Lord Liverpool supports him by the assurance, "I'm
an unmatched negotiator, and I'll enter into a treaty with the House of
Commons to secure your suit." The temper of the Commons is shown by the
doubts expressed by the individual we take to be intended for Viscount
Sidmouth. "I have my doubts," says this person, at the same time laying
his hands on the port wine decanter, "I have my doubts and qualms of
conscience, your Highness; what say you, Van?" "Oh, my lord," replies
Vansittart, who is seated on the "Budget," "I have some strange touches
of feeling on the subject." Up rises the hot-tempered Lord Chief
Justice, upsetting a decanter of port wine, and at the same time the
chair on which he has been sitting, "Don't put me in a passion with your
'qualms' and your 'touches'; they are all false, false as h----! I'll
blow you all to the d----l if you don't stick to your master manfully!!"
By the side of the prince we see, as usual, a pailful of wine bottles,
and at his feet, in allusion to his notorious infidelities, an open
volume entitled, "The Secret Memoirs of a Prince, by Humphrey Hedghog,
Esq., 1815." By the side of the Lord Chief Justice lie three portly
volumes labelled, "The Law of Divorce." It will be evident from the
foregoing, that from an early period, the satirists on the popular side
gave credit to the prince and his advisers for being members of a secret
conspiracy for compassing the ruin of the erring and unfortunate woman.

Now what was the "evidence" to which the corpulent Regent is made to
refer in the sketch before us? It was not of course _evidence_, but
rumour; and rumour said the strangest things of the Princess Caroline.
It associated her name with that of a courier,--a low Italian, named
Bartolomeo Bergami; it said that she had enriched and ennobled this man
and other members of his family; procured for him a barony in Sicily;
decorated him with several orders of knighthood; and asserted in the
plainest terms that she was living with him in a state of open and
notorious adultery. These reports rendered it necessary to ascertain on
what foundation they rested, and the result was that in 1818, Mr. Cooke,
of the Chancery Bar, and Mr. Powell, a solicitor, were despatched into
Germany and Italy to collect evidence with respect to her conduct. This
inquiry, which is generally known as the "Milan Commission," seemed
certainly preferable to an investigation of a more public and notorious
character; and upo