his enslaver, and
endeavoured to pension her off with an annuity of L400 a year; but with
the niggardliness which was so distinguishing a characteristic of his
family, payment was not only withheld, but when the woman applied for
payment, the duke was mean and foolish enough to threaten her with
prison and the pillory. Mrs. Clarke, a woman of genius and resource,
instead of being frightened, straightway betook herself to Messrs.
Wilberforce and Whitbread, the supporters of the impeachment of Lord
Melville, and confessed to them certain irregularities of which she had
been guilty.

Into the unsavoury revelations of Mary Anne Clarke, her traffic in the
sale of military commissions, and still worse, in a system of
ecclesiastical patronage in which she alleged his Royal Highness
connived, we need not enter. They are set out as far as is necessary in
Mr. Grego's book, and also in Mr. Wright's treatise on James Gillray and
his works. Suffice it to say, that all these miserable exposures would
have been saved, had the duke, instead of seeking to save his pocket,
paid the annuity to which the woman was entitled. If by resigning, he
thought to silence his unscrupulous persecutor, he was quickly and
unpleasantly undeceived. The clever, unscrupulous woman had reserved her
trump-card to the last. All this time she had been engaged in preparing
her "Memoirs," comprising not only the history of her transactions with
his Royal Highness, but a series of his letters, containing, it is said,
anecdotes of illustrious personages of the most curious and _recherche_
description. The immediate publication of these "Memoirs" having been
announced to his Royal Highness, the duke was driven in spite of himself
to effect an arrangement. For a payment of L7,000 down, an annuity of
L400 for her own life, and one of L200 for each of her daughters, the
printed "Memoirs" (eighteen thousand copies) were destroyed, the
publication suppressed, and above all the terrible private
correspondence duly surrendered.

The mover of the committee of inquiry was one Wardle, colonel of a
militia regiment, who for a very brief space of time was permitted to
figure as a patriot; that he was a mere instrument in the hands of other
persons seems now abundantly clear. No sooner had Mary Anne Clarke
landed his Royal Highness, than she fixed her hook in the jaws of the
luckless colonel, who, tool as he was, proved to be by no means a sharp
one. It is obvious a woman of