signed by fifty-five lords, at the head of whom were two princes of the blood.

On the 27th of January, 1789, Mr. Pitt after having recapitulated the various steps, that had been already taken, observed,

Dissentient,

1st. Because we firmly adhere to the principles and arguments, on which we disapproved the resolutions formerly passed by this house, especially when the legislative power of the two houses of parliament, unconstitutionally assumed by those resolutions, is meant to be employed to restrict or suspend many important and essential branches of the royal power, at the moment of the declared incapacity of the King.

2d. Because we think the power of conferring the rank and privileges of the peerage, as a reward to merit, is necessary to the royal authority, in order to afford an incitement to vigorous exertions in the service of the state, and is more peculiarly necessary (like all other parts of the prerogative) when the regal power is to be exercised by a substitute, with an authority uncertain and precarious in its duration: but especially on the present occasion, as it is the only branch of the prerogative sufficiently powerful to afford a remedy against such a combination in this house, as other parts of this system of rest.iction and mutilation, have a natural and obvious tendency to produce.

And because we conceive that this restriction may create an interest in the members of this house, to withhold their assent to restore the ancient powers of the crown in this respect.

3d. Because we conceive, that by the subsisting law of the land, his majes ty's property is sufficiently secured from any undue disposition and alienation, and the resolution on that subject can have no other effect, but to convey to the public injurious suspicion, and unjust imputation, on the character and intentions of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.

4th. Because we are of opinion, that in order to maintain the proper dignity of the crown, and preserve the due influence and respect, which arise from the great offices of the state, it is necessary that the person exercising the royal authority in the name and on the behalf of his majesty, should be attended by those distinguished servants, whose functions have been established for the purpose of adding weight and splendour to the regal office. We cannot agree to a division of the royal power; to the creation of a fourth estate, unknown to the constitution of this country.

Spencer

Suffolk and Berks

Hawke

Diss. For all the reasons given in the protest, except those in this latter parts of the 2d reason, viz. begining at these words, "but especially on, &c." and thence to the end of that second reason.

Selkirk.

that before they proceeded any farther, he thought it would be most respectful to the Prince of Wales, and most expedient in the order of their proceedings, to endeavour to know, whether his royal highness were willing to accept the regency upon the terms of the resolution which they had come to. With this view he moved, That a committee should be appointed to attend his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales with the resolutions, which had been agreed to by the lords and commons, for the purpose of supplying the defect of the personal exercise of the royal authority during his majesty's illness, by impowering his royal highness to exercise such authority, in the name and on behalf of his majesty, subject to the limitations and restrictions. which the circumstances of the case then appeared to require; and, that the committee should express the hope, which the commons entertained, that his royal highness, from his regard. to the interests of his majesty and the nation, would be ready to undertake the weighty and important trust proposed to be invested in his royal highness as soon as an act of parliament should have been passed for carrying the said resolutions into effect.

This motion gave rise to a very heated alrercation, in which the ministers were accused, and they defended themselves against the accusations of having treated the Prince of Wales, throughout the whole course of their proceedings, with the most shameful want of attention and respect. The motion was voted without a division, and ordered to be carried to the lords for their concurrence, together with a similar resolution for a committee to lay before the Queen the resolution of the two houses, relating to the care of his Majesty's person.

The resolutions having been read in the house of lords on the 28th, and a motion made for their lordships concurrence, the Duke of Northumberland briefly observed, that these resolutions, as proposed to be presented to the prince for his assent, appearing on the face of them most materially to curtail the exercise of that royal authority, which they were about to put into his hands would, as they stood, seem to convey a want of confidence in his royal highness; he conceived it, therefore, would be but decent in their lordships to specify the reasons which had guided their lordships in adopting those resolutions. It having been most generally taken as the ground for those restrictions, that his majesty's illness was but temporary, and would probably be but of short duration, he conceived their lordships could have no objection to connect that with the address. His grace concluded with moving an amendment to that effect, which was negatived without farther debate; and the usual blanks were ordered to be filled up with the words, "lords spiritual and temporal."

On the 30th of January the two committees presented to the Prince of Wales and the Queen the resolutions of the two houses.

To this committee his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales was graciously pleased to give the following answer.

66

"MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN,

"I THANK you for communicating to me the resolutions agreed upon by the two houses, and I 66 request you to assure them in my name, that my duty to the "King my father, and my anxious concern for the safety and "interests of the people, which must be endangered, by a long suspension of the exercise of the royal authority; together "with my respect for the united desires of the two houses, "outweigh, in my mind, every other consideration, and will de "termine me to undertake the weighty and important trust "proposed to me, in conformity to the resolutions now commu"nicated to me. I am sensible of the difficulties that must "attend the execution of this trust, in the peculiar circumstan"ces, in which it is committed to my charge, of which, as I "am acquainted with no former example, my hopes of a "successful administration cannot be founded on any past

experience. But confiding that the limitations on the exercise "of the royal authority deemed necessary for the present, have "been approved by the two houses only as a temporary measure, founded all the loyal hope, in which I ardently participate, that his majesty's disorder may not be of long duration, "and trusting, in the mean while, that I shall receive a zealous "and united support in the two houses and in the nation, propor"tioned to the difficulty attending the discharge of my trust in "this interval; I will entertain the pleasing hope, that my "faithful endeavours to preserve the interests of the king, his crown, and the people, may be successful."

When the committee presented the resolutions of the lords and commons concerning the custody of his majesty's person, her majesty was graciously pleased to give the following

answer.

"MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN,

"My duty and gratitude to the king, and "the sense I must ever entertain of my great obligations to "this country, will certainly engage my most earnest attention 26 to the anxious and momentous trust intended to be reposed in me by parliament. It will be a great consolation to me to << receive the aid of a council, of which I shall stand so much in need, in the discharge of a duty wherein the happiness of my "future life is indeed deeply interested, but which a higher

"object, the happiness of a great, loyal, and affectionate people, "renders still more important.'

""

These resolutions and answers were ordered to be entered on the journals; and the minister, when business was resumed in the house, emphatically entreated gentlemen to pause, and by giving the bill, that would be laid before them a deliberate perusal and cool unbiassed reflection, proceed in future with the caution due to such a momentous transaction. On the 31st of January, 1789, the house of lords being in a committee of the whole house on the state of the nation, Lord Camden began with remarking, that being still merely a convention, they could do no one legislative act till they were enabled so to do by the presence or assent of the sovereign. Deprived of the assistance of his majesty in his natural capacity, they were compelled to resort to his political capacity. There was but one organ by which this assistance could be obtained, and that organ was the great seal. This mode of proceeding, he knew, had already been ridiculed as a phantom. But would those, who were thus free of their ridicule impart any other mode, by which they could be extricated from their present difficulties? They were compelled, therefore, by necessity to resort to the resolutions of the two houses, impowering the proper person to make use of the great seal; an instrument, which his lordship said, was of such great and particular authority, that even if the lord chancellor committed a high misdemeanor by affixing it to letters patent, those instruments must be considered valid; they would have the whole force of law, and could not be disputed by the judges. His lordship, in support of this doctrine, quoted the conduct of lord chancellor Hardwicke, who had suffered the great seal to be affixed to an instrument in the manner he now proposed. Two resolutions he said, would be therefore found necessary to be adopted under their present circumstances to complete the legislature. The first was, to establish a commission to open and hold the parliament in due form: the second would follow up the first at a convenient time, for the purpose of empowering the royal assent to be given in his majesty's name to the bill of regency, by the same, or by another commission. His lordship concluded by moving, "That it is expedient and necessary that letters patent, under "the great seal of Great Britain, be impowered to be issued by "the authority of the two houses of parliament, in the tenor and "form following:" Then followed an exact transcript of the writ usually issued under the sign manual, impowering certain commissioners to open and hold the king's parliaments at Westminster. The commissioners nominated by the present letters patent, were, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, the Dukes

of Cumberland and Gloucester, together with the other persons usually inserted therein.

The motion having been seconded, Lord Portchester arose, and observed, they were now in that precise situation, where they stood two months since, with this difference only, that they were now going to do, by a pretended act of parliament, what should have been done by a declaration of the two houses. But besides this fiction of the great seal, there were other stumbling blocks in their way. By two acts of parliament, the sign manual was made essentially necessary to the validity of any act: these were, the acts of 33d of Henry the Eighth, and the 1st of Philip and Mary; the former declaring, that no act could be valid unless signed by the sovereign, or, in his absence, by the custos regni; and the latter, in deciding on the attainder of the Duke of Norfolk, speaking the same language, but in stronger

terms.

Lord Camden replied, that a different meaning was to be attached to those acts: they were, he contended, acts merely affirmative; that is, they asserted, that acts so signed, were legal; but they no where contained the assertion, that those acts could not be legalized in any other form. His lordship added a precedent in point, that of the 28th of Elizabeth, which had actually passed under the great seal only, and without the sign manual.

His Royal Highness the Duke of York rose unexpectedly at this moment, and said, he had not been informed, that it was intended to insert his name in the commission, and therefore it had not been in his power to take any steps to prevent it. He could not sanction the proceedings with his name, not wishing to stand upon record, and be handed to posterity, as approving such a measure. His opinion of the whole system adopted was already known: he deemed the measure proposed, as well as every other that had been taken respecting the same subject, to be unconstitutional and illegal. He desired, therefore, to have nothing to do with any part of the business; and requested that his name, and that of his brother, the Prince of Wales, might be left out of the commission.

Lord Camden said, upon a requisition thus communicated, there could be no hesitation. He should not for a moment resist the royal duke's desire, but would readily agree to omit his royal highness's name, and that of his royal highness the Prince of Wales.

The Dukes of Cumberland and Gloucester desired their names might also be omitted, which was complied with.

The resolutions, as amended and passed by the lords, on February the 2d, having been communicated to the House of Commons, Mr. Pitt moved for their concurrence therein. This