Brother-in-law of Lord Uxbridge, and afterwards
Earl of Stratford.]

[Footnote 18: The allusion is to a hoax played on the Premier,
by a presentation made to him of a piece of the then novel
fabric, velveteen, stamped with a free-trade design. Peel
afterwards wrote that he was unaware that the specimen bore
"any allusion to any matters which are the subject of public
controversy."]

[Footnote 19: William Belsham (1752-1827) wrote, in twelve
volumes, _A History of Great Britain to the Conclusion of the
Peace of Amiens in 1802_.]

[Footnote 20: In the _Quarterly Review_, by Lady Eastlake.]

_Sir Robert Peel to Queen Victoria._

WHITEHALL (_4th March 1843_). (_Sunday morning._)

Sir Robert Peel presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and begs
leave to acquaint your Majesty that the prisoner MacNaghten was
acquitted last night, after a trial which lasted two days, upon the
ground of insanity.

The fuller account of the evidence which Sir Robert Peel has seen is
on the accompanying newspaper.

The only other information which has reached Sir Robert Peel is
contained in a note (enclosed) from Mr Maule, the solicitor to the
Treasury, who conducted the prosecution. The three Judges[21] appear
to have concurred in opinion, that the evidence of insanity was so
strong as to require a verdict of acquittal--and the Chief Justice
advised the Jury to find that verdict without summing up the evidence
or delivering any detailed charge upon the facts of the case and the
law bearing upon them.

It is a lamentable reflection that a man may be at the same time so
insane as to be reckless of his own life and the lives of others, and
to be pronounced free from moral responsibility, and yet capable of
preparing for the commission of murder with the utmost caution and
deliberation, and of taking every step which shall enable him to
commit it with certainty.

[Footnote 21: Chief Justice Tindal, and Justices Williams and
Coleridge.]

_Sir Robert Peel to Queen Victoria._

WHITEHALL, _10th March 1843._

Sir Robert Peel, with his humble duty to your Majesty, begs leave
to acquaint your Majesty that the House of Commons was occupied
last night with the attack upon Lord Ellenborough for the Somnauth
Proclamation.[22]

The motion was made by Mr Vernon Smith.[23] The resolution
proposed condemned the Proclamation as _unwise_, _indecorous_
and _reprehensible_. Mr Vern