Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

Authority, when his Majesty's political capacity was whole and entire, and the Throne, consequently, full; although, in fact, all the various functions of the executive government were suspended, but which suspension, they had every reason to expect, would only be temporary. There could be but one sentiment on that head; which was, that the most sanguine of his Majesty's physicians could not effect a cure more speedily than it was the anxious wish of every man in that House, and of every description of his Majesty's subjects, that it might be effected; and that his Majesty might thence be enabled to resume the exercise of his own authority. During the temporary continuance, however, of his Majesty's malady, it was their indispensable duty to provide for the deficiency in the legislature, in order that a due regard might be had to the safety of the crown, and to the interests of the people. The first report before the committee established the melancholy fact, which had rendered their deliberation necessary; the second contained a collection of such precedents, selected from the history of former times, as were, in any degree, analogous to the present unfortunate situation of the country; and, although he could not undertake to say, that still more precedents might not have been found, yet, such as the report contained would serve to throw a consi

derable degree of light on the subject, and to point out to the House the mode of proceeding mos tproper to be adopted.

Notwithstanding the magnitude of the question, What provisions ought to be made for supplying the deficiency? there was a question of a greater and still more important nature, which must be first discussed and decided, as a preliminary to their future transactions, with a view to the present exigency. This question was whether any person had a right either to assume or to claim the exercise of the royal authority, during the infirmity and incapacity of the sovereign? or, whether it was the right of the Lords and Commons of England to provide for the deficiency in the legislature, resulting from such incapacity? Mr. Pitt referred to his statement on a former day, that, in consequence of an assertion having been made in that House, that a right attached to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, as heir apparent, to exercise sovereign authority, as soon as the two Houses of Parliament declared his Majesty, from illness and indisposition, incapable of exercising his royal functions, it appeared to him to be absolutely and indispensably necessary that the question of right should be first decided by the committee, before they took a single step to provide for VOL. II.

E

the deficiency in the legislative power of the realm. By the assertion of the existence of such a right, no matter whether a right that could be assumed in the first instance, or a right which attached, after the declaration of both Houses of Parliament, that his Majesty was incapable, a doubt had been thrown upon the existence of what he had ever considered as the most sacred and important rights of the two Houses; and it became absolutely necessary for them to decide that doubt, and, by such decision, to ascertain whether they had a power to deliberate, or whether they had only to adjudge, that such a right as had been mentioned was legally vested in his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. The most embarrassing difficulties had, indeed, been thrown upon their proceedings by the assertion that such a claim existed; and, although he was free to confess, that the assertion had not been made from any authority, and that they had since heard, though not in that House, that it was not intended that the claim should be made, yet, having been once stated, by a very respectable member of that House, as his opinion, it was an opinion of too much importance to be passed by unnoticed. He would intreat the House to remember, however, that he had not stirred the question of right

1

originally. If, therefore, any serious danger were actually to be dreaded from its discussion and decision, that danger, and its consequences, were solely imputable to the first agitator of the question, and not to him. Had the doubt never been raised, an express declaration on the subject would not have been necessary; but, as the matter stood, such a declaration must be made one way or the other. He begged, however, that it might not be imputed to him, that he was desirous of wasting time by bringing forward any abstract, or speculative, or theoretical question. An abstract question, in his conception of it, was a question wholly unnecessary, the discussion of which could answer no end, and the decision on which could afford no light to guide and assist them in their proceedings. Of a very different nature was the question of right; it was a question that stood in the way of all subsequent proceedings, the resolving of which must necessarily decide the whole of their conduct, with regard to the present important business.-They were not free to deliberate and determine, while the doubt of an existing right, or claim, hung over their heads. They could not speak intelligibly, or to any purpose, until they knew their proper characters, and whether they were exercising their own rights for the safety of the

Crown, and the interests of the people, or whether they were usurping that which had never belonged to them. On that ground it was that he had declared the question of right not to be an abstract question, a speculative question, or a theoretical question.

The first information afforded by the papers which had been referred to by the committee, was that which he proposed to make the subject of the first resolution. It was a resolution of fact, forming the ground-work of those which he proposed to follow it, stating merely the incapacity of the King to discharge the func

tions of royalty. To this, he conceived, there could be no objection. His next resolution would be the resolution of right, couched partly in the words of the Bill of Rights, and stating, "That it was the right and duty of the Lords, Spiritual and Temporal, and of the House of Commons, as the rightful representatives of all the estates of the people of England, to provide for thé deficiency in the legislature, by the interruption of the exercise of the royal authority, in consequence of his Majesty's incapacity through indisposition.” Having thus stated the substance of that resolution, on which a radical difference of opinion was known to prevail, Mr. Pitt declared that, under the existing circumstances of the coun

« ZurückWeiter »