its detection, in France, the French inclined to the legitimacy of the children; so did the generality in Scotland: and, above all, the compassion excited in favour of infants avowed by both parents, though, in truth, very equivocally by Lady Jane on her deathbed, carried the current in favour of young Douglas. He was not less eagerly patronised by the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry: the Duke was his guardian; and the Duchess, no less celebrated formerly by Prior, Pope, and Swift, than the Duchess of Hamilton, in the times of which I write, was still more singular and persevering than the two other dames of the same rank,--circumstances that contributed powerfully to attract the attention of the public. Much perjury appeared on both sides--certain proof on neither; the want of which decided the suit, at last, in favour of the compassionate part of the question. After a hearing of many and long days, with an attendance scarce ever known there on a cause, the House of Lords reversed the decree in favour of the Hamiltons, and restored the Douglas.[172] The Lord Advocate Montgomery spoke for thirteen hours in three days, and with applause. Mr. Charles Yorke was the least admired. The Duchess Douglas thought she had retained him; but hearing he was gone over to the other side, sent for him, and questioned him home. He could not deny that he had engaged himself for the House of Hamilton--“Then, sir,” said she, “_in the next world whose will you be, for we have all had you_?” Mr. Alexander Wedderburne (for the Hamiltons, too,) spoke with greater applause than was almost ever known. Dunning, on the same side, and Norton for the Douglas, made no great figure. The Duke of Bedford, Lord Sandwich, and Lord Gower,[173] were the most zealous for the Hamiltons. Lord Mansfield, it had long been discovered, favoured the Douglas; but the Chancellor Camden, with dignity and decency, had concealed his opinion to the very day of the decision. The debate was opened by the Duke of Newcastle, and very poorly. He was answered by Lord Sandwich, who spoke for three hours with much humour, and scandalised the bishops, having, with his usual industry, studied even the midwifery of the case, which he retailed with very little decency. The Chancellor then rose, and with becoming authority and infinite applause, told the Lords that he must now declare, that he thought the whole plea of the Hamiltons a tissue of perjury, woven by Mr. Andrew Stuart; and that were he sitting as judge in any other court, he would order the jury to find for Mr. Douglas; and that what that jury ought to do on their oaths, their Lordships ought to do on their honours. He then went through the heads of the whole case, and without notes recapitulated even the dates of so involved a story; adding, that he was sorry to bear hard on Mr. Stuart, but justice obliged him. This speech, in which it was allowed he outshone Lord Mansfield, had the most decisive effect.