THE session having been opened by commission, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Secretary Ryder, Lord Clive, the Master of the Rolls, and the Attorney and Solicitor General, were instructed to bring in a bill to provide for the administration of the royal authority, and for the care of his majes, ty's royal person during the continuance of his illness, and for Jan. 15. the resumption of the exercise of the royal authority by his majesty. Mr Whitbread, observing that the bill appeared to him to differ in some points from the resolutions upon which it was founded, mo, ved that the committee should be em. powered to take those resolutions into consideration; and this haJan. 17. ving been agreed to, the house resolved itself into a committee upon the subject. In the fifth clause, which provided for the resumption of the royal authority, Mr Whitbread objected to the wording of the clause, as too loose and general;

VOL. IV. PART I.

and instead of the words, "When his majesty shall be restored to such a state of health as to be capable of resuming the personal exercise of the royal authority, and shall have declared his royal will and pleasure thereupon," moved, as an amendment, that these words should be inserted, "When his majesty shall be restored to a full state of mental health, so as to be capable of undertaking the personal exercise of the royal authority." "The king," he said, "ought not to be restored to authority until he was restored to health; and when he considered the conduct of ministers, from the year 1789 down to the present moment, he saw the necessity that existed for speaking plainly and explicitly upon this occasion." This amendment was negatived without a division.

The ninth clause declared, "that the regent should take and subscribe such oaths, and make and subscribe such declarations, and do all such acts as are required by the laws to qualify + A

persons to hold offices and places of trust, and to continue in the same in such manner as by the laws are required, and under such pains, penalties, forfeitures, and disabilities as are therein appointed." Upon this Sir Samuel Romilly declared, "he considered this clause as the most objectionable part of the whole bill. Its effect would be to make the regent a responsible officer, an effect which he did not suppose was in the contemplation of the framers of it; but if the committee were to agree to it, they would, in effect, alter the government. The supreme executive magistrate of this country was responsible only by his advisers, and to make the person filling that exalted station personally responsible, however it might appear a better form of government to theorists, would be to subvert the constitution. What a monstrous circumstance it would be, if the regent, on the king's recovery, were to be liable to an information by his majesty's attorney-general, for not having properly executed the trust confided to him!" Mr Perceval replied," that he had been studious to preserve as much as possible the words adopted in the bill of 1788, not from any partiality to them, but that it might not be said he wished to introduce any alteration. It might be a question, whether any subject raised to the rank of regent should be responsible; but the solution of that question certainly did not go to free the ministers of the regent, who were considered in the light of the king's ministers, and of course liable to the same responsibility." MrTierney said, "the clause was directly different from the resolutions. The resolutions stated, that the regent was to have the prerogatives of the king, and they were now by the bill imposing oaths on him." Sir Samuel Romilly whispered here, "Excise oaths." "Aye," Mr Tierney repeated, "oaths which placed him

in the station of an exciseman. The resolutions spoke of him in pompous, high-sounding terms, and then the bill went to level him with the lowest of fice in the land. And it was worthy of notice, that the regent was mentioned in the clause merely as a person;' a phrase which no man could have posed would have been applied to the Prince of Wales. It would be well if the right honourable gentleman had considered before he introduced this clause, dwindling the regent down to the holder of a mere office in trust.”

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Upon this Mr Perceval replied with allowable warmth, "that he very little expected, copying as he had done the words of the clause from the bill of 1788, that he should be accused of attempting to degrade the Prince of Wales. It would be well, however, (repeating Mr Tierney's phrase) if that right honourable gentleman was to read the clause upon which he chose to comment; it would be well if he would form an opinion upon consider ing what he had read; and it would be well also if he did not thus expose himself, by censuring as performed what never was even intended. Because the low officers of the nation took oaths, was it therefore to be stated that an oath had been imposed upon a higher one merely to degrade him? The king himself took oaths; and it could not possibly be considered as a degradation to the present Prince of Wales, in tendering him an office, to do as our ancestors had always done in similar cir. cumstances. If the wording of the clause was supposed to throw any responsibility on the regent, he was wile ling to use other words; but he had merely used the form which had been adopted over and over again.” “Mr Ponsonby said, "it by no means fol lowed that, because the words were introduced in the bill of 1788, that therefore they must be proper. They might perhaps have escaped observa

tion at that time, in consequence of there not being then in parliament any person possessed of the acuteness, and of the legal and professional knowledge of Sir Samuel Romilly. He proposed to omit the words which represented the regent as a person having an office of trust, by which omission the question of responsibility would be left untouched." The Master of the Rolls said, he was for agreeing to this; for the very sufficient reason that he could not distinctly see the meaning of the words. Mr Stephen did not object to the omission; "But," said he, "when I hear it contended that the regent, to the whole extent of his acts, must be held completely irresponsible, I must declare that I am of a very different opinion, and it would give me great uneasiness to see such a doctrine lightly treated in this committee A chief magistrate, I admit, cannot be punished while he continues in office; as in the case of a governor of a colony, he is irresponsible till the dissolution of his trust. But was it ever heard, that he was irresponsible at the time of his leaving his government? In like manner I am of opinion, that a regent would become responsible for his acts at the termination of the regency." Sir Arthur Piggott proposed that the whole clause should be left out. To this Mr Perceval replied, "that he should regret much if they should omit the whole of a clause which had uniformly pervaded our statutes upon this subject. He would willingly postpone its farther consideration." This mode was strongly recommended by Mr B. Bathurst, and the clause therefore stood over for farther discussion.

The next question respected the duration of the restrictions. Mr Perceval moved, that they should continue for the space of a twelvemonth, after the first of February next, if parliament, at the expiration of that time, should be assembled, and should have

been sitting for six weeks immediately previous to the day appointed. "This," he said, "was not for the purpose of giving an addition to the time, but in order that parliament might have an opportunity of considering the subject before the limitations expired, as his majesty might happen at that very time to be so near a state of recovery, that a very little farther time might be all that would be required to complete his capacity for resuming the reins of government." Mr Ponsonby opposed this, and moved that the limitations should expire at the expiration of six calendar months, from the day of the passing of the act. Mr Whitbread supported this amendment. "The right honourable gentle man," said he, "has repelled the charge of insulting the Prince of Wales; but what has he been doing this night? He talks of protecting the king! against whom is he to be protected? Against the prince. Why then it is assumed that the prince intends to embarrass the government of his father, and to abuse the prerogative intrusted to him in such a way as to retard, or prevent, his majesty's recovery!" Mr Canning argued in a better spirit forthe shorter term. "Having," he said, "given it as his opinion that the power of creating peers ought not to be suspended at all, he thought that if there was to be a suspension, the shortest period was the best. And he was adverse to the longer period, accompanied with the six weeks, on another principle; for then the matter would again become subject to parliamentary investigation. Now, he thought that one of the main arguments in favour of the proceeding by bill was, that the exercise of the royal functions would thus be settled once for all. If the regent were subjected to the disadvantages of this course of proceeding, he ought also to have the advantages, without having the onus put upon him of contending about the

termination of the restrictions. And if the restrictions could be supposed to refer to the duration of the king's illness, they ought to extend then the whole of his majesty's life." The question was put to the vote, and the longer term was carried by a majority of 184 to 160.

Upon the clause which restricted the regent from granting offices in reversion, or any place or pension for a longer term than during his majesty's pleasure, except such offices as by law must be granted, Mr Tierney repeated the favourite charge of the opposition, that nothing could more strikingly display the marked distrust of the prince, which pervaded the whole measure. Mr Perceval made answer, that so long as these insinuations were repeated, so long and so constantly would he deny them, feeling confident that those who used them had no fair end in contemplation, which such means were calculated to obtain. “If, indeed,” said he, "it were possible that I could be mean enough to recommend myself to the favour of the prince, by studying modes of ingratiation; if I could reconcile it to my mind to act upon such a principle, I would persevere in the measures which I have proposed; because I am convinced that if the regent searched for a minister in whose firmness and integrity he might rely, he could not be better directed in his choice than to those who had preserved unshaken their fidelity to his father. This would be the line of conduct to which I would adhere; and in so doing, I should act upon the persuasion that the prince's favour would be my ultimate reward; and that the impression which it must make on a benevolent heart, and an enlarged understanding, would be to conciliate esteem, not to inspire aversion.

“The clause respecting the house hold," Mr Perceval said, "was left open for any amendments that the com

mittee might think necessary, as it had been impossible exactly to collect the sentiments of the house upon that subject. He proposed that the general power over the household should be vested in the queen, with certain exceptions, and with a proviso, that the officers to be left under her majesty's controul should not be removeable; and that, of those officers not employed about the king's person, no reappointment should take place in case of death. The office of lord chamberlain being vacant, he proposed that the vice chamberlain should execute its duties. He proposed also to except from the queen's appointment the gentlemen and grooms of the bed-chamber, the captain of the yeomen of his majesty's guard, and the captain of the band of gentlemen pensioners; as these two latter officers were necessary only to his majesty's personal appearance in state, the appointment of them might properly be transferred to the regent. The non-appointment of a lord chamberlain of his majesty's household, would afford a fund for the appointment of a lord chamberlain for the regent. He proposed also to give the regent a master of the horse, a steward of the household, five or six lords of the bed-chamber, and twice as many gentlemen of the bed-chamber, the salaries of all which, exclusively of that of the lord chamberlain, would not exceed 10 or 12,000l.” Mr Ponsonby opposed this arrangement, arguing that it would dispossess the regent of all that pomp and splendour which the constitution contemplated as necessary for the execu tion of the regal functions, and for the maintenance of the dignity of the throne." He contended, that the opinion of the people, as decidedly expressed in their petitions upon the subject, was, that the kingly power ought to be conferred upon the regent, unfettered by any restriction, limitation, or diminution whatever; and he proposed an amend

ment, placing under the queen's controul the groom of the stole, the master of the horse, the keeper of the privy purse, such lords and gentlemen of the bed-chamber as her majesty might be pleased to select, his majesties equer ries, and all other officers who might be personally attendant upon the king in the palace wherein he should actually be residing; the groom of the stole being vested with the same power over these officers which the lord chamberlain would have possessed. "Such a plan," he said, "was perfectly plain and simple, and it would carry into effect the principle of the resolution of the former committee, to which that which Mr Perceval proposed was completely opposite."

Mr Canning observed, that whatever portion of political influence, connected with the household, could not be transferred to the regent, ought rather to be left altogether in abeyance, than exercised by any other individual. "He could not," he said, "concur in the proposition that the regent should have a new and separate establishment; it was his opinion, on grounds not of economy, but of propriety, that he should rather appear in the splendour of his father, than with an independent establishment of his own; and though it was clear that the queen, having the care of his majesty's person, ought to have some controul over the household, it was neither right nor necessary to embarrass her with that species of controul, to which considerable political power attaches. Those officers, whose situations partake more of a political than of a domestic nature, and whose duties did not call them to a personal attendance about the king, ought, in his opinion, to belong to the regent, as part of the state of the crown, whose functions were devolved upon him." Mr Canning moved an amendment to this effect. Mr Addington said, "it was far from his intention to enter into

a review of the cold details of the different plans which had been submitted to the house; the whole of the discussion had been more abhorrent from his feelings, than any which he recollected during a long parliamentary life within those walls. The unfortunate predicament in which the house was placed, was the result, not difficult to be anticipated at the time, of what he must call the hasty and ill-judged adoption of the amendment moved by Lord Gower on a former occasion. Posterity would scarcely believe that a British House of Commons should, after a few weeks illness of a revered and beloved sovereign, have been found gravely debating on the quantum of comfort, and of necessary splendour, which they, the constitutional guardians of the rights of their monarch under his affliction, should be pleased to dole out to him, or rather to permit him to retain, till it might please Providence to listen to the united prayers of his people in restoring to him his health.

"It had been asked in the debate, what would the people say, if they were to be told what and what powers were to be withheld from the regent? He would ask on the other hand, what would be the sentiments of the people, generous and loyal as they are, if it was possible to take their opinions as to the quantity of enjoyment, of ease, and even of splendour that should be left to their king in his distress? They would answer with acclamation-' Leave it all! act as men no less wise than your selves acted twenty-two years ago, and protect to the utmost your sovereign, who is disabled by the hand of Heaven from protecting himself.' I have heard. it too," said Mr Addington, "asked this night, and I am ashamed of the question, what has a king to do with splendour, who is reduced by illness to a state of incapacity? I would refer for an answer to the never-to-be