prince of Wales had a right to be maintained and educated by his father, as heir apparent to the crown, and that the same full account ought to be given of the revenues of Cornwall, as had been given to the duke of York, on his coming of age, of the revenues of Osnaburgh.]

He concluded by expressing a confident hope that the house would agree to the original motion.

The Attorney General said, he should be very willing to listen to any application that might be made on the part of his royal highness, to enable him to maintain his rank and dignity, but the present he considered a mere dry question of right he was not at all surprised at the subject having been overlooked by Mr. Fox and his colleagues in 1783; for it certainly was not an idea that would occur

very obviously, that after the prince had been maintained for twentyone years, in all the splendour due to his elevated rank, that he should afterwards have a claim to receive all the money received during his minority for that purpose. He considered that the original grant of the dutchy to the Black Prince, was for the purpose of his education and maintenance, and that it could never be the intention of Edward the Third, that this money should be locked up in a banker's chest, as a dry accumulating fund, till that prince should come of age. He deprecated the idea of the house taking upon themselves the decision of a legal right; if a legal right did exist, it must be tried in the courts of law, as between the prince and his majesty. He thought it appeared most clearly,

from the particular statement made by the chancellor of the exchequer, that the sums advanced on account of the prince of Wales, during his minority, far exceeded the amount of the revenues of the dutchy. The question, therefore, if any there was, lay completely between his royal highness and his majesty, and he thought it would be irreverent to the sovereign and detrimental to the state that the house should interfere in it. He concluded by observing, that the elegant accomplishments and splendid endowments of the prince, sufficiently proved the liberal attention which had been paid to his education, and the expense his majesty had incurred on that account. He concluded by expressing his determination to vote for the other orders of the day being read.

Mr. Tierney conceived, that those gentlemen had greatly misconceived the case, who stated the question to be merely a private question between his majesty and the prince. In fact, his majesty had nothing at all to do with the question, and his name ought not to have been mentioned in it. The question was in fact between the prince and the public. The prince advanced a claim against the public to a large amount, and he thought it would be a most ungracious answer from the public, by their representatives in the house of commons, to say, "We won't examine whether we owe you money or not; you may try it law, and th n see whether you find any redress.”

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venues of Cornwall, and had disposed of them as he judged proper; if then there remained a question at all, it was a question for judicial decision, and not for legislative interference. As for his opinion, he did not entertain a doubt, but that when the revenues of the dutchy were first granted by Edward the Third to his son the Black Prince, they were granted for his maintenance and support, and not for the purpose of being accumulated till he should come of age.

Mr. Nichols said, that the acts of his majesty during the minority of the prince, were not those of "a guardian in chivalry;" such guardian had no power to grant leases of his ward's estate, for a longer term than his ward's minority; his majesty had however granted leases for a much longer term, and had received 150,000l. on account of those leases. If then his majesty had acted as "guardian in chivalry," the prince might have received a large sum on his coming of age on account of the renewal of those leases.

Mr. Sheridan acknowledged himself obliged to lord Hawkesbury for putting the subject in a plain intelligible point of view. What he conceived the real points for the consideration of the house were, first, who the parties were? next, whether there existed a just claim, or whether any other remedy but an application to parliament was open to the prince of Wales, even though the justice of his claim should be admitted? He said, so far, the lawyers having pointed out how the prince might successfully pursue his claim, if it was

just, the house had received upon this occasion no more law from them

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than his royal highness was likely to receive money from the treasury. He thought in private life it would not be deemed fair or honourable for a debtor to refuse all explanation, or every proposal for accommodation, respecting a debt, and to tell his creditor, "to recover it as well as he could by law." In the present claim of the prince of Wales upon the public, he conceived it would be equally unhandsome to hold out such language to his royal highness. Besides, if his royal highness should ceed at law, and obtain a verdict against his majesty, it is to parliament he must afterwards come for the payment of the money, so adjudged to be due to him. was by no means a hostile proceeding on the part of the prince; he had acted with the utmost delicacy to his royal father; but he felt that he had also a duty to his creditors. The commissioners for the payment of his debts had struck off ten per cent. of all his debts, and paid the remainder in debentures, bearing a great discount. The prince conceived himself in honour bound to pay his creditors the whole amount of their demands, and therefore conceiving his claim upon the public to be a just one, he wished to be enabled completely to discharge his debts.

This

The Chancellor of the Exchequer justified the conduct of the commissioners for settling the prince's debts.

Mr. Jefferies (of Coventry) stad the considerable losses he had sustained by that mode of payment.

The Solicitor General argued

against

against the prince's claim, upon the reasonableness of applying the revenues of Cornwall to the maintenance and education of the prince during his minority.

Sir Francis Burdett supported the claims of the prince, whom he wished to see maintained in splendour and independence. He considered that he had been treated in an unworthy and degrading manner by those ministers, who, in other respects, were guilty of the most lavish prodigality.

After some observations from Mr. Tyrhitt, lord Temple, Mr. Dent, and some other gentlemen,

Mr. Manners Sutton made a very able reply. He said, one of his learned friends had conceded the question of right; another of them had stated, that the question was merely whether the revenues of the dutchy ought to have been applied to the support of the prince during his minority? and a third had considered it merely a question between the prince and his majesty. He differed from all those opinions, and conceived it was a simple question, whether the public had a right to receive those revenues in the prince's minority and apply them in aid of the civil list? Whether, in fact, the public was not a debtor to his royal highness? As to a petition of right, which had been suggested, one of the best legal authorities in the country had

declared that it would not lie in a matter of personal property. He conceived that his majesty had nothing to do with the question, but that it lay merely between the prince and the public.

After a short explanation from the solicitor-general, the house divided,

For the order of the day 160 Against it

Majority against entering

into the prince's claims

103

57

This division, against government, shows the sense of the house to have been strongly in favour of entering into the prince of Wales's claims as duke of Cornwall upon the country; nor could it be conjectured what rational motive the minister could have in refusing to his royal highness, that justice which the meanest subject would have in a parity of circumstances, a right to require and to obtain; and which to refuse, assuredly, in the eyes of the public, left the prince an injured and oppressed individual. He had long been supposed to have been indebted for considerable sums; his debts were far from being liquidated; his income contracted to a sum much inferior to the support of that splendour which sound policy as well as established usage had rendered indispensably requisite to his high station.

He now came forward, before the high council of the nation, solemnly and formally to state that he was not the debtor but the creditor of the public; that the sums he had received as a bounty, were but a part of his right; that they were insufficient to any other purpose, save that of compelling him to relinquish his royal establishment, that his creditors might be satisfied by the fruit of his retrenchment; that should be attain the object of his claim, his sole object was the discharge of his remaining debts, and the residue of those which had been (contrary to the good faith which should be found in the conduct of princes)

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compromised; and that, at all events, he might be suffered to make his case out for his own satisfaction and that of the public, whatever might result from it.

This was assuredly a subject which called for the examination and intervention of parliament. Legal redress was not only an indelicate mode of proceeding between such parties as must in that case have been the litigants; but also extremely difficult and uncertain in its own nature; yet to this just and reasonable and temperate requisition, was objected by the minister, that there was no precedent for such a claim; that many great legal opinions were adverse from its being brought forward; that it was not quite certain that the balance would appear in the prince's favour; and that some doubt existed upon

the mode and correctness of the calculations which had been made use of in the prince's statement.

To expose the futility and frivolity of this mode of reasoning would be to waste the time, and weary the patience of our readers. Suffice it, that it did not receive the sanction of the public opinion, and, in times of less interest, would doubtless have excited a considerable degree of resentment and unpopularity against those who acted so unjust, so unwise, and so impolitic a part. But the definitive treaty, the signing of which about this time was made publicly known, and the repeal of the income tax, which was now confidently asserted would be one of the immediate acts of the government, engaged, to the exclusion of every other topic, the public interest and attention.

CHAP.