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THE

HISTORY OF EUROPE,

1811.

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VOL. IV. PART I

LIST of the CABINET MINISTERS and CHIEF OFFICERS of

the CROWN, 1811.

Earl CAMDEN,................... President of the Council
Lord ELDON,.................... Lord High Chancellor.
Earl WESTMOreland, . Lord Privy Seal.

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Lord MULGRAVE,............. First Lord of the Admiralty.

Earl CHATHAM,................ Master-General of the Ordnance.

Hon. R. RYDER,............... Secretary of State for the Home Department.
Marquis WELLESLEY,........ Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
Earl of LIVERPOOL,.......... Secretary of State for War and Colonies.
Hon. Mr PERCEVAL,........ First Lord of the Treasury, and Chancellor and
Treasurer of the Exchequer.

Mr R. DUNDAS,............... President of the Board of Controul.
Earl BATHURST,.............. President of the Board of Trade.

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Mr R. WHARTON,........

Joint Secretaries of the Treasury.

Sir WILLIAM GRANT,..... Master of the Rolls.
Sir VICARY GIBBS,........... Attorney-General.
Sir THOMAS PLOMER,....... Solicitor-General.

HISTORY OF EUROPE,

1811.

CHAP. I.

Proceedings concerning the Regency. Debates upon the Regency Bill. In. stallation of the Regent.

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, moved 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 decla red 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 resto red 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 +

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persons to hold offices and: places of trust, and to continue in the same in such manner as by the laws are requi red, 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 su preme 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 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-gene ral, for not having properly executed the trust confided to him!" Mr Perceval replied, "that he had been stu dious 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 con sidered in the light of the king's ministers, and of course liable to the same responsibility." Mr Tierney 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, Exeise oaths." Aye," Mr Tierney repeated, "oaths which placed him

in the station of an exciseman. The resolutions spoke of him in pompous, high-sounding terins, 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 sup 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."

Upon this Mr Perceval replied with allowable warmth, "that he very lit tle 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 him self, 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 an cestors had always done in similar cir cumstances. If the wording of the clause was supposed to throw any res sponsibility on the regent, he was wil 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 shave 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 sub ject. 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 Perce val 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 sup ported this amendment. "The right honourable gentleman," 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 for the 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

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