APPENDIX. 419 common justice might be challenged to establish against him be- fore consigning his name to the infamy sternly awaiting it, if he were to stand condemned of acquiescence in Mrs Clarke's fraudu- lent gains ; * and, so far as I see, there is no sure ground for maintaining that the Duke's explanation to the House of Com- mons might nut have been substantially true. His explanation was to the effect that the unguarded expansiveness of communica- tions made by him to Mrs Clarke had acquainted her with the names of those to whom commissions vnthout purchase would soon be granted ; tluit armed with the knowledge tlius obtained from his Royal Highness, she announced to the men for whom the commissions were intended that they might have commissions, but pretended that they would be commissions by purchase, and added that, if they would pay the money to her, they only need pay at the rate pointed out by her tariflF — a tariff much lower than the one that the Horse Guards followed when granting commis- sions by purchase. But accepting that explanation, we still have before us a. sufficiently instructive example of what may befall a country if it tolerates ' personal ' monarchy — an example showing plainly enough that between such a kingship and a Mrs Clarke's swindling office the steps might be only two, and both of them of such kind as to be easily taken ; for, the ' personal ' king being able to make the appointment of his own mere will (like a czar), without the advice of any responsible Minister, what on earth was more natural than that he should appoint to command at the Horse Guards his favourite garrulous son, and what again was more natural than that the favourite garrulous son should commit to his mistress such knowledge as enabled her to open her office, and make her fraudulent gains in the way his Royal Highness described ? However repulsive to look at, this great scandal of 1809 did much, as is shown in the text, to make way for the ' Wellington ' reign ; ' and in any Pantheon made sacred to the memory of those who, though wanting in personal merit, have happened nevertheless to do their country great good, Mrs Clarke will have a high placet The awakening of the country was aided by the scandal of the ' inaudited accounts, ' — that is, by proof showing that military expenditure had been suffered to reach the enormous amount of
- This was the opinion formed with great deliberation by Sir Samuel
Roniilly. He laid it down that, except as regards 'guilty knowledge,' all the incriminating facts were conclusively proved against the Duke of York, but that, although there was evidence sufficient to charge H.R.H. with the 'guilty knowledge,' and bring him, as it were, to trial, there was not enough to convict him. f I think there was a sect of the Gnostics which awarded high coiii- menilation on that principle. Conceiving it to be a main part of the divine sclieme to h.ave the Saviour betrayed, they extolled Judas.
