The New Hampshire Gazette And Historical Chronicle

From the London Magazine, for July, 1767

To the PRINTER. &c.

SIR,

The house of Douglas, which has been for so many ages the admiration of Europe, has of late afforded scenes extraordinary enough for romance, and pathetic enough for tragedy.

The most striking instance of them all, is the hard fate of Lady Jane Douglas, only sister of the deceased Archibald duke of Douglas. This lady having married Sir John Stewart, of Grantully, her enemies instigated her brother to treat her with such severity, that she and her two sons were in a manner destitute. In these circumstances, Lady Jane solicited the protection of his majesty King George the second. Her letters to Mr. Pelham upon that occasion is preserved in the proofs upon the great Douglas cause, and may be recorded as an example of the most elegant and moving composition that ever flowed from a pen. It is in these words:

Letter of Lady Jane Douglas to Mr. Pelham.

"SIR,

If I meant to importune you, I should ill deserve the generous compassion which I was informed some months ago you expressed, upon being acquainted with my distress. I take this as the least troublesome way of thanking you, and desiring you to lay my application before the king in such a light, as your own humanity will suggest. I cannot tell my story without seeming to complain of one of whom I never will complain. I am persuaded my brother wishes me well, but from a mistaken resentment, upon a creditor of mine demanding from him a trifling sum, he has stopped the annuity he had always paid me. My father having left me his only younger child, in a manner unprovided for.

Till the duke of Douglas is set right, which I am confident he will be, I am destitute, presumptive heiress of a great estate and family with two children, I want bread. Your own nobleness of mind will make you feel how much it costs my to beg, though from the king. My birth, and the attachment of my family, I flatter myself, his majesty is not unacquainted with; should he think me an object of his royal bounty, my heart won't suffer any bounds to be set to my gratitude; and give me leave to say, my spirit won't suffer me to be burdensome to his majesty longer than my cruel necessity compels me.

I little thought of ever being reduced to petition in this way; your goodness will therefore excuse me, if I have mistaken the manner, or said any thing improper. Though personally unknown to you, I rely upon your intercession; the consciousness of your own mind, in having done so good and charitable a deed, will be a better return than the perpetual thanks of,

SIR, Your most obliged, most faithful and Most obedient servant,

JANE DOUGLAS STEWART."

Such was the character of Lady Jane Douglas; such was the nobleness of her sentiments, yet now, many years after her death, the world is called upon to attend to the decision of the great Douglas cause, which is nothing else than an action of partus supposititio, attempting to prove, that this lady was guilty of a continued course of the grossest fraud, and that her only surviving son, Archibald Douglas, of Douglas, Esq; is an impostor, picked up from the streets of Paris. This is the great Douglas cause.

PORBUS.