house, held situations in the family, travelled, spent months on shipboard along with her. They had, theretore, every opportunity of observing her general deportment. They came forward, moreover, under an evident anxiety to give the most favourable testimony possible. All, therefore, went well, so long as they were merely examined by the Queen's advocate; so long as they kept within the circle convenu. But, unfortunately, there resides in the English bar a terrible power of cross-examination, of which the Solicitor-General was endowed with more than the usual portion. The witnesses, once placed before the House, were obliged to answer to any questions that might be put. They were tortured, twisted, till every thing was sifted to the very bottom. It was soon wrung out, that Bergami had entered the service of the Queen in the quality of a courier, and had waited at table; that he had been quickly raised to the place of the Queen's most intimate companion-the manager of all her affairsthe master of her household. All his family had become part of hers-his mother, brother, sister, his infant daughter-but always with the strict exception of his wife, who was never seen within the precincts of her residence. All these things had indeed been stated by the witnesses for the prosecution; but they made a very different impression, coming from the mouths of unknown and wretched Italians, brought over the seas to witness against her, and when they were confirmed by respectable English witnesses, testifying with an evident bias in her favour. When Lord Guildford stated, that in one visit Bergami had waited at table; and that a few months after, he, with his brother and sister, had sat at table, and done the honours of the house, it was impossible for an English noble man not to ask himself, what he would have thought of such an incident occurring in the house of an English widow lady, of much humbler rank. The total breaking down of Lieutenant Flynn, made perhaps a stronger impression on the public than it deserved. His contradictions were, in fact, on matters of no consequence; and the only doubt was, whether such dreadful dismay could have arisen, unless from a secret fear of not being able to maintain the ground which he had taken. But when the confession was extorted from Lieutenant Hownam, of the parties having, in his belief, been accustomed to sleep together in the same tent on deck, an impression was produced, which nothing could efface. No plea, drawn from the necessity of protection, seemed sufficient to justify such an arrangement. More credit might have been given to that plea, had the person employed been kept strictly in the character of a servant; but when he was seen in every other respect filling the place of a lover or husband, how difficult was it to avoid the most unfavourable conclusions! The part of the evidence most advantageous to the Queen, was that derived from the conduct of certain individuals connected with the Milan commission. Nothing, indeed, was brought home, even in the way of suspicion, against the English agents; but there seems no doubt, that some bribes, and large promises, were offered by several Italian agents. This fact, no doubt, threw a considerable addition of discredit on the witnesses for the prosecution. But these, as already observed, were always liable to much exception; and, unfortunately, there were now facts standing on unquestionable grounds, which fully established the utmost excess of indiscretion, and left at least an indelible suspicion of guilt. In fact, though the Queen's advocates strenuously resisted the inferences from each fact as it came, and though the multitude still made her their idol, the most judicious Whigs were heard whispering to each other, that really there was very little doubt of her guilt; and that the only ground on which they could support her, and oppose her enemies, was the treatment which might be supposed to have driven her to it, and the irregularity of the proceedings against her. The counsel for the Queen began now to take a serious consideration of the state of their proceedings. The more evidence they had brought forward in favour of their client, the worse her case had always become. They had still several important witnesses ready to bring forward, particularly Hieronymus, and the sister of Demont, persons who, having been long domesticated in the house, were most competent witnesses, and who were ready to give favourable testimony. But could they be safely exposed to the terrible cross-examination of the Attorney-General? The keeping them back would afford to the opposite side an opportunity of drawing the most unfavourable inferences. Yet this, after all, would be less fatal, than if any disastrous confession were to be wrung out of them. Under the influence of these consider ations, Mr Brougham now announced the termination of his case. The evidence for the prosecution being thus closed, Mr Denman proceeded to sum it up, in a long speech, from which our limits allow us to make only a few extracts. On the subject of the tent on board of the polacre, where she and Bergami are admitted to have slept, he observed: It was the awning of the deck, hanging loosely around, covering a large space-the bed of the Queen and that of Bergami, or rather the bed and sofa on which they rested, were placed at a distance from each other; and, what never should be forgotten, the hatchway was always open. This last fact was of the greatest importance, because, in the examination-inchief of Majocci, he said that the tent was never open at night—that it was entirely closed, shut up; but it was extracted on cross-examination, and the fact was substantiated by other witnesses, that the hatchway was always open, and all who passed above, or below, or along the hatchway, could know what was doing. The parties were sleeping as in a camp on land. Could it be supposed, for one instant, that this awning could have been used for the purpose of an improper intercourse, which his learned friends inferred from circumstances which did not at all warrant it? They were told that this improper intercourse took place in the day-time, and that the awning was let down during the day. He knew not how to deal with this. If the awning was let down during the day, what was it but a challenge to all to see-he would not say the use made of it—but it was an open exposure of the mode of lying in the beds, and of the purpose for which those beds were occupied by night as well as by day. The period during which her Majesty was in this situation, was from the 20th of July to the 17th of August. During that time her Royal Highness was proved to have been extremely fatigued; and it was absolutely necessary, as Lieutenant Hownam had stated, that her Royal Highness should be attended by some person. By what person, then, both for convenience and for every necessary purpose, could she be more properly attended than by the chamberlain, whom she had appointed to provide every attention and protection which her situation required? The whole time that her Royal Highness reposed there, she had her clothes on; no time was found when the parties were not clothed. There was but one moment when it appeared that Bergami was positively under the tent, and then he was clothed. Let it be recollected, that their lordships were now trying the highest subject of the realm for the highest crime a subject could commit. It was their duty to allow no middle course-no disgraceful compromise between their duty and their inclination. They were not to receive light evidence, under the supposition that the punishment was light. The punishment was not light; it was the heaviest that could be inflicted on a Queen. For his own part, without any exaggerated sentiment, which perhaps in an advocate might be allowed, he might say that he would rather see his royal mistress tried at the bar, like Anna Bulleyn, for her life, than in the more perilous situation in which the Queen now stood. He would much rather have to hand her to the scaffold, where she would have to lay her august head upon the block, with all the firmness and magnanimity belonging to her illustrious family, than witness her condemnation under the present charges, which would render her an object indeed of general pity, but of more general scorn; to be looked upon only as one who was entitled to compassion, having fallen by the misconduct of those who afterwards brought her to punishment, but at the same time to be regarded as a most deplorable instance of degraded rank and ruined character. The House was bound therefore to try the Queen, as if the commission of an act of high treason on board the polacre had been charged; and, thus viewing it, what would be the language of any judge regarding a prisoner, who, having by the evidence been acquitted of a great number of false and important charges, was at last accused of one single and comparatively insignificant offence?—would not the judge declare on the instant, in a case like the present, that no proof existed of criminal intercourse that the main fact had been disproved that though the parties had perhaps been shewn together in the tent, and though there might be a surmise or possibility of guilt, because one of the witnesses had hinted at such a situation, yet that all criminal intent was negatived, and that the excuse for the situation was given under the same oath that had sworn to it? A judge who, under such circumstances, did not declare that a prisoner ought to be instantly acquitted, would deserve to be impeached at the bar of this House for a gross and infamous dereliction of his duty. As to the discomposure of Lieutenant Flynn, Mr Denman urged: No person could forget how this gallant officer was cross-examined. He did not undervalue the talents of the Solicitor-General; he held in the highest honour that greatest of legal talents, that most important means of detecting falsehood which man could display, that best shield of slandered innocence-he meant that talent of cross-examination which was often found successful in dragging reluct ant truth from its lurking-places, in making a witness disclose what he was most anxious to conceal, and in displaying most conspicuously those important truths which were most sedulously withheld. But that sham cross-examination which was exercised in taking advantage of the alarm and agitation of a witness-though he honoured the talent of cross-examination which elicited important truth, he regarded with a very inferior degree of honour that sham cross-examination, either in its motives or its con. sequences. His learned friend (the Solicitor-General) by his powers of mind, by his great powers of countenance, and by his talent in cross-examination, had in the case of this witness got, what, if the paper and its contents were important, might lead to an inference most unfavourable to the credit of the witness; but what, unimportant, perfectly unimportant and immaterial, as the paper was, led only to the conclusion, that he was entirely overcome by his own agitation and alarm. The greatest men in the field were known to be nervous and agitated on occasions foreign to their profession. crept to the bed of a domestic, how was it possible to contradict such a witness, who had been dismissed, notwithstanding his possession of a secret so fatal, but by the general purity of the character of the illustrious accused, and by the malice of the accuser betraying itself in the very foulness of his charge? One of the servants in the case of the witness to whom he had already alluded, being questioned upon subjects of this foul and filthy description by one of the persons who had attempted to suborn her, had given him an answer full of female spirit and virtuous indignation give in the original, because he was unwilling to diminish its force, and because being less known the coarseness would be less understood: Καθαρώτερον, ο Τιγελλινε το αιδοιον ή δεσ ποινα με το σε τοματος σχεδο In regard to the character of the wit--an answer which he preferred to nesses, Mr Denman represented, they were discarded servants, and he would say so, though in time all phrases became hacknied in the mouths of men ; yet, if after the lapse of six years such testimony was to be received, he would appeal to the House in what situation human society would be placed. He never could reflect upon the conduct of discarded servants, with reference to the matter now before the House, without remembering the immortal words of Burke, where he directed the fire of his eloquence against spies in general, but especially against domestic spies: He said, that by them "the seeds of destruction are sown in civil intercourse and happiness; the blood of wholesome kindred is affected; our tables and our beds are surrounded with snares; and all the means given by Providence to make life safe and comfortble, are converted into instruments of terror and alarm." Discarded servants had it in their power at all times to depose to facts on which they could not be contradicted. If any man should dare to swear that the noble consort of one of their lordships had got out of her bed in the middle of the night,unseen butthrough the key-hole or crevice of a door, and To such discarded suborners as Sacchi and Rastelli might this answer be applied. Sacchi had talked a great deal about his being a soldier and a gentleman; he had received the reward of his fidelity on the field of battle, and one of the first proofs he gave that he deserved it, was coming forward to betray his mistress. What mighty distinction was there between treachery and perjury-between the man who betrayed truths that had come to his knowledge in the excess of confident reliance, and the man who would invent them for the sake of a base reward? The witness who was summoned to an English court of justice, was bound by his oath to disclose the truth, and the whole truth; but why upon this occasion had Sacchi made his appearance? Because he had been bribed to give his evidence. He had received no summons, no subpoena, and no force had been necessary to compel him; he was a volunteer in iniquity, not for its own sake, but for the most base and sordid purposes, and was equally infamous, whether he came to disclose the real secrets of his mistress, or to perjure himself by the assertion of what was false. The greatest of all traitors the first apostate to Christianity and human nature was not forsworn: he only came to betray his master; yet the execrations of mankind had followed him from that moment to the present. He (Mr Denman) always thought of this great prototype of treachery and infamy when he saw such a witness as Sacchi advance the Bible to his lips, ready, like Judas, to betray God and man at once with the same blaspheming kiss. The elevation of Bergami was sought to be justified on the following grounds: He thought it was impossible to advert to all the circumstances connected with his introduction, without perceiving that Bergami was such a person as any employer would be glad to receive, and the employment of whom it was proper to advise, and without being ready to acknowledge that there was nothing extraordinary in the promotion which in the course of the following twelve months had taken place. Here it might not be improper to observe, that the courier of a royal person is not considered a menial servant; and that the dress which belongs to that station in such a service is not a livery. However, Bergami was, in the course of the year after he was engaged, promoted to the situation of page, and, he believed, in the same year received the key of chamberlain. Now, he did not mean to deny, that it would have been advisable for her Royal Highness to have appointed to the station of chamberlain some person of rank and distinction from this country, if such a person could have been found at the time; but when the motives of her Royal Highness for engaging Bergami were made the subject of discussion, he would ask, what right, what hope, she could have at that period of obtaining the service of any English person of distinction? How could she expect that such a person would like to incur the displeasure of the Court at home, for the sake of entering into her service? Her Royal Highness could not expect Mr Craven to remain in her service, because he had stipulated to attend her only for a period, as his affairs would permit; and Sir William Gell left her because his health did not permit him to accompany her Royal Highness on her travels. She was, then, after these gentlemen quitted her service, left without the means of supplying the office of chamberlain by any person of rank from this country; and, under these circumstances, and with the recommendations she had received of Bergami, he would ask whether it was possible she could have done better than to bind to her service, by a judicious promotion, a man of honour and courage? To give honourable distinction by their favours, was one of the proudest prerogatives which royal personages possessed. Their lordships would `understand he did not mean that constitutional honours were so conveyed; but this would surely be admittedthat any individual who is once introduced to the notice of a royal personage, and obtains a share of the royal favour, becomes, at least with respect to all others who attend on that royal personage, a person of distinction. He would not ask whether Captain Pechell had exercised a right judgment in refusing to sit at table with Bergami. Perhaps it might be thought right by many; at any rate, he was right in acting on his own judgment, suc as it was. But this he would say atno person could |