“Well, my pretty, I hope you admired our little brush last night in the presence of all the foreign grandees except the Emperor.* It was really very capitally got up, and you never saw poor devils look so distressed as those on the Treasury Bench. It was a scene well calculated to make the foreign potentates stare as they did, and the little Princes of Prussia laugh as they did. . . . We have now, however, a new game for Master Prinny, which must begin to morrow. Whitbread has formal authority from young Prinny† to state that the marriage is broken off, and that the reasons are—first, her attachment to this country which she cannot and will not leave; and, above all, her attachment to her mother, whom in her present distressed situation she likewise cannot leave.
“This is, in short, her letter to the Prince of Orange in taking leave of him, and a copy of this letter is in Whitbread’s possession. What think you of the effect of this upon the British publick?
“Since writing the last sentence Whitbread has shown me Princess Charlotte’s letter to the Prince of Orange. By God! it is capital. And now what do you suppose has produced this sudden attachment to her mother? It arises from the profound resources of old Brougham, and is, in truth, one of the most brilliant movements in his campaign. He tells me he has had direct intercourse with the young one; that he has impressed upon her this fact that, if her mother goes away from England, as she is always threatening to do from her ill usage in the country, that then a divorce will inevitably take place, a second marriage follow, and thus the young Princess’s title to the throne be gone. This has had an effect upon the young one almost magical.”
