y,
and Sir Francis Burdett, was, "Oh! you may be sure you never can be
prosecuted,"--thereby, as he acknowledges, "taking away what must
doubtless have most powerfully enforced her consent. Then no sooner had
she refused, and the prosecution goes forward, than they say,
Government never should have admitted a compromise at all, but have
prosecuted without hesitation."[29]

[29] Ibid. p. 69.

"She seems," writes Lord Dudley, "to have been advised by persons that
are resolved to play the deepest possible game, and care little to what
risk they expose her, provided they have a chance of turning out the
Government, or perhaps of over-throwing the monarchy. I do not think
that it is Brougham's doing."[30] "The people," confesses Cobbett, "as
far as related to the question of guilt or innocence, did not care a
straw."[31] Their leaders cared still less:

"Careless of fate, they took their way,
Scarce caring who might win the day;
Their booty was secure."

[30] "Letters," p. 255.

[31] "Life of George IV.," p. 425.

"If her innocence were proved," observes a popular historian, "they
would gain a triumph over the King, force upon him a wife whom he could
not endure, overturn his Ministers, and perhaps shake the monarchy; if
her guilt, they would gain the best possible ground for declaiming on
the corruption which prevailed in high places, and the monstrous nature
of those institutions which gave persons of such character the lead in
society."[32]

[32] Alison's "Europe," vol. ii. p. 549.

The excitement increased as the arrangements for the Queen's trial
became known. Lord John Russell published a letter addressed to Mr.
Wilberforce, on the subject, urging him again to attempt an
arrangement; but he had had enough of interfering in such a business,
and declined to take the post assigned him, though the writer expressed
his opinion that in his hands was perhaps the fate of the country. He
was as anxious as ever to do good, but did not see how it could be
done. His opinion of the Queen did not improve, in consequence of the
"spirit" she continued to display, which he now felt inclined to
describe in more appropriate language:--"I feel deeply the evil," he
writes in his Diary, "that so bad a woman as I fear she is, should
carry the victory by sheer impudence (if she is guilty), and assume the
part of a person deeply injured."[33]

[33] "Life," vol. v. p. 77.

Other well-mean