A bomb in the palace could not have created more excitement than was caused by the appearance of this letter in the papers. It was met by a refusal to allow any meeting at all, for the present, between the Princess Charlotte and her mother, and by an assembling of the Privy Council, the members of which speedily showed why they had been called together, by making a report to the Regent, in which it was stated that the lords of the council, having read the letter of the Princess, and having examined the documents connected with the investigation into the conduct of the Princess in 1806, were decidedly of opinion that any intercourse between the mother and daughter should continue to be subject to regulations and restraint. This report, which was tantamount to a mortal stab to the reputation of the Princess of Wales, and not altogether unprovoked by her, was signed by the two archbishops and all the ministers. The stab was dealt back as fiercely as it could be by an appeal to the people through parliament. To this body the Princess, in March, addressed a letter asserting her innocence, denouncing the system which pronounced her guilty without letting her know on what evidence the verdict was founded, and without allowing her to produce testimony to rebut it; and, finally, requiring that parliament would authorise a full and strict investigation, from which she felt that her honour would issue pre-eminently triumphant. This request brought on an animated debate upon a motion for the production of papers connected with the inquiry of 1806, and the evidence adduced thereon. The motion was lost; but ministers were compelled to acknowledge that the Princess stood fully acquitted of the charges then and there brought against her. The assertion made by Lord Castlereagh, that government had not proceeded against the degraded and infamous Sir John and Lady Douglas, because they were reluctant to trouble the world with the indelicate matters that must be raked up again, excited shouts of derision. Mr. Whitbread stoutly asserted that never had woman been so falsely accused or so fully triumphant; and Mr. Wortley, despite all his respect for the house of Brunswick, could not help lamenting that the royal family was the only one in the kingdom that seemed careless about its own welfare and respectability.