"Well, your Majesty, he certainly is a bad soldier, but there was
somebody who spoke as to his good character. He may be a good fellow in
civil life."

"O, thank you!" exclaimed the Queen, as she dashed off the word,
"Pardoned," on the awful parchment, and wrote beneath it her beautiful
signature.

This was not her last act of the kind, and at length Parliament so
arranged matters that this fatal signing business could be done by royal
commission, ostensibly to "relieve Her Majesty of a painful duty," but
really because they could not trust her soft heart. She might have sudden
caprices of commiseration which would interfere with stern military
discipline, and the honest trade of Mr. Marwood.

The other incident was told by Lord Melbourne. Soon after her accession,
in all the dizzy whirl of the new life of splendor and excitement, the
young Queen, in an interview with her Prime Minister, said: "I want to
pay all that remain of my father's debts. I _must_ do it. I consider
it a sacred duty." This was, of course, done--the Queen also sending
valuable pieces of plate to the largest creditors, as a token of her
gratitude. Lord Melbourne said that the childlike directness and
earnestness of that good daughter's manner when she thus expressed her
royal will and pleasure, brought the tears to his eyes. It seems to me it
was almost mission enough for any young woman, to move the hearts of hard
old soldiers like Wellington, and _blase_ statesmen like Melbourne--
mighty dealers in death and diplomacy, and to bring something like a
second youth of romance and chivalrous feeling into worn and worldly
hearts everywhere.