Volume 1

Letters to the Right Honourable Lord Mansfield. From Andrew Stuart, esq. [On the Douglas Peerage Cause.] / [Andrew Stuart].

  • Andrew Stuart
Date:
[1773]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letters to the Right Honourable Lord Mansfield. From Andrew Stuart, esq. [On the Douglas Peerage Cause.] / [Andrew Stuart]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    [ 4° ] muft be allowed to eftablifh clearly this propofition, That if Lady Jane really was delivered* it was not by Dela- marre, Menager’s friend, from whom it would have been fo eafy at all times to have obtained authentic proofs for refuting fufpicions fo highly prejudicial to the honour and intereft of the perfons fufpected. *the Excufe made for ml applying cr referring to the Accoucheur for Proofs. Your Lordfhip will perhaps fay, and in your fpeech you did attempt to infinuate fomething of this fort, that, in Sir John and Lady Jane’s fituation, it would have had the appearance of doubting their own honour, to have taken any certificates or proofs; out this feeble excufe cannot avail, when it appears that Lady Jane, at the fame time that fhe avoided applying or referring to an accoucheur at Paris, wrote earneflly from London to Aix-la-Chapelle in the year 1750, for proofs of her preg¬ nancy, and thence obtained them, fuch as they were. Befides, if I may be allowed the expreflion, it is too abfurd to fuppofe, that any perfons would be fo far in¬ fluenced by a falfe principle of honour, as to allow their charadler and reputation to fuffer in the world, and the interefl: of themfelves, and thofe whom they called their children, to be fo materially affedied by fufpicions, while it was in their power to put an end to them at once, and to confound their enemies as well as to give pleafure to their friends, by telling the truth, and by obtaining ge¬ nuine proofs from Paris; Or at leaft by appealing to De- lamarre, and acquainting their friends, that this man, who had his conftant refidence in that city, was the per- fon who could give full information; If they had done fo, fome of their zealous partisans, if they themfelves had any falfe point of honour about it, would have faved them the trouble of the application;—-They would have done all that was necefiary. \ But