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THE hopes of the opposition were raised to the highest pitch during the progress of the regency bill, and their partizans scarcely even attempted to conceal their joy at an event, which, as they fully expected, was to restore them to their places. The disposition of the prince, it was well known, was favourable to these hopes: he had a personal regard for some of the leaders of the party, and it was believed that many of his political opinions were imbibed from Mr Fox; though to what extent he might be disposed to act upon these opinions, was as yet necessarily unknown. It was therefore extremely probable that a change of ministry would take place; and all the opponents of government, however greatly they differed among themselves as to their ultimate objects, from the regular opposition, under Lords Grey and Grenville, down to the very dregs of the Burdettite faction, vied with each other in exulting over a falling enemy, and in hailing what, according to their representations, might be considered asthe advent of political redemption. Wherever the agitators were numerous enough, they drew up petitions against the restrictions; the Livery of London led the way, and the silly charge of usurpation against Mr Perceval and his colleagues, was re-echoed by the city orators with their usual intemperance. "The ministers," they

said, "were the true jacobins; the ministers were verifying all that Paine had written, by striving to show how long the government could be carried on without the executive; for themselves,—(injured men!) who had been accused of wishing to overthrow the throne, they were as anxious to support the just prerogatives of the crown, as they had ever been to support the rights of the people."

Two years before the king's illness, the Morning Chronicle had said, that "of all monarchs, since the revolution, the successor of George III. would have the finest opportunity of becoming nobly popular." This sentence, connected as it was with the anticipation of "a crowd of blessings that might be bestowed upon the country, in the event of a total change of system," had most unwisely been selected for prosecution by Sir Vicary Gibbs, and the defendants were of course immediately acquitted. Such language was perfectly consistent in the Foxites, and in the Grenvillites, now that they were allied with them; but in the mouths of Sir Francis Burdett and the anarchists, flattery toward the prince appeared not a little extraordinary. At a tavern dinner,* after the investigation concerning the Duke of York's conduct, Sir Francis declared for himself and his party, "that they were ready to shut their eyes as much

as possible upon the vices of princes, and to overlook their indulgencies; that if the people were relieved from the depredations of the borough-mongering faction, he and the people should have no hesitation in granting to the royal family, or any of its members, any sum which they could reasonably require for pleasure or magnificence; that he believed the Prince of Wales was more of the Englishman than any prince of his family; and that he was persuaded the prince was not unwill, ing to promote the wishes of the people." It had long been observed, that the coarsest of the demagogue jour nalists, amid all his virulent attacks up. on the royal family, cautiously abstained from any attack upon the prince this journalist now joined in the cry of the united-oppositionists. "Never," he told us," was there so fair an op. portunity for producing a great and salutary effect, as the prince now had.” "We want," said he, "a change of the whole system, a radical and a sweeping change of it; and it is because we hope that such a change would be the consequence of giving full powers to the prince, that we wish to see full powers given to him. Is not the Prince of Wales as likely to be able to judge of political systems as his father; afflicted as the latter unhappily has been in more ways than one, and bent down with age as he now is? Is not the prince as likely to be able to choose proper advisers as his father was, or ever can be? Why then should powers, of any sort, belong. ing to the kingly office, be withheld from him?" "I know," said this writer, "it has been said, that we are bidding for the prince; and who can bid above us? We have to offer him hearts, and sinews, and lives, if he needs them, and we ask for nothing but our well-known rights in return. We want to strip him of nothing. We grudge him and his family nothing

that the constitution awards them, or that they could ever wish for, in the way of splendour. All we have to beseech of him is, that he will resolve to be the ruler of a free people, and not the leader of a faction."" His succession to power," we were told by another of these journalists," with such opportunities before him, and at so momentous a time, appeared a lot so enviable, that it might turn philosophy itself into ambition. Hitherto he had been seated in that domestic privacy, which he had learnt how to value and dignify. And so wonderfully had past circumstances held back the cause of radical reform, and so favourable for it were the present, that Fate seemed purposely to have reserved the amia. ble task for his royal highness, that with one restoring breath he might melt away the accumulated oppressions of half a century.”

The opinion of this party concern. ing the king's resumption of authority was sufficiently implied. They told us, that it was exposing the govern ment to the contempt of foreign pow. ers, to have a person at the head of affairs who had long been incapable of signing his name to a document, without some one to guide his hand; a person long incapable of receiving petitions, of even holding a levee, or discharging the most ordinary functions of his office; and now, too, afflicted with this mental malady! They cited cases to show how doubtful and precarious were the appearances of recovery from mental derangement; observed that persons having been so afflicted were easily hurried, and inferred that a man subject to hurries was not fit to wield the executive power. When they were charged by their op. ponents with thus disclosing a determination, that if they acceded to power the king should never resume his functions, the manner in which the charge was repelled, was such as confirmed it.

"Every one," they said, "expresses regret that the king, or that any other human being, should be afflicted with blindness. But old age is old age, and blindness is blindness, in a king as well as in other men; and when blindness is unhappily added to old age, and to both are added mental derangement, is it unreasonable that people, whose happiness or misery must, in a great degree, depend upon their government, should be solicitous that great caution should be used in the resumption of the royal authority, by a person thus afflicted?""Throw him into a corner!" exclaimed a ministerial writer, expressing with indignation the wishes of this party; "tell him, this is the lot reserved for a king who has reign, ed so long!" Here also the reply was any thing rather than a confutation or denial of the charge. "We have had nothing to do with the lot," said the mouthpiece of the anarchists; we have had no hand in making the king either old or blind, or mentally deranged. The lot has fallen upon him. The first is the lot of every man, and is generally esteemed a very fortunate lot; the second is nothing very rare, and it is by no means an unfrequent companion of old age; and the third, and all three, are the work of nature, and not of any of us. And as to the king's having reigned so long, there is neither merit nor demerit in that, either in him or his people."

Whether the agitators and anarchists really believed that the prince could be so infatuated as to countenance their plans for a radical and sweeping change, or whether they held out this hope to their dupes and disciples, in order that their certain disappoint ment might engender a deadlier disaf. fection, is best known to themselves: but if the Burdettites, abstaining from their indecent attempts to show that the king ought never to be permitted to resume his authority, had talked of

a

no other reform than that of curtailing the power of what they called the borough-mongering faction, there never was a time when the prince and the better part of the people would have been so well inclined to listen to their arguments. Mr Perceval had never stood so high in public estimation as at this moment. When first he came into power, the tide of popularity was in favour of him and his colleagues; because any men would have been po pular who succeeded to such an administration as that of All the Talents; but a series of untoward events had for a time lessened his hold upon the country, without in any degree lessening the contempt and odium in which his opponents were held. In the case of the Duke of York, it was felt that his conduct was rather that of an advocate for one of the parties, than of man called upon to decide impartially upon the evidence before him; and the unhappy expedition to Walcheren, which speedily followed, drew after it a cry of grief and disappointment, against which, perhaps, he could scarce. ly have borne up, if Sir Francis Bur dett, by his factious dispute with the House of Commons, had not, most unintentionally, but most effectually, drawn off the public attention at the very moment when the decision upon the inquiry came on. It was always asserted by his enemies, that he held his situation, not by any weight of influence in the country, nor of talents in parliament, but by the confidence and especial favour of the king; and that nothing could be more unfit than that the British minister should be thus dependent upon, and literally, as it were, the servant of the crown. They who argued thus against Mr Perceval's administration, did not perceive how strong and unanswerable an argument this was against that borough system, to which they themselves owed their only power; certain, however, it

is, that Mr Perceval was thought a weak minister, because he wanted this influence; and a sense of this weakness seems sometimes to have made him assent to measures which he would gladly have prevented, if he had held his situation by a stronger tenure. But when the prop upon which he really had leaned, and by which it was believed that he was entirely supported, was suddenly taken away, then it was that he felt his own resources, and the people saw him confident in his motives and measures, and with the strength of integrity hold on his steady course; not to be deterred from what he knew to be his duty, either by the clamours and threats of the faction within doors, and the demagogues without; nor by the expressed displeasure of the prince, in whose power it would so soon be to dismiss him from office. Then, perhaps for the first time, he became conscious of his own powers, and the dignity of his nature shone forth; it was seen that the man, whose individual character was without a spot, carried the pure principles of his privacy into public action, and possessed the steadiness and intrepidity of a statesman in as eminent a degree as the milder and most endearing virtues of domestic

life.

As to the mode of proceeding, whether it should be by bill or address; and the restrictions, whether any should be enacted, or what: these were ques. tions in which the great body of the people felt no interest; for, looking neither to the analogy of former proceedings as a guide, nor to the fitness of establishing a clear and unexcep. tionable precedent for the future, all that they wished was, that provision should be made for the present deficiency These were points upon which they had no opinion; but as the course which Mr Perceval was pursuing had been pursued by Mr Pitt, and had received the full and unqualified appro

bation of the king upon his subsequent recovery, they desired no better proof that that course was the right one. This therefore had their ready assent; but their hearty and ardent approbation went with the ministry in those adjournments at the commencement of the king's illness, against which the opposition inveighed with such violence; in that regard which was manifested to his feelings; and in all the provisions which were made for his recovery. Mr Perceval never stood so high in their opinion as the favoured minister of the king, in full and secure possession of power, as now, when he appeared the faithful servant of a master who was no longer sensible of his services, and no longer capable of supporting him. There was an occurrence also, during the progress of the bill, which contributed in no little degree to increase their high opinion of the falling minister, and their dislike to one of his principal opponents.

Issues of money were necessary for the army and navy: money had been appropriated by parliament for those services. The Exchequer Act required that the issue should be under the great seal, or under the privy seal, or by authority of an act of parliament. Under the present circumstances, Mr Perceval thought it would be proper to use the privy seal; the keeper of the privy seal was willing to undertake this responsibility; but the signature of Mr Larpent, the clerk of the privy seal, was also necessary, and that tleman refused to affix it, pleading scruples on account of his oath of office. Mr Perceval then issued an order from the Treasury to the Exche quer, thinking this would be suffici ent, and thinking also that it was better for the responsible servants of the crown to take upon themselves the consequences of making issues for the public service, and risk the censure, or wait the indemnity of parliament,

gen.

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than to procrastinate public business, by bringing such topics into discussion in the house from time to time. But when these warrants were brought to Lord Grenville, in his chaJan. 1. racter of Auditor of the Exchequer, he returned an answer to Mr Perceval, requiring time "to consider the nature and extent of the duties which this new and unexpected course of proceeding imposed upon him" and therefore requesting to know when it was necessary that the money should be issued. He was informed, "that, according to the usual course of supplying the weekly issues to the navy and army, it would be necesthat sums should be issued to both services, beyond the amount of the existing credit at the Exchequer, either on the morrow, or the next day at farthest; but if an actual issue could be made on the Monday following, (that was six days, thence,) no serious inconvenience was apprehended." Lord Grenville then desired that the opinions of the Attorney and Solicitor General should be taken, "in order that he might have the sanction of their legal advice and authority in a matter of such novel and unprecedented difficulty." These law officers delivered it as their opinion, that they "did not think the warrant of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury was in law a sufficient authority imperative upon the auditor, nor, consequently, a legal sanction for his proceeding to obey the same; nor that any discretion was left to him by the law on this occasion, for the exercise of which he would not be responsible." The Lords Commissioners of the Treasury transmitted this opinion to Lord Gren ville, informing him at the same time, "that their sense of the mischief to the public service, which would arise if any delay should take place in the issue of this money, appeared to ren

VOLIM PART I

der it indispensably necessary that the warrants should be forthwith complied with, and that they were consequently ready to take upon themselves the re sponsibility of any act which might be essential for that purpose." Lord Grenville replied, that it was matter of the deepest concern to him to be made the involuntary cause of any, even the shortest delay, in an issue of his majesty's Treasury, stated to him from such high authority to be im portant to the public service. "If," said he, "I could be satisfied of the propriety of my doing what is requi red from me by the warrants which I have had the honour to receive from your lordships, there is no personal responsibility which I would not readily incur for the public interests; but I cannot persuade myself, that I could obey those warrants, without a breach of my official duty in that point, which is above all others peculiarly obligato ry on the person placed in the situa tion of Auditor of the Exchequer," nor without a high and criminal violation both of a positive statute, and also of the essential principles of our monar chical and parliamentary constitution.

"I am told," he continued," that I must act on my own discretion, fors the exercise of which I must alone be responsible. This responsibility, if it legally attaches upon me, I certainly" cannot transfer to any other persons, and least of all to your lordships, what-d ever willingness you have expressed to take it on yourselves. My attempting to do so, would itself be criminal; tending to confound the official rela tions in which I have the honour to stand towards your lordships, and to' annul those checks which the law has established to ensure the faithful dista charge of our respective duties, and thereby the security of the public treasure. But I beg leave humbly toTM submit to your lordships, that the law d +