A LIST of the division on the question of the Amendment to the Resolutions, moved by Lord Rawdon.

DUKES.

York
Cumberland
Norfolk

Bedford
Portland

MARQUISES.

Lothian.

EARLS.

Huntingdon
Suffolk

Wales, whether he had any right or not,
ought to be the person appointed regent,
the wisest way would be for that House
to address him immediately, to take upon
him, as sole regent, the administration of
the executive government. He contend-
ed, that were such advice fit to be fol-
lowed, even the two Houses would be
under the necessity of legislating for
themselves; and yet the very persons who
gave such advice, upon arguing the third Devonshire
proposition, allowed, that if they attempted Northumberland.
to legislate in a single instance of una-
voidable and pressing exigency, the sta- Townshend
tute of the 13th of Charles 2 was directly
in their teeth. He agreed with the mar-
quis of Lansdowne as to the constitutional Derby
importance of the Crown's having a nega-
tive, when bills were tendered for the
Carlisle
royal assent, declaring, that he not only con- Sandwich
curred entirely with him on that point, and Stamford
had thought himself indebted to him for Exeter
the pains which he had taken, to point out Peterborough
the utility of such a power being lodged Shaftesbury
in the Crown; but was satisfied, in his own
Plymouth
mind, that, so far from that being a power Scarborough
Jersey
which no prince of the House of Brunswick
Buckinghamshire
was likely to exercise, a day would occur, Hertford
sooner or later, in which the salvation of Ilchester
the constitution and of the country might
depend on the royal exercise of that truly
important prerogative. In his opinion, it
was evident that the interests of the Prince
of Wales would be best served, by acce-
ding to the resolutions, and grounding a
bill upon them, in which the degree of au-
thority, and the nature of the functions to
be vested in the person who was to stand
between the Crown and the two Houses of
Parliament, should be precisely marked
and ascertained, as well as the extent of
the limitations which the exigency of the
case might require.

Lord Rawdon defended the words of his motion from the imputations cast on them by the Lord Chancellor, and justified them on the ground of propriety and appositeness.

The House divided on the question, that the words of the resolution, as originally moved, stand part of the question; Contents, 99; Not-contents, 66. The second resolution was then read, and the previous question being moved, it was determined in the negative; the question was then put upon the second resolution, and it was affirmed. The third resolution was next read, and being objected to, the question was put, when the question was affirmed.

Abergavenny
Cholmondeley
Spencer
Fitzwilliam
Eglintown
Cassillis
Selkirk
Breadalbaine.

VISCOUNTS.

Hereford
Bolingbroke

Not-contents

DUKES.

Rochford

Richmond
Beaufort
St. Alban's

Brandon
Chandos
Bridgewater
Newcastle
Montagu.

MARQUISES.

Stafford
Lansdowne.

EARLS.

Salisbury
Denbigh

Westmoreland
Winchelsea
Chesterfield

Essex
Doncaster
Abingdon

Gainsborough

thorize ministers to set up a fourth estate,
he could not resist the opportunity of de-
livering his sentiments on the subject.
His Majesty's melancholy situation natu-
rally presented itself first to the minds of
all men, and respecting it there could be
but one sentiment-universal regret, ac-
companied with the most ardent wishes,
that our beloved sovereign, might be
speedily restored to his loyal and affec-
tionate subjects. He said he had depre-
cated the discussion of the question of
right. It had been agitated without suffi-
cient parliamentary ground; because a
noble lord in that House, and a right hon.
gentleman in another, had casually alluded
to it in their speeches, and because ru-
mour had breathed upon it abroad. Would
their lordships substantiate a shadow?
Would they make the idle buz of the
streets the ground-work of their proceed-
ings? He adverted to the precedents
that had been relied on, because the cir-
cumstances of them were in some re-
spect similar to those of the present crisis.
He asked, whether their dissimilitude
ought not to have as much weight as their
similarity? Though it had been laid
down by a high authority in that House,
that there was no difference between an
heir apparent, and an heir presumptive,
he must, unlearned as he was, refuse his
consent to the doctrine. An heir pre-
sumptive was that sort of heir, whose pre-
tensions to the succession were liable to
be of no avail, by the possibility of ano-
ther heir arising; whereas an heir appa-
rent had no competitor.
An heir pre-

Dec. 29. The resolutions being reported, Lord Rawdon said, that he did not mean to trouble the House, by ad-sumptive, if he was an ambitious man, verting to any former arguments, as he might aspire to a right that eventually had fully stated in the Committee what would not have devolved on him, had not occurred in his mind in defence of his his own unjust projects obtained it. An amendment, and had not heard any thing heir apparent was under no necessity to which appeared to him a sufficient answer; have recourse to such conduct to secure his yet, as he understood that he could not right; because he knew, that in the comhave his motion entered on the journals, mon course of nature, it must come to him. unless he moved it again, he would desire One observation had fallen from the noble that the question might be put upon it, viscount near. him, that struck him as an and to this he was urged merely from unanswerable argument against the resomatter of form, and not a design imper- lution. What he alluded to was, that tinently to intrude. The words moved every commission for giving the royal asby way of amendment, to be added to sent to bills, must have the authority of the first resolution, were then read, and, the king's sign manual, and that, not upon the question put, negatived. The merely as a matter of practice, which first and second resolutions were then se- might be dispensed with at the option of verally read, and agreed to. On the the Crown, but by the Act passed in the question being put on the third tesolution, 33d of Henry 8. He reprobated the inLord Hay (earl of Kinnoul) said, that tention of limiting the regent, and subconsidering the third resolution as inimical jecting him to restrictions, contending to the constitution, and as tending to au- that they might, with equal propriety,

limit the sovereign authority of the Crown | to determine on the means which they had itself. The royal prerogatives were not just before declared they were to provide, given to the monarch himself, they were whereby the royal assent might be given? not granted to gratify his pride, and satiate Had not their lordships, a moment before, his vanity, but for the public good, which come to a resolution respecting the unwould equally suffer by their being abridg- happy capacity of the monarch? and, ed, when in the hands of a regent, as in therefore, the royal assent was not to be the hands of the sovereign himself. obtained, but by the exercise of the royal Lord Kinnaird called upon ministers, authority, by some one or more persons. as friends to the third proposition, for No, that was not the intention; for there some explanation of its meaning. For his were to be a bill or bills, respecting the part, notwithstanding every attention that exercise of the royal powers and authohis mind was capable of, he was not able rities; and it had been supposed that the to guess, either at the object it proposed, royal assent was to be given, under the or the mode of attaining it. He should sanction of the resolutions of the two earnestly entreat some noble lords, friends Houses, by a commission under the Great to this motion, and in habits of intimacy Seal, to these bills. What! without the with the original mover of it in another sign manual of the monarch? and that was place, to explain the purport and meaning declared impossible at present, directly in of it, so that he might avoid trespassing the face of the 33d of Henry 8. Were the on the patience of the House, by com- two Houses, by their ordinance, to take. bating intentions, which, perhaps, had no upon them to order the Great Seal to be existence, but in his misguided concep- put to the commission, and the sign mation of the terms of the proposition. Innual to be forged, how could they reconanxious hope that the House might be favoured with such an explanation, he should sit down. His lordship then sat down, but no answer being given, he rose again and stated, that if the meaning which he should presume to put upon the words of the third resolution, were not such as was intended by the framers of it, their lordships would lay the blame on those, who, having it in their power, did not choose to indulge the House with any explanation whatsoever. He professed himself exceedingly at a loss how to treat this proposition. A learned lord had, the other night, in his emphatic manner, and with considerable asperity, arraigned the amendment proposed by his noble friend (lord Rawdon), as being couched in insensible terms. Might he be permitted, after so great an example, to take the liberty of declaring, that the proposition under consideration, was truly couched in insensible terms, and most probably was so done on purpose. The proposition sets out with a profession of the most laudable purpose, namely, to maintain the constitutional authority of the Crown: but how? by determining on means which, as had been declared by the former resolution, it was their duty to provide, whereby the royal assent might be given to such bill respecting the exercise of the royal powers and authorities. His lordship asked, if it was possible for obscurity to be more completely enveloped in itself? What! declare that they were

cile it to the meaning of the statute of Charles 2? In short, whatever way she steered, the vessel must be wrecked; in avoiding Scylla, she goes to pieces on Charybdis. It was correctly stated, and ably argued by a learned lord near him, that the measures which necessity creates, necessity limits; but, was it possible to jus tify the aiming so fatal a blow at the principles of the constitution? Was there no other mode of filling up the melancholy chasm which deprived them of energy, but by making the two Houses do that, which they can only do when in their perfect state of two houses of parliament, in parliament. assembled, namely, legislate, and that, too, when they were so mutilated indeed, as to render it extremely doubtful whether they were inchoate: the least possible excess of their powers, in their present state, was to address and resolve; to legislate was the highest function they were capable of, and therefore it ought to be the most sacred. That their lordships and the other. House had the power to adopt this mode of proceeding, he did not deny; but he doubted much if they had the right. If they did adopt it, he presumed, the very first bill that would be brought in, after the two Houses should be in parliament, would be a bill of indemnity; and highly necessary would it be for those who were under the orders of the two Houses, to usurp the exercise of the authorities of the Crown, under the pretence of maintaining them. It would be but fair and candid,

son within the realm, to whom they all looked up to take upon himself the exercise of the royal authority, as a trust for the benefit of the people, in the name and in the behalf of his Majesty? By following such an example, their lordships could never be disgraced; as the character of those who completed that glorious event, must ever be entitled to the admiration of every Briton.

that their lordships should be informed in | legislature, by an address to the only perwhom the exercise of these regal powers and authorities were to be vested. The resolution afforded no clue to guess. Every one had declared, that it could be in no person but the Prince of Wales. He verily believed, that, from one end of his Majesty's dominions to the other, there was not a dissenting voice, respecting the regency of a prince, on whose qualities it would be arrogance in him to descant; but, nevertheless, he could not help saying, that the awful example of filial affection and unremitting attention which they had beheld, could not fail of impressing the minds of all men with the consolatory presage of the exercise of such virtues towards a sympathizing nation. Their lordships had many precedents laid on their table, and much stress had been placed on them: but, why were there not any produced to sanctify this proceeding? Because the only precedents that bore any analogy to such a proceeding, made directly against it. Their lordships were aware, that he alluded to the proceeding which took place in 1641, when the judges were referred to, and returned this answer: That such a commission to give the royal assent to bills would be good, if backed by an act of parliament, and the resolution of the Commons. The ancient and constant course, in all times, has been, to have a locum tenens in the King's absence, a parliament then sitting, and not limited to any particular matter. The plan proposed by this resolution, as he conceived it, was inefficacious, clumsy, circuitous, and unintelligible. There had been no pretence set up in justification of this measure being preferred to that of address, except the impropriety of vesting his royal highness with the exercise of the royal authority, before the terms on which he was to exercise it were prescribed. If any limitations or restrictions were thought necessary, was there any of their lordships who could believe it possible that such a bill would not receive the assent of him who had the power of exercising the authority? He entreated their lordships not to give a deadly blow to the substance, by sacrificing at the shrine of legal fiction, when they might find so safe and sure a guide in the broad analogies of the constitution. Their lordships had declined the suspension of regal executive government; and why would they not imitate the wisdom of their ancestors in the next step, by completing the three estates of the

The Earl of Suffolk could not avoid reprobating the resolution, on account of its apparent tendency to subvert the constitution, where there was no occasion to have recourse to such a project. While they were wasting time in debating abstract questions of theory, what, he asked, must be the situation of the Prince of Wales? Their discussion of the question of right had been altogether idle and unnecessary, as no right had been set up in opposition to the right of the two Houses; and they had heard from the highest authority, and in a manner that could not but have impressed them all with the most profound reverence and respect, that no claim of right would be brought forward by his royal highness. He reprobated the assertion, that any other person could have an equal right to the Regency with the heir apparent, as a doctrine in the highest degree unconstitutional. He spoke of the idea of limiting and restraining the Regent, and investing him with only a portion of the royal authority, as an idea equally repugnant to the known law of the land, and the principles of the constitution. But even allowing, for the sake of argument, that some limitation would be proper, where were the energies of the constitution, if they could not pass such a bill as the occasion might require, after the Regent was declared? Upon this occasion, he should beg leave to submit to the attention of their lordships, an observation from De Lolme, an acknowledged admirer of the equilibrium of the British constitution, who, in confirmation of his argument against portioning out the regal authority, says; " and, I shall take this opportunity to make the reader observe, in general, how the different parts of the English government mutually assist and support each other. It is because the whole executive authority in the state is vested in the Crown, that the people may without danger delegate the care of their liberty to representatives; it is because they share in the government only through