Either these two were lying, or they were playing the most despicable parts that men could play, viz., boasting of their prowess in ruining a young girl, deserting her in her trouble, and shifting the public blame on to some one else. But as far as Lord Hervey is concerned, it is more probable that he was lying; the circumstances look very much like it. He had evidently been an admirer of the beautiful Miss Vane before the Prince devoted himself to her; it is more than probable that the Prince cut him out, and that the reason of their quarrel was simply jealousy, accentuated by Hervey’s spiteful tongue. Certainly hereafter the Prince had no more bitter enemy than Lord Hervey, and, unfortunately, the latter was placed in a position about the Queen which enabled him to fan the embers of their quarrel, and to do the Prince’s cause an infinity of harm. Certainly no one can read the history of that period without coming to this conclusion. It has been seen that the Prince of Wales, however, had formed an attachment to another lady, much older than himself, a woman of the world, the mother of ten children, Lady Archibald Hamilton, and this lady had availed herself of her ascendancy over him to urge him to break with Miss Vane. It may be very fairly surmised that the boastings of Hervey and Hamilton were pretty well dinned into his ears; at any rate Lady Archibald succeeded in persuading him, probably in a fit of jealous anger, to send one of his lords in waiting, Lord Baltimore, to Miss Vane with an insulting message. This message, as it is recorded in history, does not read like a man’s message at all; it savours far more of the composition of a spiteful woman. In it the Prince is represented as desiring her to go abroad for two or three years, and to leave her son to be educated in England. If she agreed, she was to receive from the Prince her usual allowance of £1,600 a year for life. The message is said to have concluded in the following words: “If she would not live abroad, she might starve for him in England.” A most unlikely ending to have come from the Prince, having regard to his known habits of kind-heartedness and courtesy. It is needless to say that Miss Vane was deeply hurt at this message, and declined to answer it by Lord Baltimore. It is here that Lord Hervey comes again upon the scene. He states that Miss Vane sent for him and telling him of the Prince’s message asked his advice as a friend; the result was the following letter, which, if Miss Vane wrote it, certainly Lord Hervey composed it, with a view, as it can easily be seen, to its future publication; it ran as follows: