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House of Lords, Lord Wynford sent one of the Messengers to ask me to come over to him, as, being lame, he could not come tome. I went, and he then repeated the disclaimer already made by the Duke of Cumberland; and added, that he 'had never heard of the action until four days after it had been commenced, and that as to that unfortunate young man'—(as he termed Norton), who he said had been his ward,—he had not seen him for these two or three years (I will not he certain of the precise time he mentioned, hut it was a long one). I, of course, declared myself 'perfectly satisfied."
Of course. A gentleman, called upon to accept the disclaimer of other gentlemen, one of them a Prince of the blood Royal, could do no less; and of all men, the two in question might feel sympathy for persons struggling against accusation; for the Duke of Cumberland had himself been the theme of resisted obloquy, in that strange history of the murder of his servant; and Lord Wynford's justice, as Judge Best, had "been impugned by Lord Denman in the House of Lords, for brow-beating and unfairly fining a prisoner; not to mention other scandals, less publicly arraigned.
Lord Melbourne then, had to profess himself "satisfied," as a matter of course; but I was not satisfied. In the first place I knew it was not true that Lord Wynford had not seen Mr Norton for three years; and I was assured that some of the witnesses had been examined at his house. As to the denial of the Duke of Cumberland,—both Princes and Kings may be eagerly served, without accepting the responsibility of their words; and the trivial task of breaking up a Ministry, need not weigh on the conscience like the riddance of St Thomas à Beckett. His Royal Highness's dissatisfaction at the success of the Whig party, and his dislike of its leader, were patent and unconcealed. Even those who were friends and adherents of that party, were involved in the evidence of that dislike. I well remember, when I attended the Court
