There was as much zeal, and perhaps more discretion, in those impartial peers who, on occasion of Lord Liverpool moving the second reading of the Bill for the 17th of August, insisted on the undoubted right of the Queen, as an accused party, to be made acquainted with the names of the witnesses who had come over to charge her with infamy. Lord Erskine was particularly urgent and impressive on this point, but all to no purpose, except the extracting an assurance from Lord Chancellor Eldon that the accused should have, at a fitting season, a proper opportunity to sift the character of every witness as far as possible. Lord Erskine repeatedly endeavoured to obtain the full measure of justice for the accused which he demanded. The Queen herself entered a hearty protest against the legal oppression, and further begged by petition that, as the names of the witnesses against her were withheld, she might at least be furnished with a specification of the times and places, when and where she was said to have acted improperly. The request was characterised by Lord Eldon as ‘perfectly absurd,’ seeing that the Queen could make no use of the information, if she intended, as declared by her, to defend her case at the early period named, of the 17th of August. The reply was harsh, insulting, and illogical. But to harshness and insult she became inured by daily experience. It may be safely said that, if such a drama had to be enacted in our own days, the press would certainly not distinguish itself now exactly as it did then. Party spirit might be as strong, but there would be more refinement in the expression of it. And assuredly, not even a provincial paper would say of a person before trial as a Western journal said of the Queen--that she was as much given to drunkenness as to other vices, and that it was ridiculous to hold up as an innocent victim a woman who, ‘if found on our pavement, would be committed to Bridewell and whipped.’