the rest.

The precedent to which he alluded was that of the protectorate of the duke of York, in the reign of king Henry the Sixth. The heir apparent had indeed at that time been a minor, but this variation in the record was fully supplied by the reversionary patent that parliament had directed to be issued, granting the regency to the prince of Wales when he should attain full age, with precisely the same powers as those of the duke of York; that is, with such limitations and restrictions as amounted to a positive denial of his hereditary right. From all these examples Mr. Pitt concluded, that the whole stream of history was in his favour, and that the house could not refuse the resolutions he offered, in consistency with precedent and the forms of the constitution. They were now called upon to declare their inherent rights; and if they failed to do it fully and explicitly, their conduct would undoubtedly be ascribed to motives of personal interest, rather than a regard to the honour and safety of the crown, and an attention to the true interests of their country. He remarked, that the claim of right had originally been asserted by Mr. Fox in much stronger and more elevated terms than those which it was now thought prudent to employ; and he had no doubt that it was the sense of the country at large, that no such right had the shadow of existence.

MR. FOX

APOLOGIZED from indisposition for not entering me. thodically into a farther justification of his opinion, respecting which indeed he had argued enough upon former occasions. Any man however would have imagined, from the weakness of the arguments advanced on the

other side, that those who adduced them, had wished to provoke him to the most unqualified assertion of the doctrine he had suggested. From the extreme futility of their reasonings, from the glaring absurdity of their inferences, the false premises they had laid down, and the irrelevant and inapplicable precedents upon which they pretended to rely, they perhaps thought that they held out a temptation so strong, that flesh and blood could not withstand it. Could the minister and his friends suppose that the house would think them serious in supporting their systems by the series of precedents that was now offered? How miserable must be that system, the prominent features of which were so highly disgraceful! Was the practice of the present times, times so enlightened, and in which the principles of the constitution were so well understood, to be grounded on precedents drawn from the dark and barbarous period of king Henry the Sixth? Were the rights of the house of commons in one of the most difficult moments that had ever occurred, to be maintained and vindicated by an example, in which the house of lords had usurped an exclusive authority, and in which the rights of the commons were so ill understood, that its speaker was at that very moment in prison on a commitment of the house of lords? Mr. Fox called upon his hearers to reflect upon the catastrophe of that period, the infamous transactions of which were chosen for the model of that day's proceedings. That period had immediately led to the wars of the houses of Lancaster and York, and had introduced those dismal scenes of anarchy, confusion, bloodshed, and tyranny, that were a disgrace to the annals of England, and had reduced the kingdom to unparalleled distress. With respect to the other precedents, there was not one of them that related to the case of a prince of Wales arrived at full age. If however they tended to prove any thing, it was the prince's right. In the reign of Edward the Third, the Black Prince, at only thirteen years of age, was declared regent, and afterwards, during the

absence of Edward and his son, the appointment had fallen on the next brother, the duke of Clarence. In the reign of Henry the Sixth the right of the prince of Wales, though only a year old, was fully and explicitly recognized. But overlooking all these distant examples, Mr. Fox was perfectly of opinion that all precedents prior to the revolution were foreign to the purpose, because at the revolution only civil liberty was clearly de fined, and the rights of the different branches of the le. gislature ascertained. It was, Mr. Fox contended, undeniably evident, that the act of settlement must be altogether overlooked, if the prince of Wales were passed over, and the doctrine of Mr. Pitt established.

The

act of settlement might clearly be defeated, and the succession to the crown might be altered, if the regency were vested in any other hands: and, such had indeed been actually the case in the minister's favorite prece dent, that of the protectorate of Richard duke of York.

Mr. Fox asserted, that the plan of Mr. Pitt would radically alter the government, and overturn the constitution. The right to make laws rested in the entire legislature, and not in the concurrence of any two of its branches. The constitution supposed each of its three branches to be independent of the other, and actually hostile; and if that principle were once given up, there was an end of our political freedom. The safety of the whole depended, not upon the patriotism of any one branch of the legislature, but rather on the separate interests of the three, prone to the extension of their individual power, and concurring through different views to the benefit of the community. Any man familiar with the theory of the constitution would naturally think, and, if he were questioned, readily answer, that the monarchy was hereditary; but, if the doctrine of that day prevailed, the answer must be: "I cannot tell; ask his majesty's physicians. When the king of England is in health, the monarchy is hereditary; but when he is ill, and incapable of exercising the sovereign authority, it is

then elective." A subtle and politic lawyer might in. deed be found, who would alledge, as the solicitor gene. ral, Sir Archibald Macdonald had done, that the monar chy, it was allowed, must be hereditary, but the executive power might be elective. The political capacity, it seemed, of the king, was immutable, but his natural capacity was liable to variations. Thus an hereditary monarch existed stripped of the regal functions, while the person who occupied his place in the constitution, was liable to be elected and modified by the other branches of the legislature. The legal metaphysics, that thus distinguished between the crown and its functions, were to him unintelligible. The investigators should be schoolmen and not statesmen, if a question that so deeply involved the existence of the constitution were to be thus discussed. But he would put an end to the argument at once by asking, where was that famous dictum to be found, by which the crown was guarded with such inviolable sanctity, while its powers were left to the mercy of every assailant?

Mr. Fox ridiculed the subtlety of Mr. Pitt's reason. ings, that the prince of Wales had no more right than he had, at the same time that he confessed that parliament was not at liberty to think of any other regent; and all this for the paltry triumph of a vote over a political antagonist, and to insult a prince, whose favour he was conscious he had not deserved. For himself, he had ever made it his pride to combat with the crown in the plenitude of its power and the fulness of its authority. He wished not to trample upon its rights, while it lay extended at his feet, deprived of its functions and incapable of resistLet the minister pride himself on a victory ob. tained against a defenceless foe; let him boast of a triumph where no battle had been fought, and no glory could be obtained; let him take advantage of the calamities of human nature, and, like the unfeeling lord of a manor, riot in the riches to be acquired by shipwrecks, by rigorously asserting a claim to the waifs, estrays,

ance.

deodands, and all the accumulated profit of the various accidents which misfortune could throw into his power; let it never be his boast to have gained such victories, obtained such triumphs, or availed himself of wealth so acquired. Mr. Fox was ready to admit that Mr. Pitt's administration had been in some respects intitled to praise. The whole conduct of the Dutch transaction, in particular, was wise and vigorous, laudable in its design and effectual in its execution. Of his other measures he certamly entertained a very different opinion. The minister however appeared to have been so long in the possession of power, that he could not endure to part with it. He had experienced the entire favour of the crown, and enjoyed the advantage of exerting all its prerogatives; and, finding the whole not too much for the successful administration of government, he had determined to cripple his successors, to deprive them of the advantages which he had possessed, and circumscribe their power of being useful to their country; as if he dreaded. that their prosperity would cast a shade upon his fame. With regard to Mr. Pitt's motives, he was unable to assign them; but, if there were an ambitious man in that house who desired to drive the empire into confusion, his conduct, he conceived, would be exactly that which the minister pursued. Mr. Fox on his part had nothing to wish for, but that his hearers would faithfully employ their vigilance, and not vote the resolutions without being perfectly aware of their tendency.