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.

    85/208 (page 41)
    / r 4? ] But let us.fuppofe for a moment, that a falfe point of 'honour might make them abftain from applying in their .own names for proofs of the Delivery (though it is dif¬ ficult to make this fuppofition, after the evidence in the caufe of Lady Jane’s earneftly .applying for proofs of her pregnancy), ft111 no point of honour could eitner induce them to deftroy any genuine letters they had from the perfon who affifted at the delivery, or to conceal who that perfon was ;—It could not enter into the moft ro¬ mantic head in the world, that their honour was con¬ cerned in attaining from telling, either to their friends or to their enemies, who was the real pepfopi, leaving it to them to make the inquiries. If there is any man who thinks that their conduct can ftill be juftifred on this imaginary principle, I defire to afk that perfon, on what principle he will account for their telling a falfe fory about the accoucheur, and im¬ puting the delivery to a different man from IVlenager s Delamarre, if he really had been the perfon ? And on what principle will he account ior Sir John Stewart s perfeverance in this falfe flory, at different and diftant periods of time ? Will your Lordfhip go fo far as to lay, that a point of honour might influence him to tell a falfe Jlory, in preference to the truth, and particularly upon a very fblemn and awful occafion, at his judicial exami¬ nation before the fupreme judges of his country, when excited by every principle of honour and of eonfeience to declare the truth?—Some other excufe than Honour muff be found out lor iuch degrading and unnatural condudf. After wbat has been faid, I may be allowed to take it for granted, that a few Ample propofltions are eftabliih- ved, which, by men of cool and jmparjdal judgments,, will not now be controverted.