embarked on bis expedition against France, the government of this country was * principally conducted by his two brothers, under the title and with the plenary powers of Guardians of the Realm. This was an ancient and well-known office during the ab sence of the King, and conveyed a perfect delegation of the royal authority to the extent of enabling the Guardian to summon and meet a parliament in his own name. Hunyphrey. Duke of Gloucester, is said to have governed England in that character, when the King was seized with the fatal disorder which hurried him to an untimely grave. Henry on his death-bed gave the regency of France to the Duke of Bedford, a prince, who to great courage and consummate skill in war added civil prodence" and conciliatory manners; the delight of the ar my, the favourite of the people, the admiration no less than terror of his enemies. To the regency of England he named is youngest brother, the Duke of Gloucester, who had acquitted himself of a similar trust more then once, with care integrity, and ability, to the general satisfaction.

The Bishop of Loudon had attended his Royal Master abroad, as Chancellor of the Duchy of Normandy. His charge expiring with the King, he delivered up the great seal to the Regent at Rouen, † by advice of the Duke of Exeter, the Earl of March, the Earl of Warwick, and other of the English lords who were present; and also, from necessity, as he afterwards declared, that the course of justice might not suffer any interruption. From the state, perhaps, of the Duchy and France, the validity of this proceeding seems never to have been questioned, and the Duke of Bedford quietly assumed and exercised the Re

gency.

It was not so at home. As soon as the King's death was ascertained here, Langley, Bishop of Durham, then Chancellor, repaired to Windsor, with the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Winchester, and others both of the spiritual and temporat lords, and there in the presence of the Duke of Gloucester gave up the Great

The King himself, in the last eight years of his reign, held only three parlia ments; the Duke of Bedford, as guardian, four; and the Dake of Gloucester, in the same character, one.

This was his own account to Parliament. See Rolls, Vol. IV. 1 H. VI. No. 14. The bishop had also in his custodya dupleate of the great seal of England, which afterwards gave up at Windsor.

*

Seal to the infant King. Humphrey then took and consigned it to the custody of Simon Gaustede, the Master of the Rolls; whether purposely passing by the late Chancellor as thinking him adverse to his interests, or in consequence of that prelate decliring any share in a transaction, which might appear to sanction the Duke's claim to the regency, is uncertain. Two days after, the same peers with such others as could most readily be collected, met at Westminster, in the Star-Chamber, and there held an irregular sort of great council. Their first care was to continue without intermission the administration of jus tice. They directed, therefore, new commissions to be made out to the judges, the sheriffs, escheators, and other similar offi cers of the crown. They next took into their consideration the difficulty which existed, and for a long time must exist, with regard to the exercise of the royal functions; and came to a resolution that the question ought to be referred entire to the common assembly of all the estates of the realm, to provide by their united wisdom, the best mode of government for the person and estate of the King, as well as for the kingdom, in the exigency of their present situation with which intent they authorised the issuing of the usual writs to summon a Parliament without delay. We are not informed whether the Duke of Gloucester on this occasion brought forward his pretensions; it is probable, however, that he would not pass this opportunity of asserting them, though he might cheerfully concur in the final determination of the council. He had formerly presided on be half of his late brother during a whole Parliament; he foresaw that no one but himself could be appointed to act for his infant nephew in the ensuing session; and, however tenacious of what he believed to

* Rymer, Vol. X. p. 253.

The entry on the Rolls, Vol. IV. 1 H. VI. No. 12, whence I have taken what immediately follows, has no mention of the day or place of meeting. But the record just quoted from Rymer, after saying, that Simon Gaustede having received the seal on the 28th, carried it to London, goes on to relate, that on the morrow of the feast of St. Michael (Sep. 30) he scaled various pi tents in the Star-Chamber at Westminster, in the presence of the Bishop of Durham and other peers. As this record seems to have been made for his discharge, he would hardly have omitted the council, if it sate on the intermediate day.

*

be his own rights, he was never disposed to treat with disrespect the liberties of the peo ple by whom he was beloved. In fact, therefore, he had anticipated the measure which was advised; the writs, which were now sealed, had been prepared and dated on the preceding day at Windsor. From that time, the new Lord Keeper, though by virtue of the appointment which has been related, he was in possession of the office, and was allowed the established salary for it, was not called upon to put the seal to any instrument of great public importance, till the meeting of Parliament approached, when it was indispensable, according to the just notions of that day, that the King, or some representative of the King in his name, should be present to open the session. Accordingly, three days before the meeting, a commission was addressed to the Duke of Gloucester, giving him full power so to appear there, to proceed therein, to do there whatever the King himself ought to do for the good government of the realm, and all the dominions thereunto belonging, and finally, with the assent of the council, to close and dissolve the assembly: in short, it vested in him for one whole. session the entire legislative authority of the crown. He presided; t his commission was read; and at his command the Archbishop of Canterbury explained the causes of the summons, which he said were to provide, during the tender age of the King, for the good governance of the royal person, the conservation of internal peace and the due execution of the laws, the se curity and defence of the kingdom; but avoiding every allusion to a regent, he fixed the attention of the two houses wholly on the choice of a proper council. "It "principally imported them," he said, “to "provide for the first of the purposes which "he had mentioned, some honourable and "discreet persons, in which, they all ought "to give their best advice; agreeably to "the counsel of Jethro to Moses, they "should take such as feared God, wise 66 men and religious, hating covetousness, "of influence and authority in the state."

If the second meeting in Rymer, and that mentioned in the Rolls be the same, as in the preceding note I have supposed them to be, and as I think clear; then what I have assumed above is the most obvious and only admissable way of accounting for the fact that the writs are dated on the 29th from Windsor.

It is to be found both in Rymer and the Rolls. What follows is from the Rolls.

In conclusion, he desired the Commons to go and elect their speaker. He was presented to the duke and approved by him.

The proceedings which immediately followed relative to Humphrey's claims to the regency of the kingdom, would much exceed the space which you can allot me in your present number. I think it better, therefore, to stop here, than to break off in the middle of them. My next letter will contain the whole of the discussions on the subject of the Protector's power during the King's infancy.I am, Sir, &c. T. M. Middle Temple, Dec. 17, 1804.

WAR OF WORDS.

SIR, From the style and temper in which some late occurrences have been announced and commented upon, in some of our daily prints, it should seem that we are engaged. in a war of words, rather than in a conflict of arms, with our antient and inveterate foe: a method of hostility less deadly no doubt, but not greatly redounding to the national honor and credit; it being easy enough to collect and employ injurious epithets and phrases, in the use of which, we may become as skilful and acrimonious as our neighbours, though we cannot, by such futile weapons, expect to humble their pride or reduce their power. The seizure of Sir George Rumbold's person and papers has been inveighed against as a deed of the deepest malignity and perfidy! a violation of the law of nations most heinous! unheard of! and without precedent! and every odious appellation has, in consequence, been poured upon Buonaparté, its abominable and atrocious author and contriver. The act itself, in truth, is not to be vindicated: it is one in the long list of treacherous and disgusting proceedings, to which the blind acrimony of nations, whether civilized or uncivilized, when at war, too often gives birth; but it is not marked with peculiar novelty or atrocity. The jealous intrigues and subtle enterprizes of one state, occasion similar proceedings to be adopted by another and you have as lid reason to look for an uniform reverence of the person of an ambassador, or an undeviating respect for a neutral territory, as you have to imagine your enemy's artillery should not be pointed against your fortresses lest perchance it should sweep away some of their peaceable inhabitants. If, instead of giving way to these violent ebullitions of wrath and indignation, we were to consult history, we should find that similar transactions have passed again and again, and have found their apology in the policy of the times; in

dered as the chef d'œuvre of political wisdom, and the sole secure harbour of the human race. But there was one thing wanted, to unite without risque, the elements of liberty to its unity of power, and the certainty of its succession. This improvement in the act of governing, is an advance which Napoleon at this moment produces in the social science. He has laid the foundation of representative states; he has not confined his views to their present existence; he has implanted in them the seeds of their future perfection. Whatever is wanted to their completion at first, will grow out of their own progress. It is the honour of the present age; the hope and the model of future ages. Sire, the first rank amongst the greatest men that have done honour to the earth, is reserved for the founders of Empires. Those, who have ruined them, have enjoyed but a fatal glory; those who have suffered them to fall to ruin, are every where objects of reproach. Honour to those who raise them! They are not only the creators of nations, but they secure their continuance by laws which become the inheritance of futurity. We owe this treasure to your Im perial Majesty; and France proportions the measure of those thanks, which the Conservative Senate now presents to you in its name, to the magnitude of this blessing. If a pure republic had been possible in France, we cannot doubt that you would have wished to have the honour of establishing it; and if it were possible, we should never be exonerated from the guilt of not having proposed it to a man having power sufficient to realise the idea of it; personally great enough not to need a sceptre, and ge nerous enough to sacrifice his own interests to the interests of his country. Though, like Lycurgus, you should have to banish yourself from that country, which you would have organised, you would not have hesitated. Your profound meditations have been more than once directed to this great problem; but this problem was not to be solved even by your genius.Superficial minds, struck with the ascendancy which so much success and glory so happily acquired for you over the spirit of the nation, have fancied, that you had it in your power to give it at discretion a popular government or a monarchical regime. There was no medium: not a soul wished for aristocracy in France: but the legislature ought to take men such as they are, and to give them, not the most perfect laws that could be devised, but like Solon, the best they can bear. Though the chisel of a great artist forms at pleasure.out of a block of marble either a tripod or a god, the body of a nation cannot be modelled on the

same principle. It is true, Sire, that your life is a tissue of prodigies: but though you might have bent the nature of things and the character of men to such a pitch, as to cast the masses of France once into the mould of democracy, this wonder would have been but a transient illusion: should we have concurred in it, we should only have forged chains for poster ty.--When our representatives, placed on the ruins of the throne, believed, they could establish a republic, their intentions were pure: before sad experience released them from the enchantment, they sincerely worshipped that delusive phantom which they took for equality. We can speak of an error by which we had been dazzled for a moment,-Alas! who could avoid it? The popular torrent hurried along the most indifferent in spite of themselves. It is said, that the ancient Persians in order to convince the people of the terrible danger of an abuse of liberty, used to employ a very extraordinary custom: they used to inoculate themselves for a short time with the plague of political bodies. When any of their kings died, five days were spent in anarchy without authority or laws. Licentiousness was neither restrained then nor pus nished afterwards; they were five days given up to the spirit of vengeance, to excess, to violence, in a word, they were five days of revolution. This proof, it is said, used to make the people return with much joy to submission to their prince. After fluctua tions more terrible than those of a troubled sea, it was thought that an infallible remedy had been discovered for popular convulsions in a polygarchy. The depositing of authority in the hands of many, was better than the absence or the dispersion of this autho rity but differing spirits, and opposite wills could not be included in the same body, as the Manicheans used to place two contrary principles at the head of the universe. The struggle between these two principles would have annihilated France, if the course that has been taken had not been adopted, to ree turn to a more concentrated power. [To be continued.]

SUMMARY OF POLITICS. Agreeably to the intimation at the head of the present sheet, There propose to offer some remarks on the letter of my Corres pondent P, taking the several points accord ing to the order wherein I find them, with this exception only, that his second paras graph will be taken first, because the first and third paragraphs naturally come under one head.

MR. CANNING AND LORD HAWKESBURY.My Correspondent charges me

with unfairness of argument, party and personal motives, with misrepresentation and perversity; but, as relating to Mr. Canning and his colleague, Lord Hawkesbury, he scruples not to accuse me, at once, of falsehood; and, though he has the goodness to leave a loop-hole for me by the way of "total ignorance;" yet, the statement must, according to him, still be false; so that, at best, the Register, through my ignorance, is become the propagator of falsehood. He says, (paragraph 2), that it is within his own knowledge, that I was totally ignorant of every circumstance that concerned Mr. Canning and Lord Hawkesbury; that he is not at liberty to enter into the detail, but that I may be assured, that it would prove no less honourable to the former than disgraceful to the latter; and that, therefore, it is unpleasant to hear censures that are unjust, and that prove my entire ignorance of the real state of the case.I would first beg leave to ask this gentleman, whether, if it be unpleasant to hear unjust censure of others, it can be very pleasant to hear unjust censure of oneself? And, if it cannot be, I think, it will not be denied, that we should be very cautious how we express our censure to the person against whom it is directed, even though we do it anonymously. Whether my Correspondent has acted upon this principle, or whether he has entirely disregarded it, will presently appear.I have, this writer seems to think, censured Mr. Canning for his conduct in the affair alluded to. What he may consider as censure, I do not know; but my statement respecting Mr. Canning will shew, I think, that, according to the usual acceptation of the word, my censure of that gentleman was not, at most, very strong. I stated, in page 783, that "it was said, that Mr. Canning, before he "would consent to take office in the pre"sent ministry, insisted that Lord Hawkes"bury should be removed from the office of "foreign affairs;" and, I further stated, that this report was, in a great degree, confirmed by what Mr. Canning himself said in the House of Commons, where, on the 18th of June last, thinking it necessary to state the grounds upon which he thought himself justified in joining the new ministry, he said, "I shall content myself with "vindicating my own consistency. I objected to the administration of foreign af"fairs, and that has been changed." Now, I ask any candid man, whether this can, with any propriety, be called censure of Mr. Canning. In page 824, the subject was revived, in consequence of the letter of a correspondent, who positively assured me, that

:

Lord Hawkesbury's conduct had been truly dignified, and that it was Mr. Canning who had acted the submissive part, upon the occasion alluded to. I just observed, that barely asserting this, either to me or to the public, appeared by no means satisfactory. And I said, as upon the former occasion, that the only facts which the world knew were these that Lord Hawkesbury had been removed from the office of foreign affairs; and that Mr. Canning had publicly said, that he had objected to the administration of that office under Lord Hawkesbury. Was here any censure of Mr. Canning? Upon the report, that Mr. Canning had made Lord Hawkesbury's removal one of the terms of his condescending to join the ministry, I did, indeed, observe, that, in any other times than the present, such a person as Mr. Can. ning having obtained a similar influence, would have been matter of great astonishment; and this observation I now wish to be understood as repeating. But, all this is no censure of Mr. Canning. Censure of Mr. Pitt, indeed, might hence be inferred; and as my Correspondent does not allow me to make any statement wherefrom such an inference can possibly be drawn, I may, on this account, have, according to his notions, incurred just blame; but, certainly not on account of censure of Mr. Canning.—I am, however, not quite satisfied with baving shown, that I passed no censure upon this gentleman It is not pleasant to hear oneself reproached with "total ignorance" of any sort, and particularly upon a subject, whereon one has taken the liberty to speak to the public. This Correspondent bids me be "6

assured," that I am totally ignorant. upon this subject, and that, though he is not at liberty to enter into any detail, I may venture to state, that the transaction was "not less honourable to Mr. Canning than "disgraceful to Lord Hawkesbury." That the gentleman expected his letter to be published, or that he wished it to be, there can be no doubt; and, it will be for the reader to say, whether his treatment of Lord Hawkesbury exhibits any very striking proof of that fairness, which he is so anxious to inculcate with respect to every discussion wherein Mr. Pitt is concerned. But before I proceed to attempt to show, that all the ignorance of this matter does not lie on my side, and that I should not be justified in venturing to make any such sratement as that, with which he has furnished me, let me ask, what pretensions he has to such implicit confidence? and whe ther, from experience, I have not good reason to doubt, I will not say of his vera