hear!) For his part, he was convinced that the King (God bless him!) could not do better than have a son in the chief command of his army. It would be well, before coming to a decision on the subject before them, for the House to consider, that if they agree to the resolution proposed by the right honourable gentleman on the floor (Mr. Bankes), they would remove from the service of the state one of its most able and distinguished servants, merely because his mistress had been engaged in four transactions of which he had no knowledge. The right honourable gentleman's amendment went to state, that it would be prudent in his Royal Highness to resign; but he would say that it was not prudent in the House of Commons to listen to a popular outcry-(Hear; hear!) They ought not to be moved by external circumstances, which naturally arose from what had fallen out in the course of the inquiry, and the cry of corruption being raised on points not under the cognizance of the House. The idea of thousands squandered on a woman of an infamous description-thousands earned by the sweat of the people's brows, was a very natural topic for declamation and popular impression; but was the House to adopt proceedings on such a clamour, and to say that his Royal Highness was guilty of corruption, because an outcry of this kind was raised to determine, that he was unfit to hold the chief command of the army? Without such a popular clamour, no man in that House would have thought that this was a proper course. Let them then speak out manfully, and give their own opinions without bias; and as none could say that from this clamour they were induced to believe the Duke of York unfit for the command, never let them recommend a measure for his dismissal. He concluded by thanking the House for the attention with which they had listened to him during the time he was occupied in stating his opinion on this important question.

On Mr. Yorke's sitting down, a number of members rose to deliver their sentiments, and a cry of several names, hear! hear! order! order! prevailed for a considerable time. The Speaker having mentioned the gentleman who first caught his eye,

Mr. Leach continued, and stated, that he could not con cur either with the original address or the amendment proposed by the right honourable gentleman (Mr. Bankes).

He could not agree with them because they neither con victed nor acquitted the Commander-in-chief of the cor ruption with which he was charged, or of the knowledge of the existence of corrupt practices, and yet they ad dressed to remove him from the chief command of the army. He would beg leave to take a short view of the question as it appeared to him, and to state to the House. the material points which operated on his mind, to the complete exclusion of such a deduction as either, that the Duke of York had a corrupt participation or knowledge of those transactions. The Duke of York could not be convicted, but upon the testimony of Mrs. Clarke; a testimony which in his opinion could not for a moment be credited, where her interest was involved. He would shew first, that her evidence was contradicted by other and unimpeachable witnesses. 2dly, That she, in many instances, contradicted herself; and, 3dly, that her testimony was irreconcilable with truth and probability. In the first place, then, she was contradicted by Mr, R. Knight, who related a conversation that passed between Mrs. Clarke and him in September, only a few weeks be fore he was called to the bar, and which, from its nature could not be supposed to escape the recollection of either the one or the other of the parties. This was a direct and palpable contradiction, as would be seen by reverting to the minutes of evidence. (Here the honourable gentleman read part of the evidence of Mr. R. Knight and Mrs. Clarke; see Vol. I. p. 165). The honourable gentleman (Mr. Whitbread), whose brilliant speech had last night made such an impression on the House, seemed to think that there was no contradiction in this, because Mrs. Clarke had denied that she intended to expose the Duke of York in the way now done, which Mr. R. Knight understood, and stated to the House to be a general assertion, that she would expose the Duke. He shewed that such was not the true bearing of the passages, and that the contradiction was positive and irreconcileable. They were also directly at issue on the point, whether Mrs. Clarke desired the transaction to be kept secret from the Duke of York or not. The next contradiction he had to notice was, that between Mrs. Clarke and the honourable gentleman who brought forward these charges. From a perusal of the evidence (which he read to the House) it appeared that Mrs. Clarke, in her examination on the Wednesday, stated,

in the first instance, that she had seen Mr. Wardle on the preceding day (Tuesday), but immediately recollecting to what such an acknowledgment would expose her, on being asked, if she was sure of that? she directly replied, that she had not been at home all that day. In opposition to this, it was in the evidence of the honourable gentleman stated, that he saw her three times during that day-the first time in the morning, about eleven or twelve o'clock, when he rode out with her in her carriage-again, about three o'clock, when he staid with her about half an hour-and a third at night. Thus, on Wednesday, this witness positively denied a fact, which had taken place beyond the possibility of being forgotten on the preceding day. The next contradiction appeared in her testimony contrasted with that of Mr. Ellis. Not only did she state that she never knew Mrs. Favery by any other name, but also that she never visited her at Mr. Ellis's; whereas it was clear, from the testimony of that very respectable witness, that she not only recommended Favery to him as a servant, under the name of Farquhar, but that she visited her so frequently that he supposed they were nearly related to each other. From all these circumstances, he could not think that Mrs. Clarke was a witness to be believed on any point where her own interest was concerned. He bad now to state where evidence was contradictory in itself, and in this he would not trouble the House with more than one point. In the case of Dowler she had denied that she had seen that person more than twice since his return from the continent, concealing from the committee that she had met and slept with him a night at Reid's hotel. It was said that she might naturally desire not to mention this; but it was necessary for her to deny having seen him at all, a matter intimately connected with the evidence, and calculated to give his testimony a value which did not properly belong to it. The third part of her testimony on which he had to comment, was its utter improbability. She asserted that the Duke of York told her she had more influence than the Queen, and that if she was clever, she needed not to want for money. Was there a man in the country who could suppose the Duke of York so base as to utter a sentiment of this kind. It could not be the case and no man pretending to the character of a gentleman, could have done it. If the Duke of York had been so openly lost to every sense of shame, and so grossly cor

rupt, instead of the four solitary cases they had now before them, their table would have groaned with examples of corruption. The next thing for the House to do, was to see if they could trace a motive in Mrs. Clarke, for her evidence against the Duke of York, and here it was that the conversation with Mr. Knight, and the letters to Mr. Adam, clearly demonstrated that she had threatened to expose the Duke openly to disgrace, to accomplish her own purposes, unless he complied with her demands. There were also some corroborations of the incredulity of Mrs. Clarke's evidence, the importance of which had justly been a mysterious note. This note appeared to him to be the hand-writing of the Duke of York; and he could casily account for the mistake in his Royal Highness's mind, that coupling this note with the charge attached to it in Sandon's evidence, his Royal Highness at once would deny ever having written it. But what did this note prove? It might have been written with the most innocent intentions; and, as no proof of corrupt motives in any other case was brought home to the Duke of York, it was but fair to consider this as written with no blameable design. With regard to the evidence of Miss Taylor, he believed that the whole of the conversation she stated herself to have heard might be an invention; but at the same time he allowed that it was not improbable that such a conversation might really pass. Miss Taylor was called for the sole purpose of fixing on his Royal Highness the Duke of York the knowledge of corrupt practices. He would not enter into her designs, but only inquire if there was enough to shew that she was so much influenced by Mrs. Clarke as to give a colouring to the testimony, which rendered it very different in meaning from what it really was. On this matter he begged leave to call the attention of the House to the evidence of this lady, who recollected so minutely what had passed four years ago, as to what had passed on the same subject in a more material point of view within three weeks of her examination. In page 176 of this volume are the following questions and answers: " Q. Are you sure these were the words?-A. These were the words, (the words used by the Duke of York in 1804.)

"Q. Did you at any time afterwards have any communication with Mrs. Clarke, relative to the observation

of the Duke of York upon Colonel French's business?→ A. Not till within these three weeks or a month.

"Q. What was the conversation you had at that time? -A. She asked me if I recollected the Duke of York's mentioning Colonel French's name in my presence.

"Q. Did any thing else pass on that occasion ?-A. I immediately recollected the circumstance, and told her. "Q. Did Mrs. Clarke make any reply to that observation, and what?-A. I do not recollect what she said.

Q. Do you at all recollect any further conversation that passed at the time when the Duke of York made that observation relative to Colonel French's levy, besides what you have already given in evidence?—No, nothing at all upon that subject.

Page 178.-Q. Can you recollect what passed with Mrs. Clarke three weeks ago upon the occasion of this con versation respecting Colonel French?-A. No, nothing.

"Q Not one expression or circumstance that passed three weeks ago with Mrs. Clarke ?-A. No, I do not re collect any."

Was it possible that Miss Taylor could have forgot every circumstance relating to a transaction, at that time become so interesting, while she remembered what passed four years before, when it was not at all recommended to notice by any particular cause? He could not help be lieving, upon Miss Taylor's own testimony, that she was influenced by Mrs. Clarke to give a colour to expressions which did not belong to them, and which alone made them attach to his Royal Highness the Commander-inchief. An honourable gentleman had last night gone into many presumptions, which he contended bore upon the case. The first was, that the expenditure of the establishment at Gloucester-place greatly exceeded the sum allowed by his Royal Highness, and therefore he must have suspected that the overplus was gained by some other means in other quarters. But how stood the matter? The Duke of York had been in the habit of sending money drawn from his banker, to Mrs. Clarke, which, though it did not admit of legal proof, he stated to amount to 55001. and that he also personally frequently gave her sums to a considerable amount, which he would take at 2007. Besides this, the wine and household furniture were provided by his Royal Highness, at an expence of upwards of 16,000. besides the 1000l. per annum regularly allowed.

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