be remedied at once by an act, which if it be not an act of legislation, differs from it, not in being. something less, but in being something more.

To object to either of these modes its own positive difficulties and embarrassments, is only in other words to say, that we are in a situation of great embarrassment and great difficulty; and there is no course of proceeding under such circumstances but what is and must be liable to some objection. It is, however, no fault of ours that we are so situated. It is not, as in ordinary cases, to be imputed to any man, or to any measures, or to any series of measures, that they have brought us under these circumstances of perplexity. The infliction is from Providence alone.. It is one which we all equally feel, and all equally deplore; and which, while we endure it with humble and patient resignation, and indulge the consolatory hope of its speedy termination, the most anxious wish of every man's mind must be to alleviate its inconveniencies, while it endures, so far as may be possible, and in the manner least productive of inconveniencies of any other kind.

Our situation, however painful, and perplexing as it is, is not wholly unprecedented. Among the precedents which we have to guide us, and which have been referred to in former discussions, I agree with both the right honourable gentlemen who have preceded me, in not thinking it necesary for the for min g an opinion on this important.

question to look to those which are drawn from an earlier, and more imperfect state of the constitution, when we have it in our power to appeal to periods of a more recent, and perfect state of the constitution; not because I conceive that those former precedents might not, in the absence of better guides for the conduct of Parliament, be resorted to with advantage, but because all the lights which they afford have been so recently explored, and brought together by the industry and intelligence of those who preceded us in this House, and who had to act two and twenty years ago in that instance, which bore in its circumstances the strongest resemblance, as it is in point of time, the nearest to that in which we now unhappily stand.

Of precedents drawn from more modern times, there are three, which have been particularly dwelt upon, two of them bearing upon the case by analogy; the third, that of 1789 (to which I have just alluded) by direct similarity in all its parts. It is obvious, that a direct precedent is likely to afford a more complete and certain guidance, than one, from which one can reason only by inference, unless there be in that direct precedent, some inherent vice and imperfection, which renders it wholly unworthy of imitation. Let us see first what are the circumstances of the precedents which bear upon the question by analogy.

The first of these is that of the Restoration. In the circumstances of this I can find no similitude to the present case. By this an exiled monarch was to be restored to a situation of which he had been unjustly deprived-an acknowledged right long unjustly withholden was to be proclaimed and re-established.

Can it

now be said, that any right has been withheld which we are called upon to adjudicate?—that any violation has been offered which we are called upon to repair? Is there now a monarch waiting the decision of parliament to be restored to his rights and reinstated in his sovereignty? If such be the predicament in which we are placed, the Restoration is an authority to which we may properly be referred; but if it be clear, that we have now no right to adjudicate-no violation to repair-if we are not about to create a power, but to supply a temporary defect in the exercise of it, surely the authority of that precedent cannot be considered as binding, whose circumstances are shewn to be so totally dissimilar. When the right honourable gentleman says, that both houses of Parliament acted in that instance, as he has described, he in reality says nothing more than that they did what was necessary in the circumstances of that particular case, and nothing beyond it. In that particular we shall do well to follow the principle of the example set us by the Parliament, which called Charles the

Second home; but the details of the transaction appear to me to hold out no other light, which can be of any use to us on the present occasion.

We come next to the precedent of the Revolution. Splendid and cheering to the recollection of Englishmen, as the great event must always be, it will be right and wise in the committee, before they permit their feelings to hurry them away, to consider what the object was of the Parliamentary proceedings at that period? Was it to provide for the care and custody of the person of the monarch? Was it to ensure his return to the government of the country upon his restoration to health? Was it to erect a temporary authority during an accidental defect of the competence of the Sovereign? Or was it not to provide against the restoration of James, and set up safeguards and barriers against his return to defend the Crown, which they proposed to transfer against the hostile approach of its ancient possessor? Was not the throne declared vacant by James's abdication? And was not this declared vacancy the ground of all the subsequent proceedings? Is there any resemblance, therefore, or is there not rather a direct contrariety between the case of the Revolution, and that for which we are now called upon to provide? Has our Sovereign forfeited his throne? Is it our purpose to declare the throne vacant? Or is it not the first and fundamental principle of our proceeding that it is full? Is it

any part of our object to retard and embarrass the resumption of the exercise of the royal authority by our Sovereign, or is it not our fervent prayer that it may be speedily resumed? I do not mean to say, that while considering what is to be done in a crisis of great difficulty, there may not be some advantage in comparing it with what was done in cases so far resembling it, as to have some of the constituent parts the same, but their arrangement and relations to each other different, and even opposite. Undoubtedly some suggestions may be borrowed-some assistance derived from such cases; but the assistance is that of analogy, and an analogy founded not upon direct inference and application, but upon a comparison of points of difference, and of circumstances directly the reverse of each other.

Some gentlemen, indeed, carry their notions of the deference which is due to a favourite precedent, to an extent so strict as, in my opinion, to be almost ludicrous. They insist upon our imitating not only the main scope and action of the great transaction of which we are speaking, but its accidental defects; and would have us create to ourselves deficiencies which those who brought about the Revolution had, but which, luckily, we have not to supply, in order that we may copy them in the manner of supplying them. Thus the right honourable gentleman (Mr. Ponsonby)