if they passed the bill, without any clause of limitation, they gave the lock and the key to the door of revision and limitation out of their own hands, and delivered both over to the other House. These were dangerous points, and he must contend that they were illegal, and, unfortunately, without remedy. The people at large, who were deluded and acted upon that delusion, could not be punished, because it would be a massacre; but what should they say of those who misled the people, and under a pretence of an ardent zeal for the constitution, endeavoured to advance the purposes of their own private ambition? for the reasons which he had mentioned, he should support the amendment.

and openly declare their intention? If he were asked, did he hate a republican speculation? he would answer, no. But he knew a republic could not be speculated upon, according to the principles of our constitution. He loved, he revered, he adored the true principles of a republic, but, was that the mode of instituting a republic? O republic!" exclaimed Mr. Burke," how art thou libelled! how art thou prostituted, buffooned, and burlesqued! O fabric, built after so many ages, and cemented by the blood of patriots, how art thou degraded!” As well might it be said, that the mutilated creatures of the opera house were the representatives of heroes, the true and perfect Cæsars, Catos, and Brutusses of Rome, as that strange and jumbled chaos, the representative of a real republic! Such an attempt to establish a republic as the present, was the certain way of having a monster set over them, and introducing the most hypocritical sort of government to which it was possible to resort.

Mr. Burke reprobated the idea of the fiction of law, which was to be made use of to open the parliament, and said, that he never had heard of a phantom being raised in a private family, but for the purpose of robbing the house. So far from being a representative of the forms of the constitution, it was a masquerade, a mummery, a peace of buffoonery, used to burlesque the constitution, and to ridicule every form of government. A phantom conjured up to affright propriety, and drive it from our isle. An hideous spectre, to which, in the language of Macbeth to Banquo's ghost, it might be said,

"Avaunt and quit my sight! Let the earth

hide thee!

Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold; Thou hast no speculation in those eyes Which thou dost glare with."

And so in fact it was with this political spectre; its bones were marrowless, its blood was cold, and it had no speculation in its eyes. He reprobated it therefore as a chimera-a monster taken out of the depths of hell. As to the letter of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the Prince, Mr. Burke declared, that it conveyed private intimations, which he would not publicly avow, and that with respect to the right hon. gentleman giving his word, he might do as he liked; but, if he did not agree to a special limitation of the restrictions, his faith was broken; because,

Mr. Sheridan said, that anxious to bring the debate to a conclusion, he should with this view, propose a farther amendment, which he trusted would remove all the right hon. gentleman's objections. The House might hereafter debate on the right hon. gentleman's intended motion of limitation, which he must still maintain was adverse to the interests of the country, and tending towards a Republican form of government, consequently could neither be advantageous to the present nor future prospects of the Prince.

Mr. Pulteney declared, that what he proposed was for the benefit of the Prince and of the country, and not more for the advantage of the one than of the other.

Mr. Sheridan said, the House would then perceive the want of system. The hon. gentleman had on a former night suggested of a sudden, an intention to propose a limitation of the existence of the Regency, which he had told the House he meant to persist in, and should state more fully hereafter, with that the right hon. gentleman had professed an acquiescence, and after having stated that his mode of proceeding, was a mode that was not to be changed, had, in a manner, agreed to receive the hon. gentleman's proposition, and to change it hereafter. To what end then, vote the proposed Address to the Prince of Wales? If they adopted any additional regulation, or made any alterations, they would necessarily have to do the business which they were now about, over again, and to send up a second address to the Prince, to learn whether in the altered state of the restrictions, his Royal Highness was yet willing to accept the Regency Now,

royal person, and the direction of his Majesty's household, be laid before her Majesty, with an humble Address, expressing the hope which the Commons entertain, that her Majesty will be graciously pleased to undertake the important trust proposed to be invested in her Majesty, as soon as an Act of Parliament shall have been passed for carrying the said Resolution into effect."

Mr. Burke hinted at the necessity of moving certain restrictions on the powers to be vested in her Majesty.

The Resolution was agreed to; and the two Resolutions were ordered to be communicated to the Lords at a conference.

Jan. 28. The Resolutions of the Commons having been communicated to the Lords at a conference, the Lord President moved, To agree with the Commons in the first Resolution.

in order to obviate the right hon. gentleman's scruples, he should propose an alteration to his amendment. The right hon. gentleman's objections to the amendment was, that it was a partial selection from a paragraph in his letter to the Prince of Wales, and that he had left out certain words of importance. He could not consider those omitted words in any other light than as words of surplusage; but in order to satisfy the right hon. gentleman, and to remove all his doubts, he had now taken those words of the letter, that had been omitted in the motion. The matter would then go clearly, and without reserve to his Royal Highness, and they would see by his Royal Highness's answer, what steps they ought next to take. The words he meant to add to his motion, were these, but, if unfortunately his Majesty's recovery should be protracted to a more distant period than there is at present reason to imagine, it will be open hereafter to the wisdom of parliament to reconsider these provisions whenever the circumstances seem to call for it." Mr. Sheridan said that he must beg leave to read that part of the motion, on which the right hon. gentleman had relied, as marking in the right hon. gentleman's mind that the restrictions were calculated merely for the present exigency, and were consequently only of a temporary nature. He asked if those words conveyed so clearly, distinctly, and intelligibly, that the restrictions were permanent, and not temporary, as the words of his amendment warranted such a conclusion. Why then, would the right hon. gentleman use dubious words, when he might speak plainly and directly? The right hon. gentleman had before declared that his letter was partially quoted. He had now taken the part which was omitted, and added it to the other; and, therefore, if the right hon. gentleman meant to do justice to the public, and to the Prince, he could not, with the least consistency, persevere in his objections.

Upon the question being put, that the first amendment be withdrawn, in order to give Mr. Sheridan an opportunity to join the first and second amendment, and move both as one amendment, leave was given. The question was then put on the whole of the amendment, which, after debate, was negatived.

Mr. Pitt then moved, "That the Resolution agreed to by the Lords and Commons, respecting the care of his Majesty's [VOL. XXVII.]

The Duke of Northumberland said, that it appeared to him a violation of all decency, to withhold from his Royal Highness any of the authority belonging to the Crown, without assigning some reason for so extraordinary a procedure; and therefore, under this idea, he should move, as an amendment, to add to the Resolution the following words: "That the restrictions were formed on the supposition that his Majesty's illness was only temporary, and might be of no long duration."

This amendment was negatived. The Resolutions, after a short debate, were agreed to, and ordered to be returned to the Commons.

The Prince of Wales's Answer to the Resolutions appointing him Regent.] Jan. 29. The Lord President and the Lord Privy Seal on the part of the Lords, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Master of the Rolls, and the Secretary, on the part of the Commons, were ordered to wait upon his royal highness the Prince of Wales with the said Resolutions.

Jan. 31. The Lord President reported, that his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales had been waited on with the Resolutions of both Houses, and that his Royal Highness was pleased to return this

answer:

"My Lords and Gentlemen,

"I thank you for communicating to me the Resolutions agreed upon by the two Houses, and I request you to assure them, in my name, that my duty to the King my [4 C]

father, and my anxious concern for the safety and interests of the people, which must be endangered by a longer suspension of the exercise of the royal authority, together with my respect for the united desires of the two houses outweigh in my mind every other consideration, and will determine me to undertake the weighty and important trust proposed to me, in conformity to the Resolutions now communicated to me. I am sensible of the difficulties that must attend the execution of this trust, in the peculiar circumstance in which it is committed to my charge; of which, as I am acquainted with no former example, my hopes of a successful administration cannot be founded on any past experience. But confiding that the limitations on the exercise of the royal authority, deemed necessary for the present, have been approved only by the two Houses as a temporary measure, founded on the loyal hope, in which I ardently participate, that his Majesty's disorder 'may not be of a long duration, and trusting, in the mean while, that I shall receive a zealous and united support in the two Houses, and in the nation, proportioned to the difficulty attending the discharge of my trust in this interval, I will entertain the pleasing hope that my faithful endeavours to preserve the interests of the King, his crown, and people, may be successful."

The Queen's Answer.] The Earl of Waldegrave reported the Answer given by her Majesty, to the Resolutions of the two Houses, viz.:

"My duty and gratitude to the King, and the sense I must ever entertain of my past obligations to this country, will certainly engage my most earnest attention to the anxious and momentous trust intended to be reposed in me by parliament. It will be a great consolation to me to receive the aid of a council, of which I shall stand so much in need, in the discharge of a duty, wherein the happiness of my future life is indeed deeply interested, but which a higher object, the happiness of a great, loyal, and affectionate people, renders still more important."

The Answers were ordered to be printed.

Debate in the Lords on the Resolution respecting Letters Patent for opening the Parliament.] The House having resolved itself into a Committtee on the State of the Nation,

The Lord President rose, and began with reminding their lordships of the several progressive steps they had taken, which naturally led to the important crisis of their carrying up the Resolutions voted by the two Houses to his Royal Highness, whose gracious answer their lordships had just heard, and which could not but give the House general satisfaction. Much, his lordship observed, might be said, on what had occurred in the progress of their proceedings, but as the great step of ascertaining his Royal Highness's determination, as to the acceptance of the Regency on the conditions expressed in the Resolutions, had been taken, it was unnecessary for him to add a single syllable upon what had passed, and therefore he would quit that part of the subject. The next necessary step to be taken, fell under the second Resolution, that by which the House had decided, that it was necessary to determine on the means whereby the royal assent may be given in parliament to such bills as may be passed by the two Houses, respecting the exercise of the powers and authorities of the Crown, in the name and on the behalf of the King, during his Majesty's indisposition. The business of that day, therefore, was, to open what the measure was, by which his Majesty's ministers proposed to carry those means into effect, in order to appoint and elect a regent. That explanation it was his duty to make, and he begged to be understood as having undertaken it, under the impression of a thorough conviction that, amidst a choice of evils, the means he should propose appeared to him to be least objectionable and most fit to be adopted, because the most reconcilable to the principles of the constitution; but, that what he had to propose, he submitted with great deference to their lordships' better judgment. He was open to conviction, and should be ready to adopt a better mode of proceeding if a better mode could be suggested. He was aware that the means that had already been more than hinted at in debate, by which, under the practice of the second Resolution, it was intended to pro ceed to open the parliament, and to rescue the two Houses from their present maimed and imperfect state, and to rescue the country also from the miserable condition in which it had so long remained, and of which the people began to feel the effect and to complain, viz. that of having no government whatever, had been made the

subject of much ridicule. It had been called a phantom, a fiction, and by a variety of other contemptuous names; if there should be those, however, who should object to the proposition he had to offer, he thought it right to declare, that he held it to be the duty of the persons who so objected to suggest the mode of proceeding that they thought more expedient, more wise, and more practicable. The delay that had already taken place, from various unavoidable causes, had revolted in the public mind; the people were impatient, and justly so, for a restoration of the constitution to its complete form, that of three estates, from the co-operation of which the government derived its energy, and all its operations proceeded with vigour and effect. In the present melancholy situation of affairs, the incapacity of his Majesty to exercise the royal functions was severely felt. It was necessary that parliament should interpose its authority; but parliament could not take a single step, circumstanced as it was at present; without the King, it was a mere headless trunk; perfectly inanimate and incapable of acting, no legal step could be taken by the two Houses that assumed the character or aimed atthe efficacy of legislation, without the King at their head to substantiate the act, and give it constitutional currency. The King must be upon his throne in that House, or by some means or other signify his sanction to their proceedings, or, notwithstanding the steps they had already taken, all their time would have been wasted, and all their pains thrown away. The first step that was next to be taken, was, to open the parliament, and to do it by the King's authority. The law declared, that in one mode or other, the King must be there to enable them to proceed as a legislative body. That his Majesty, from illness, could not attend personally, was a fact too well known to be disputed. The next consideration, therefore, was, by what means the King exercised his parliamentary prerogative, when he did not exercise it personally. The legal and constitutional mode was, by issuing Letters Patent under the Great Seal. In the present dilemma, consequently, the most safe means of opening the parliament was, by directing Letters Patent to be issued in the King's name under the Great Seal, authorizing a commission to open parliament in the name of his Majesty. If there were any other means he hoped

those who really thought so, would have the goodness and the candour to suggest them. He must however take the liberty of saying, that those who treated the means he should propose with ridicule, were ignorant of the laws of their country. A fiction those means might be termed, but it was a fiction admirably calculated to preserve the constitution, and, by adopting its forms to secure its substance. This fiction, in the first place, kept the throne entire, if the king should be living, but, in his natural character, incapable of exercising the royal authority. Secondly, no bill that had not the King's name at the head of it, and therefore purported to be of royal authority, could have a legal effect, a deficiency which this fiction would cure. Thirdly, if a king should, for a time, be deprived. of the power of exercising his royal prerogatives personally, either from not being of age, or from being rendered incapable of attending parliament, from illness or any other cause, on his return to his powers of action as a sovereign, he would see all his prerogatives had been carefully preserved, and that they all stood minuted down upon record. His lordship remarked that a sovereign's sentiments were known only by record, and reasoned upon the absolute necessity of issuing a commission to open the parliament, and if that ground were admitted him, which, he conceived, could not well be denied, he asked, by whom was a commission, such as he had described, to be directed? Would it be said, that the Prince of Wales could command the Lord Chancellor to put the Great Seal to such a commission? his Royal Highness had not the smallest pretence to assume such an authority; both Houses had recently voted that the Prince had no such right. Would the Lord Chancellor himself venture to do it of his own accord? Undoubtedly he would not. The commission must be issued by some authority, and being once issued, with the Great Seal annexed to it, it must enforce obedience. If their lordships, or any of them, thought the mode that he meant to propose, an expedient one, they were bound to suggest some other method of doing it; and if what they should suggest should appear to be a better mode, he, for one, would be ready to adopt it. He thought it was in the power of the two Houses to direct the Great Seal to be put to the commission, and in their power only. The Great Seal