said, was paid her, and an annuity of 4001. secured to her and her child. ren, the same yearly allowance which would have prevented all this exposure. Ten thousand copies of the work had been printed; they were burnt at the printer's, and all the parties concerned declared upon oath, that no vestige either in print or in manuscript was preserved, except a single copy, which, according to the statement, was secured under seven seals. The motive for preserving this seems to have been, lest any other copy, in spite of the oath, should have been secreted for the purpose of after publication, in which case, a comparison with this would afford the means of stopping the publication, or at least of punishing the breach of contract. Upon the first rumour of this negociation the agitators were exceedingly indignant. The people "had a right," they said, "to know all that Mrs Clarke knew about public matters," and "she must be a woman divested of all sentiments of honour if she supprest these memoirs." When the suppression was effected, Colonel Wardle was called upon by the most conspicuous of the demagogue journalists to recover the book from the flames. "You must," said he, "have seen some of the contents. If possible give us those contents; and if you can get us, at the same time, a copy of another work of somewhat the same sort, printed privately, about two years and a half ago, it would add to the value of the collection. These are the things, and the only things, which the nation wants at this time. These books would be of much more real service to England than all the horse and foot in the country.-It is impossible that all the copies can be destroy ed. Let us have these books, and It seemed as if the agitators suppowhole years of labour will be saved." sed, that the opening of these seven seals was the main sign to be fulfil led before they obtained possession of their political New Jerusalem. odour of popularity, Colonel Wardle While Mrs Clarke was in the affirmed, at a public meeting, that he believed she came forward in the investigation purely from a wish to ever, after the close of the serve the public. A few days, howsession, he was sued in the July 3. Court of King's Bench, by an upholsterer, for the amount of goods furnished to Mrs Clarke by his order, and the jury found a verdict against him. Colonel Wardle immediately published a letter in the newspapers to the people of the united kingdoms, saying, that his coun sel being satisfied in their own minds that the evidence to be brought against him was altogether insufficient, did (repeated to them in writing during not comply with his earnest request, the trial in the strongest terms,) that Major Dodd and some other witnes ses, who had been subpœna'd, should be examined: "their testimony," he said, "would, he knew, be in direct against him. Under these circumcontradiction to what had been sworn There only remains for me now," he stances the verdict was obtained. continued, "to declare before my God and my country, that it was obtained by perjury alone; and I do pledge myself to prove that fact the earliest moment the forms of the law will allow me to do so." ance of this pledge, Colonel Wardle In pursu prosecuted Mrs Clarke, the uphol sterer and his brother, for a conspi racy. The facts which appeared upon the trial shook the credit of all parties. It appeared that the upholsterer and had been in the habit of vouching for Mrs Clarke's respectability; and, on the other hand, her attorney swore that he had advised Colonel Wardle to withhold this man's evidence from the House of Commons, because he did not think he would conceal the truth, and even if he would, had not head enough to evade the question; so that if he were brought forward, the fact that Colonel Wardle had furnished Mrs Clarke's house, -that is, had purchased her evidence, -would be discovered. Colonel Wardle swore in direct contradiction to this. No person had been present at the interview; and it was, therefore, impossible to know which spoke the truth. The jury decided in favour of the attorney, he having the fewest ostensible motives for falsehood; they consequently acquitted the defendants. Yet Colonel Wardle had produced such testimony on his part, and had delivered his own evidence in so direct and unembarrassed a manner, that no person knew what to believe. The esteem of the wise he had already forfeited, but his popularity remained unshaken. The former verdict with the costs burthened him with the payment of 12001., and this new trial added materially to his expences; a subscription was immediately opened to indemnify him. Several thousands were subscribed; the same spirit of vulgar insult was displayed in the mottos and assumed names, as in the case of Miss Taylor, and the large proportion of the sum which was contributed in shillings, sixpences, and even pence, by journeymen and artificers of the lowest class, evinced what interest the mob had taken in the progress of this business, and how deeply they were imbued with the principles of the demagogue journalists. The squabble between Mrs Clarke and Colonel Wardle, and the discovery that she had bargained for (by her own account,) or at least expected to be paid for her evidence, would have invalidated her testimony against the duke, if it had been unsupported; but the principal facts rested upon documents so unexpectedly produced, and, in themselves, so unexceptionable, that it was needless to take her oral evidence into consideration, when the merits of the case were weighed. Her ends were now effectually served; she had compelled her former associate in the charges to pay her for her services, and she had succeeded in obtaining an annuity from the royal family, besides a large sum of money immediately paid. But she also could not be contented with success; the spirit of mischief possessed her, and having profited so well by the suppression of one book, she hoped still to make her market of public curiosity, by publishing another. In this she professed to lay open the whole secret history of her connection with Colonel Wardle, and Major Dodd, whom she now hated equally, because upon the second trial he had appeared a witness against her. The object of her story was, to persuade the world that these persons were instigated by the Duke of Kent to overthrow his brother, in hopes that he himself might be appointed commander-in-chief in his stead; but that they, while acting under his influence, had deeper views of their own, and aimed at nothing less than a total revolution. Major Hogan's pamphlet, she affirmed, was one of the fruits of this plot; and the lady in the barouche, who left the bank bills at his hotel, she declared was Mrs Wardle, who was imprudent enough to go with her own servants in her own livery. This, she said, Colonel Wardle himself had told her. The Duke of Kent, with a condescension which must not be condemned, because its motive was so commendable, thought it necessary to counteract immediately a charge, at the very idea of which, he said, every honest man must recoil with horror and indignation. He, therefore, declared that he had nei ther directly nor indirectly, sanctioned, advised, nor encouraged any attack upon the Duke of York; never had any acquaintance of any kind with Mrs Clarke, Colonel Wardle, or any of the persons employed in bringing the investigation forward; never had expressed himself inimically to the Duke of York, even when in the most confidential moments he had given vent to his wounded feelings upon professional subjects; had invariably expressed his regret when any person attempted to do justice to his character at the expence of his brother, and so far from sanctioning, appro. ving, or rejoicing in the proceedings against him, had uniformly lamented them. "It was not," he said, "without sincere concern that he found himself under the necessity of entering thus publicly into a vindication of his conduct. But he was confident that every liberal mind would give him credit for taking a step which he felt due to his character, and to the honour and dignity of his family, and which marked his anxiety to stand well with the country in ge neral." This declaration was made in the form of questions addressed to Major Dodd, in the presence of the Earl of Harrington and Colonel Vesey, and Major Dodd, in the most positive and unequivocal language, confirmed it, declaring also, that he never had, in any manner, given any person reason to suppose that the Duke of Kent approved of the proceedings against the commander-inchief, but on the contrary always expressed his knowledge that his royal highness felt very differently. The suspicion which his royal highness thus repelled, in a manner so honourable to his feelings, had been brought on him by Major Dodd's conduct. There was nothing but this which could afford any colour to Mrs Clarke's accusation, and that accusation, it must be remembered, was not only unsupported by any other external evidence, but was even in itself, and all its parts, improbable, whereas in the Duke of York's case, what could be more likely than that a man should be influenced by his mistress? But if any thing in vindication of the Duke of Kent could be required after his solemn declaration, it was to be found in the whole character of Mrs Clarke's * book, which evinced her to be a thoroughly worthless, malicious, and mischie vous woman. *One thing, and only one, in the book deserves notice; it is a letter from Dr O'Meara to Mrs Clarke's brother, in vindication of himself. As the name of this Irish dignitary became so conspicuous in the course of the inquiry, it would be unjust to withhold his defence: such as it is, it follows. "MY DEAR SIR,—I congratulate you on the victory Mrs Clarke has gained over the mushroom patriot; I think we could give him le coup de grace. I have collected some curious particulars of his own campaign in Ireland; one most horrible, and which will be proved on oath. One day during the rebellion, he met a poor man near Athy, with a satchel on his back, containing an axe, an auger, a saw, &c.; he immediately concluded that the poor man was a rebel, having such dangerous wea pons concealed in a sack. In vain the poor man declared that he was a carpenter, and that these were his tools. The colonel could not be convinced, and he ordered his head to be sawed off, which was done on the spot.-I hope Mrs Clarke, now that she has past through this ordeal trial, will have no objection to state the truth for my private and personal friends. She told me that she did not intend to mention my name; that she was forced by Mr Wardle to embellish as she did with respect to me. The blow was aimed at the established church, to stab it through the sides of a clergyman; the reformists and methodists being leagued together to pull down both church and state. "My letters in defence of the duke were not mentioned, which was the ground and cause of my introduction to him: and his royal highness having thanked me for writing those letters, I ventured to ask him for the chaplaincy of the royal yacht, and for which he promised to apply, on my forwarding to him a letter of recommendation from some bishop, and which I did from Bath, directed to Portmansquare. This fact I wish to have cleared up, to shew the archbishop and my friends here. "Cobbett says I preached at Weymouth from under the wing of Mrs Clarke, whereas it was the year before I preached before the royal family, viz. 1804 In the microcosm of London, it is difficult to distinguish ladies under protection from ladies of fashion; each of these orders borrows the manners of the other, and they act their parts as naturally, it was no wonder a man of so much simplicity was deceived by the illusions of graceful manners and modest discourse. The Goddess Hecate, who presided over magic and enchantments, was the same with Luna and Diana. Mrs Clarke could personate this divinity with ease, assuming all her forms, attributes, and functions: and Mr O. assured me she was a widow in the last month of her grief.-The masquerade was continued by the visits of ladies of fashion at her house, and the visiting cards of many of high consideration, &c. "The letter of mine which was found by the secret committee, and which has been so much misrepresented, as an indecent production, was an answer to a hoaxing letter I got from Mrs Clarke, in which she said, she was tired of the pomps and vanities of this wicked world, &c. ; that Mary Magdalene was not more penitent and intreating that I would comfort the weak-hearted, and find out for her a cheap and safe asylum in Ireland. I answered the epistle of this witty piece of Eve's flesh in print, and for which the saints and reformers have splashed me with abuse. Mrs Clarke got back this letter, and I hope she will preserve it and the archbishop's letter." With respect to the charge against Colonel Wardle in this curious production, Mrs Clarke herself, while half affecting to credit it, and forcing it into notice by printing the whole story in capital letters, could not help betraying her conviction of its falsehood. It is undoubtedly a most absurd and outrageous falsehood, though it may not impossibly be reported and sworn to in Ireland. Of the history of Conel Wardle's campaigns, however, in that country, the less that is said the better: but it is not amiss that he should be reminded of them, when, in his tender mercies for the Irish, he ascribes all their disaffection, and all their wretchedness, to the Catholic restrictions, and proposes to remedy all grievances, and save two millions yearly, by rendering the Catholics eligible to seats in Parliament and the forty offices. CHAP. X. Financial Affairs. The Budget. Mr Vansittart's Resolutions. Affairs of the Army and Navy. Petition of the Captains. HAVING got through the retrospec tive and accidental parts of the parliamentary debates, the party contests, and the discussions excited by factious, vexatious, or nugatory motions, we come to that far smaller portion which includes the real and essential business of state. May 12. The supplies voted for the year (exclusive of the proportion for Ireland) were 47,588,0241. for which ways and means were provided that would leave a surplus of 130,000l. These included a loan of eleven millions; besides, three millions had been borrowed for Ireland, and 600,000l. for the Prince of Brazil. For payment of the interest and sinking fund upon this latter sum, and for the liquidation of the principal, the revenues of the island of Madeira had been assigned, together with a consignment of such produce of Brazil as belonged to the prince, to his agents in this country. The whole loan was contracted for at an interest of 41. 12s. 1d., a rate at which the public had never before been able to borrow money, and at which it was hardly possible for any individual to procure it, however well secured or prompt his payment might be. "It was a proud consideration for the country," Mr Perceval said, when he brought forward the budget, "that under the increased and increasing expences of the war, and public expenditure, this should be the unavoidable augmentation of the the case. To meet the charge occapermanent taxes of about 105,0001. sioned by the loan, an addition to the would be produced by a bill for the consolidation of the customs, and about as much more by a consolidation bill for the war-taxes; the wartaxes were to be applied to for the rest, amounting to little more than a million. A vote of credit had been taken for three millions. It would should go at any length into an explanot be expected," he said, "that he nation of the manner in which this sum might be applied. There was, however, one circumstance which he felt it his duty to communicate: Austria, which, since the meeting of Parlia ment, had gone to war with France, on the commencement of that war out having had any communication drew bills upon this country, withwith his Majesty's government. When tion of ministers to advise his Majesty these bills arrived, it was the intento recommend to Parliament to enable him to pay them ; but before |
