tion; and there are two leading principles that govern the whole of this question: First, That the powers and prerogatives annexed by the common law to the crown, descend by hereditary succession, and not by election: Secondly, That these powers are never suspended; the functions of royalty never cease, for if they were for any period interrupted, the destruction of one part of the three essential branches of the constitution would involve a total dissolution of the legal government. At the period referred to, these two leading principles were unnecessarily and unwarrantably departed from.

"The great danger which must arise from admitting the plea of necessity, has become obvious from subsequent experience, for in the year 1810 this mischievous precedent was followed. In 1810 the violent usurpation was renewed, and that which ought to have been considered as a beacon to warn ministers from a dangerous coast, was mistaken for a sure light to guide them in safety to harbour. From the evidence of the physicians it is known, that during the interval between 1788 and 1810, his majesty was sometimes in a state of mind that rendered him incompetent to the consideration of those important matters of policy which naturally devolve upon the sovereign; and the person whose duty it was to submit them to the king, abstained from so doing, in con equence of the state of the royal mind. To what degree the malady existed; how far ministers presumed, under cover of the royal authority, to exercise the powers of majesty at a time when the occupant of the throne was unable to discharge the duties annexed to that exalted station; no one knows, although it may be reasonable, from the testimony of the physicians, to conclude that the government of the nation was carried on in the name of the king by his servants at a time when one branch

of the constitution was incapacitated by disease,-when the situation of his majesty's mind did not permit him to perform the important duties appertaining to his high office. Thus, then, there appear to have been two violent deviations from the established principles of the constitution, of such a nature as to be subversive of the interests of the throne, and destructive of the security of the subjects. The miserable fiction which was resorted to on those occasions implied a deception too gross to impose upon the most superficial observer; for it seemed a most absurd consecration of an act completely illegal, to get the lord chancellor, without any adequate authority, to affix the great seal to it; thus pretending to give the royal approbation to a measure of which the king could have no possible cognizance.

"Many reasons call upon the House at the present moment to come to a decision as to the mode of proceeding on a contingency, which is possible, though perhaps not probable, and which, if not provided against, may again place the country in that situation in which it would be deprived of all legal government, in which the majority of the House might usurp and retain all the powers that belong to the crown. The object of the motion was to prevent, on future occasions, this lawless assumption of authority, to destroy that pretence of necessity which it is plain never existed; because, in truth, by the constitution of the empire, a choice, indeed many choices, of legal remedies remained. On a recent occasion, however, this illegal mode of proceeding was resolved upon, and the House not only took upon itself to nominate the executive magistrate; not only, on its own authority, resolved to supply a throne which never could be vacant, but it went still further, and usurped the power of declaring that restrictions

should be placed upon the person whom it invested with some of the prerogatives of the crown, all of which were bestowed by the common law for the benefit of the people. Parliament proceeded so far in its assumption of authority, that the Prince of Wales was unwilling, under such conditions, to take upon himself the task of government. In that able letter written by his royal Highness in the year 1788, in which he so distinctly, accurately, and perspicuously defined the principles of the constitution, and the insurmountable objections existing in his mind to the mode of proceeding suggested, he at length consents to act as regent, with no other view than to put a period to the anarchy which prevailed, conceiving that the evils result ing from this line of conduct would be less than those which might arise from the continued abeyance of the third branch of the constitution: he accepted the kingly power, mutilated as it was, rather than permit the constitution to be further mutilated. The greatest evil, the most dreadful calamity which the history of this country presents, arose out of a dispute regarding the succession to the crown, and by not decidedly maintaining the constitution as it has been happily esta blished in this respect, consequences equally fatal, calamities equally dread. ful, may again be endured. Parlia ment is called upon, by a proper sense of its duty, to guard the people of these realms against contingencies which may enable the minister of the day, on a pretended plea of necessity, to sub. vert the constitution, and usurp the government of the country. Such was the object of the motion. It is right at all times to give to the regent powers as uncontrouled as those which belong to the king himself. The principle upon which this proposition rests is this, that the incapacity proceeding from insanity is like every other spe

cies of incapacity, and amounts to an utter vacating of the government.

"The kingly office is not by the constitution bestowed for the benefit of the individual filling the throne, but is a trust exercised for the advantage of the people, and in this view it is of great consequence that it should never cease. The crown, according to the common law, knows neither infancy nor insanity, or any other cause that can incapacitate the person holding it to discharge his important duties; and if such cause do exist, it must be viewed in the same light and treated in the same way as the natural death of the monarch. If insanity should unhappily visit the sovereign, the authority, by the law of the land, immediately devolves upon the successor, without the interference, much less without the election, of any set of persons who may be anxious to usurp powers which do not belong to them. Such is the obvious, simple, and legal mode of proceeding, which will meet all possible circumstances and preserve the various branches of the constitution independent of each other.

"If it be true, as is pretty generally believed, that certain powerful indi viduals by different means do place their dependants in the House of Commons, it becomes a matter of double importance, that a bill should be passed to restrain such individuals from usurping and exercising illegal authority; to remove a new motive for ambition; to shew that the crown is not to become the prey of greedy cormorants, and that factions must not hope to deck themselves in the trappings of royalty. The powers now exercised by the Prince Regent, therefore, should, in case of the death or disability of his royal highness, be exercised by the heir to the crown, the Princess Charlotte of Wales. Factions should not have the power

should meet and take the proper steps for that purpose. The object of the present bill was to prevent the necessity of this, and to put it beyond the power of the two houses of parliament to render the royal authority subservient to their will, and to parcel it out as they may think proper."

The motion of Sir Francis Burdett was seconded by Lord Cochrane. The following is the short answer by which lord Castlereagh opposed it. "He trusted that he should be able to show, that there was not a suflicient necessity to induce the House to agree to the motion before them. The honourable baronet, who had been induced by his constitutional views of the subject to bring forward the present motion, appeared to him to be more anxious to destroy the authority of the parliamentary proceedings in the two former instances, than to provide for the contingency he stated. He appeared to think it of the greatest importance to subvert all the principles which the House had laid down on that subject; and to get rid of what he considered a pernicious precedent. For his part, he had a view of the subject directly opposite. He thought it was a benefit, and a blessing to the country, that the great constitutional difficulties which attended this subject had been removed, and the point settled on the fullest discussion, which was afterwards revised upon the late occasion; and in which the greatest legal and constitutional learning had been displayed. He considered that those precedents would be a great protection to the country hereafter from similar difficulties. He allowed that parliament had a right to enter into such considerations without a message from the crown; but it was always for their prudence to consider, whether they should expose them

selves to a conflict with the crown upon the point? In any thing respecting money, all conflict with the crown was prevented by the necessity that the crown should propose or previously consent to the grant. In common legislative measures this was not necessary; but it was obvious that there was no description of questions more likely to involve the House in a conflict with the crown, than those which touched the crown so nearly.— The contingency which was mentioned appeared to him to be so very remote a one, that he thought the honourable baronet, upon his own principles, should rather have proposed a permanent Regency Bill applicable to all cases, than have confined himself to this particular contingency. It appeared to him, however, that what the honourable baronet wanted, was to destroy the discretionary power of parliament upon the subject; and that he preferred to have the question determined on the hereditary principle rather than by the discretion. of parliament. In determining upon which of the two principles the question should be decided, there was certainly a balance of inconveniences. But the reason why it was better that it should rest in the discretion of parliament was, that parliament felt it to be its first duty, to take care that the royal power should be restored undiminished into the hands to which it legitimately belonged, so soon as the sovereign was again capable of exercising his royal functions; whereas upon the hereditary principle, the royal power being fully and immediately transferred to the Regent, there was not the same security for the resumption of it by the sovereign, when the temporary cause which suspended his personal exercise of it was removed. He conceived that the contingency was not sufficiently pro

bable to justify parliament, in the exercise of its discretion, in adopting the proposition of the honourable baronet, for which reason he should certainly give it a decided negative." Sir

Francis Burdett was not supported in this attempt to overturn the parliamentary precedents so recently established. His motion was negatived without a division.