most unqualified contradiction. It is a dictum fraught with the most mischievous consequences; it tends to secure impunity to every act of ministerial tyranny, or of ministerial imbecility, and it destroys the very basis on which the civil liberties of British subjects are founded. We have ever been the strenuous opposers of liberty in opposition to law; and we shall ever be found the dauntless champions of that liberty which the law secures.

(To be continued),

MISCELLANIES.

MISCELLANIES.

A Review of the Conduct of the Prince of Wales in his various Transa&ions with Mr. Jefferys, during a Period of more than Twenty Years: containing a Detail of many Circumstances relative to the Prince and Princess of Wales, Mrs. Fitzherbert, &c. &c. &c. To which is added, A Letter to Mrs. Fitzherbert upon the Influence of Example, &c. &c. &c. By Nathaniel Jefferys, late M. P. for the City of Coventry. Sixth Edi. tion, with Additions. 8vo. PP. 76. 35. 6d. Published by the Author, zo, Pall Mall.

IT is not without considerable reluctance that, in discharge of our duty to the public, we at length sit down to give some account of this, and of various other pamphlets relating to the same subject; because, the very high respect which a sense of allegiance to our Sovereign leads us to entertain for every branch of his Royal Family, renders it extremely painful to us to make any observations that may, even in appearance, be incompatible with that respect, or which may, in any degree, hurt the feelings of the Illustrious Personages whose conduct may have extorted them. But there are duties imposed on public writers, superior to the respect in question, which, if they feel not the resolution to discharge with firmness and honesty, they are unfit for their office, and ought to lay down the pen for ever. Thus, for instance, if cases were to occur, in which the religious and moral feelings of the public were to be openly outraged, would it not be the bounden duty of a public writer to repro. bate such conduct, by whomever observed? Would a sycophant so abject, a parasite so base, be found as to deny this self-evident proposition, and to contend that vice and sin, when committed by the highest classes of society, should pass unnoticed, because any comment thereon might have the effect of injuring the parties in the eyes of the public, and, consequently, of loosening that cement which is necessary to keep the social fabric together? Such language might, indeed, pass current in a land of slaves or of Infidels, but would incur universal abhorrence in any country peopled with free men and Christians. If then, as must be universally admitted, there may be cases which would make silence base, and forbearance criminal, it follows of course, that the respect due to Illustrious Personages must be subject to certain modifications and exceptions, not on the one hand to be hastily violated, and without good cause, but on the other hand not to command the sacrifice of superior and more sacred duties. Again, the man who holds the language of admonition, or even that of censure, to a Prince, must not, on that account alone, be regarded as his enemy. On the contrary, the courtier whose praises incessantly ring in his ear, who flatters his foibles, encourages his errors, and palliates his vices, may, with infinitely greater justice, and with much less danger of pronouncing an erroneous judgment, be considered as his foe. Are a wish to reform, and efforts correspondent to that wish, symptoms of enmity? or rather, is it not a signal proof of friendship and respect, to assume the ungrateful office of a monitor, without the hope, the prospect, or even the possibility of reward; and, in that character, to point out

the

the path of reformation, and to indicate the means by which the party addressed may become the object of general affection, esteem, and reverence? We have deemed it expedient to premise thus much, in order to prevent the possibility of misconception as to our motives, in any remarks which we may be impelled to offer, either now, or hereafter, on any matter connected immediately or remotely with the present subject of dis cussion. From Mr. Jefferys himself, and from most, if not all of the writers who have undertaken to answer him, we shall probably be found to differ very essentially.

Mr. Jefferys begins by informing his readers, that he was first honoured with the commands of the Prince of Wales in 1783, when he opened a shop in Piccadilly (he had before, we believe, kept a shop in the Strand). He was sent for by the Prince to Buckingham House, and the reception which he there experienced really seems to have turned his head, and to have deprived him of his judgment.

"His Royal Highness received me with great kindness of manners, and so completely captivated me by his condescension, that, young and credulous as I then was, I imagined my fortune made by his smiles!"

Here, in our opinion, is the true cause of all Mr. Jefferys's subsequent mistakes, misconduct, and ruin. He conceived false hopes, without the shadow of a foundation to support them, and hence launched into specula tions which his capital did not warrant, and which his resources did not justify. The Prince behaved to him with a condescension, which, though the natural result of an accomplished mind, and of the most elegant manners, he did not expect; and from which, therefore, his folly, not his credulity, for certainly no food was administered to that, drew inferences the most chimerical, and the most unjustifiable. In 1787 Mr. Jefferys appears to have monopolized, as a goldsmith and jeweller, the favour of the Prince; Mr. Gray, a respectable tradesman, who had hitherto been honoured with a part of his Royal Highness's custom, not finding it convenient to increase the amount of his demand. From this moment Mr. Jefferys makes the strange confession, that he spent one half of his time, for several years, at Carlton Honse, neglected his other business, and despised the advice of friends, who had more experience and prudence than himself, and supplied every article, however expensive, which the Prince ordered.

Need we then wonder that a man, who could act with such inconceiv. able imprudence, who could thus neglect his business, waste his time in unnecessary attendance, and run in debt, with a moral certainty of not receiv ing the money which he advanced for a considerable time, should be ruined ? and can we want any other cause for his ruin than what he here assigns? If, indeed, previous to the fulfilment of his Royal Highness's orders, he had, humbly and respectfully, submitted his inability to fulfil them, with. out subjecting himself to great personal risk and inconvenience, and the Prince had then persisted in his orders, or made some promise of payment, Mr. Jefferys might, perhaps, with some show of reason, lay his ruin at the Prince's door. But, by his own statement, nothing of this kind appears to have taken place; he stupidly supposed his fortune made by the Prince's smile, and he acted without the smallest regard to prudence, or the least attention to his own limited circumstances.

All this, be it observed, happened previous to an event which occurred

At the be

in 1790, and on which Mr. Jefferys lays very great stress. ginning of that year the Prince condescended to ask, as a favour, of Mr. Jefferys, the loan of sixteen hundred pounds, for which sum a creditor of Mrs. Fitzherbert's had threatened to arrest her. The Prince had offered to take the debt on himself, but the wary creditor rejected the offer, on the plea," that Mrs. Fitzherbert being a woman of no rank or consideration in the eye of the law, as to personal privilege, was amenable to an immediate process, which was not the case with his Royal Highness." The Prince is represented, and probably with great truth, as having been extremely anxious and uneasy on the business; and Mr. Jefferys paid the debt, and presented his Royal Highness the next day with the receipt. The Prince, very naturally, expressed himself with great warmth upon the occasion, and even condescended so far as to call on Mr. Jefferys the same day, with the Lady, to repeat his thanks for the ready compliance with his request. Mr. Jefferys tells us, that "from the mortified pride visible in the countenance" of Mrs. Fitzherbert, he inferred that he should be indebted to her for the loss of the Prince's favour. Whatever ground there might be for this inference, surely Mr. Jefferys had every reason to be satisfied with the condescension which his patron had dis. played for it was, certainly, very great condescension in the Heir Apparent to the British Throne to accept, and much more to ask, a favour from one of his tradesmen: and a still greater condescension to visit that tradesman in order to return his thanks. Mr. Jefferys might well be flattered by an honour so unexpected, and so unusual: it was well calculated to gratify even the most inordinate vanity; but his selfish feelings appear to have been always at work, for neither the honour nor the gratification of his vanity could satisfy him; he looked forward to future support and assistance in the event of misfortune! But, as Mr. Jefferys is loud in his com. plaints against the Prince, respecting this transaction, the reader will naturally suppose that his Royal Highness had not repaid the money which he borrowed! Not so: the Prince engaged to pay it in three months, and he religiously fulfilled his engagement! True, says Mr. Jefferys, he repaid the debt, but not the obligation. With a man who so reasons, and who so feels, argument would be of no avail. We shall, therefore, merely state our surprize at the loud complaints and bitter reproaches which he allows himself to vent against the Prince, for not lending him, or, in other and more proper words, for not giving him an equal sum with that which he lent to his Royal Highness! The expectation was as modest as the reproaches are decent. With the latter we shall not pollute our pages.

Mrs. F. it seems, afterwards dealt with Mr. Jefferys, and bought goods of him to the amount of 120l. which, "though owing for a very conside. rable length of time," he was afraid to apply for; but at length convinced by a conversation with the Prince at Carlton House, on the subject of his approaching nuptials, that his apprehensions were groundless, he did apply for the amount of his bill, and was referred by Mrs. Fitzherbert (not very decently, we think) to bis Royal Highness, who, with his wonted generosity, paid it. We have said that the reference of Mrs. Fitzherbert, at such a period, on the eve of the Prince's marriage, and with an ample income of her own too, was not very decent, and, we are persuaded, there is not a man or woman in the kingdom, of any honour or virtue, who would not concur with us, if we had censured this indelicate and unfeeling

conduct

conduct, in much stronger terms. The passage to which we have adverted, relating to the conversation between the Prince and his jeweller, is so cu rious, that we shall transcribe it.

"I declare it as my firm belief, however subsequent events, which may truly be termed unfortunate for his Royal Highness and for the country, may contradict the probability of my assertion, that no person in the kingdom appeared to feel, and I believe at the time did feel, more sincere pleasure in the prospect of the proposed marriage, and the separation from Mrs. Fitzherbert, than his Royal Highness. I will not repeat the expressions of his Royal Highness upon this subject, it is sufficient to say, that what I heard was not of a nature to increase the respect I had for the character of that Lady; but so far otherwise, as to remove from my mind every apprehension I had entertained, that his Royal Highness would be displeased by an application to her for money; I accord. ingly sent in my account, when I was told, I must apply to the Prince for the payment of it. I therefore informed his Royal Highness of what had passed, who directed General Hulse to discharge the account."

Mr. Jefferys then enters into the particulars of the jewels ordered for the Prince's marriage, in respect of which there appears to be nothing to blame in his conduct, nor, indeed, do we know that blame was ever imputed to him. We were present at the trial in the Court of King's Bench, when Mr. Jefferys brought his action against the Commissioners, and the verdict appeared to us to be perfectly just and proper. At a subsequent period the Prince again condescended to borrow money of his jeweller, 420l. and he accuses his Royal Highness with a breach of promise, as he borrowed the money only for a few days, and did not repay it for upwards of a year. The relative situation of the parties considered, we cannot but regard the explanation which Mr. Jefferys here enters into, and the language which he adopts, as extremely indecorous, to say no worse of it. We do not, indeed, wonder at the disgust which the Prince manifested at the conduct of a man who admits that, though no longer in busi ness, and consequently having no excuse for obtruding himself on the notice of his Royal Highness, was perpetually putting himself in his way. In 1797, Mr. Jefferys states himself to be so embarrassed as to be under the necessity of beginning the world again; he accordingly took a house in Pall Mall, opened a jeweller's shop, and once more applied to the Prince for his custom. After all that had passed, could he seriously expect to obtain that custom? or, indeed, if he really conceived that the losses which, he says, he sustained by his connexion with the Prince, were the occasion of his distress, ought he to have wished for it? Most people, we suspect, will answer these questions in the negative. He enters into a calculation in order to shew that, in consequence of the deductions from his demand by the Commissioners, he sustained a loss of 16,8081. 1s. 6d. But he includes in his account a deduction of 20 per cent, which he lost by the sale of the debentures; which cannot, properly, be taken into the estimate, as, had he kept them, the loss could not have been incurred, and they bore an interest of five per cent. It should be observed, how. ever, at the same time, that his necessities compelled him to sell them. Having stated his positive loss at this sum, he makes his incidental loss, in conjunction with it, amount to thirty thousand pounds; but as he enters iato no explanation on this head, it is impossible to know what he means.