called the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the injury which honest trades people suffered from the frequency of mock auctions. It often happened that persons—the Lord knew who—coming from the Lord hardly knew where—visited large towns, and offered goods to sale much "to the injury of the resident tradesmen. This evil seriously affected the city of Lincoln, and indeed the whole county. The hon. Member then alluded to the unsatisfactory state of the Revenue, as published in the papers. That convinced him of the unhappy state of the Administration, and the fallacy of the prediction of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that all the evils of the country were nothing but a passing cloud. Instead of the clouds passing, he thought they were collecting more and more every day. He wished to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he meant to bring in an Auction Bill next Session, because, if that were not done by somebody else, he should find it necessary to do it himself.

said, the subject mentioned by the right hon. Member was worthy of consideration, though he could not give any pledge as to what course he should adopt.

then proceeded to move for certain returns connected with the Customhouse Establishments in certain ports of the United Kingdom. The hon. Member, after stating that in many ports the charges and expenses of these establishments exceeded the revenue collected by fifty and even 100 per cent, and after specifying several ports in which such was the ease, concluded by moving for a return, stating the name of each officer in those establishments, the amount of salary to which he is entitled, the amount he receives, and the duties which he has to perform, under separate heads, up to the 5th of January, 1830. This, he remarked, was merely intended as a continuation of former returns, and he understood that the right hon. Gentleman opposite would make no objection to it.—Returns ordered.

said, he had another motion, respecting the Civil List, to which he understood the right hon. Gentleman would assent. His Motion was, for the re-printing of the Reports of the Committees on the Civil List, which were published in 1803, 1804, 1812, and 1815. It was upon the average of all those reports that the Civil List was settled in 1816, and it has stood since that time to the present day. In the first of those Reports the committee stated, that it was necessary to enlarge the Civil List, on account of the advance that had taken place in the prices of all articles of expenditure connected with the Lord Steward's department; and the Committee of 1815 justified an increased addition to the Civil List on similar grounds. He was anxious to have those Reports printed and before the House, in order that they might be in the hands of Members when they should come to the consideration of the Civil List. The prices of all the articles to which those Reports referred had fallen considerably since 1815, and he hoped, therefore, that when they came to settle the Civil List, they would return to the scale of the year 1793.—The Reports ordered to be reprinted.

rose to move, pursuant to notice, an Address to his Majesty, touching the expediency of making provision against the dangers to which the country might be exposed, by a demise of the Crown. He commenced by observing, that in bringing forward such a subject for the consideration of the House, he was fully impressed with the difficulties and delicacy by which it was surrounded. He was quite aware, he said, at the same time, that there was scarcely any question which, under existing circumstances, was so closely connected with the well-being of the Monarchy, and with the safety of the State and the Constitution of the country; and, however much was the difficulty and great delicacy which attended the discussion of such a question now, that difficulty and that delicacy would be rendered incalculably greater if, in consequence of delaying the consideration of it, an event should occur in the mean time, which would fill the nation with mourning, and the occurrence of which (and he trusted that it was far, far distant) must be contemplated by every loyal and faithful subject with the deepest regret. He wished here to state why he had brought this subject forward now, after the discussion that had already taken place, and still more why he had taken upon himself to call the attention of the House to such an important topic. His object in bringing it forward now was, that such an important question might be discussed at the present moment,—the fittest for its consideration,—and not postponed to a future period, before the arrival of which there was some danger of the occurrence of a contingency, by which all the embarrassments attendant upon the question would be multiplied ten thousand fold. So far, therefore, from having such a discussion postponed, it appeared to him that it ought to be taken up with promptitude, and proceeded upon forthwith. The discussion which had occurred on a former evening had reference to other subjects as well as this; it had been brought on also without notice: and under such circumstances he thought it his duty to call the attention of the House to this important subject by a separate and distinct motion. He did not bring this forward for personal or party objects; he was not inclined to do so with any questions, and this question could least of all be considered as a party question. He brought it forward under the conviction that Parliament should not separate without providing against the possibility of a demise of the Crown. Entertaining, as he did, in common with every man in the country, feelings of profound deference and respect towards the illustrious Prince who filled the Throne of these realms, he was anxious that this subject should, in the first instance, originate with the Crown. His proposition, therefore, would be, for an Address to the Crown, respectfully soliciting the Crown to recommend to the House to proceed to the immediate consideration of this subject. In moving the Address which he proposed to recommend, and in the comments he proposed to make upon the subject, it might be improper in him to exceed the comparatively contracted ground of pressing its adoption on the House. It would therefore be his duty to content himself with stating the reasons why he thought the House should implore the Crown to originate the discussion upon that momentous question; and it would certainly be inconsistent with his duty to rush into a consideration of what ought to be done previous to receiving an answer from that high quarter which, he submitted, they should address. And here he begged to declare, that in the remarks which he was about to make to the House, he would studiously avoid all personal or party allusions. He did think the subject was one of too great importance to be converted into an engine of any ordinary political purposes or feelings, and he disclaimed, from the bottom of his heart, all intention of touching upon any topic which could by any possibility, or in any manner, encroach upon that loyal and reverential attachment to the Sovereign at present upon the Throne with which every good subject should approach such a consideration. The very nature of the question, he admitted, involved some difficulties. That it did so he could not dissemble if he would. Conducting the question with the greatest caution, it was scarcely possible to avoid intruding upon the domestic privacy of an illustrious House. But the fact was, that a Constitutional Monarch was, from his situation, placed like a house upon a hill, and precluded from that secresy and seclusion which belonged to the domestic hearth of the subject. The House of the Sovereign, however, should be always safe from impertinent intrusion, and whenever he was compelled to allude to it, he should do so unwillingly and as slightly as he could. He might be asked why he now recommended a discussion as necessary upon a subject to which the attention of the House had been already called; and it might be argued, that although that discussion was taken without notice actually placed upon the paper, yet that since, for weeks together, their minds had been anxiously turned to that subject; there was, in fact, a virtual notice, so that, in no fair sense, could the House be said to have been taken by surprise. But upon this he said, and he was gratified in saying it, because more than one or two Members of Parliament (and one would have been sufficient) stated that they had not had notice that the attention of the House would not be called to the subject before a dissolution. He said, that however much the attention of the Cabinet might have been for a series of weeks directed towards this question, it was only two or three days before the discussion, that the idea had even been promulgated in public or private, that the proposition submitted by his Majesty's Ministers would be, not that one or the other form of Regency should be adopted, but that there should be no consideration of the question at all during the present Session. Now, he contended, that in that most important question they should not depart from the ordinary practice of their discussions. It certainly should not have been brought forward without the usual notice of the particular proposition which Ministers proposed to submit. Besides, the question came to them blended with other subjects, not becoming its own magnitude and importance, and subjects upon which contrary votes might be well given. Thus was the House embarrassed—for the question came before them clogged with several others, whereas it ought to have been laid before them single and independent, to the end that they might bestow upon it that due deliberation, and pronounce that solemn decision, which the public, the world, and posterity, might take as a verdict worthy the momentous importance of the subject, and the characters of the parties concerned. In advancing to the immediate consideration of his proposition, it might be expected that he would take some notice of the various precedents that might be deemed applicable to the present case, and which were to be found upon the page of history. He begged to state, that although, as was his duty, he had perused with some care all that our history presented as applicable to the subject, it was not his purpose to trouble the House, with details on the notice of precedents preceding the middle of the last century. Not that he meant for a moment to say that the precedents from our earliest history were all inapplicable; quite the contrary: but looking to the difference between the opinions and habits of men now, and at those more remote periods, and recollecting the fact, that the Constitution was not then settled, and remembering that many things then considered wise and beneficial, had since resolved themselves into what would now be called gross and glaring anomalies, he certainly did consider, that many of these precedents would not be so productive of utility as of doubt. He should, therefore, pass over the precedents that were furnished in the times of Henry 2nd, Edward 3rd, and Richard 2nd, and he should proceed at once to call the attention of the House to the two precedents that were to be found in the middle of the last century, and which, he conceived, were particularly applicable to the present case, which might be said, to have occurred in our own times, and in the House of the illustrious family still upon the Throne. He would now proceed, as he had before stated his intention, to the two precedents which had occurred in the last century, admitting that the least important of them was that which occurred in the year 1751. George the 2nd, being at that time advanced in age, upon the death of his son the Prince of Wales, recollecting that his grand-children were all in a state of minority, thought it necessary to send a Message to both Houses of Parliament, requesting them to make provisions—without stating what provisions—for a Regency adapted to the peculiar emergency which might happen to the country, in case of the succession falling to a Prince of tender age. The Message was sent to both Houses of Parliament on the 26th of April, 1751. It was followed by a second Message to the House of Lords, on the 8th of May, proposing to them to constitute a Council of Regency. On the 13th of May the Regency Bill was sent down from the House of Lords to the House of Commons; and in about four weeks afterwards, having passed both Houses of Parliament, it received the Royal assent. The more important precedent, however, was that which occurred in the year 1765. George 3rd having then been four years Sovereign of these realms, being also in the very prime of life, (for his age was not more than five-and-twenty,) alarmed by an illness which, though severe during its continuance, he had the highest authority for declaring not to have been dangerous, thought it necessary, not by a Message, but by appearing in presence of both Houses of Parliament, to call them to a consideration of the casualties belonging to his exalted situation, as well as to that of every other man, and requested them to make provision for the event of the succession to the Crown falling upon an infant Prince. The words in which that revered Monarch addressed his assembled Parliament upon that occasion, appeared to him (Mr. Grant) so striking, so pertinent, and so every way applicable to the present crisis, that, with their permission, he would read them at once to the House:—"The tender concern," said his Majesty, "which I feel for my faithful subjects makes me anxious to provide for every possible event which may affect their future happiness and security. My late indisposition, though not attended with danger, has led me to consider the situation in which my kingdoms and my family might be left, if it should please God to put a period to my life whilst my successor is of tender years. The high importance of this subject to the public safety, good order and tranquillity; the paternal affection which I bear to my children, and to all my people; and my earnest desire that every precaution should be taken, which may tend to preserve the Constitution of Great Britain undisturbed, and the dignity and lustre of its Crown unimpaired, have determined me to lay this weighty business before my Parliament." Such were the words, so far as they related to his sense of the exigency that were used in the Address spoken to Parliament by that revered Monarch. They were dictated, he supposed, by those who were the responsible Ministers of the Crown at that period; and he was sure that he was not wrong in saying that they found a ready response in his Majesty's bosom. They were accordant with his manly and consistent character,—they bespoke at once the kingly firmness with which, for the benefit of his country, he could contemplate the termination of his life, and of his reign; the kingly spirit with which he regarded the situation of his family, and of the Monarchy at large, in case of that event? and the kingly heart and conscience in which he brought them distinctly before Parliament, in order that the quiet of the country might not be disturbed, that the Constitution might not be endangered, and that full satisfaction might be awarded to the rights of the Crown and to the interests of the nation. Reverting back to this precedent, and looking forward to a lamented event, which it would cost them some sorrow to contemplate, even as a contingency, but to which they must approach with that sedate and reflective grief which should teach them not to mourn and remain inactive, but to deliberate and to act;—reverting back, he said, to what had happened, and looking forward to what might happen, he asked, whether he was preposterous in supposing that the councillors who advised George 3rd, in 1765, to make to the Parliament the communication which he had just read to the House, would have advised his present Majesty, had they been now alive, to pursue a similar manly and dignified course? He was certain that the kingly feelings of George 3rd were not alien from the bosom of any Prince of his august House. He was certain that no son of that venerated Monarch would be wanting in courage to face the consideration of the lamentable event to which he was compelled to allude, or in that moral firmness which would enable him calmly to contemplate the progress of Parliament, in completing the various details of any measure which it might think necessary to provide against that melancholy contingency. There would, in his opinion, have been a peculiar grace and propriety, had such a measure been announced to Parliament on this occasion by his Majesty's professional advisers. They would have done well in counselling their august master, that he ought on the moment of celebrating the obsequies of his illustrious predecessor, to imitate the example of his Royal father; to look forward, like him, to the termination of his own reign and life, and to provide for the exigency in which it must inevitably place the country. Nothing could, in his opinion, be more proper than such a course. He conceived that royalty was exhibited in an amiable point of view when kings thus met their subjects on the low, but sacred ground of their common mortality, and led them on their way to provide for an exigency, which must be looked upon as a misfortune, but from which no situation, either high or low, could exempt man. He had now considered the general aspect of these precedents, and had drawn from it that general inference which he conceived to be at once rational and just. There were circumstances in the case of George 3rd, a young Monarch with three sons, which rendered it a weaker case as far as exigency, and therefore a stronger case as far as precedent, was concerned, than the case of George 2nd. He should not be performing his duty properly if he did not look fairly at the difficulties against which he called upon the house to join him in guarding. In doing so, he was obliged once more to say—and the good feeling of the House, he was sure, would approve him in saying—that this subject presented points of discussion from which he should abstain entirely; that it presented others, which, from delicacy to the Royal House, ought not to be discussed beyond what was absolutely necessary; and that though he might allude to them with sufficient distinctness for his argument, he should sketch them out with all the faintness which the topic would endure. 'He therefore implored the House, when he passed slightly over those topics, not to judge of the value which he attached to them from the quantity of notice which he might bestow upon them, but to judge of them by the real weight which they intrinsically possessed. In the event of the lamented demise of the Crown, after the present Parliament should be dissolved, and before the writs of the new Parliament should be returned,—in that event the country must look to the happening of one of two contingencies—either when the demise of the Crown might take place, the deceased Sovereign would leave behind him an infant of tender age, or it might even be a posthumous child, or that the succession would fall upon an amiable Princess, the niece of his present Majesty. The first of these two contingencies he felt himself authorised to pass over in silence, or, at least, not to make more than a transient allusion to the difficulties which would then arise. One difficulty, however, he must call upon the House to notice. If they would refer to the Statute of the 6th of Queen Anne, they would find that it ordained certain proceedings to be had, and certain solemnities to be celebrated, on the death of the Queen and her successors. It was well known to them all, by recent experience, that that Statute enjoined the Privy Council to assemble; and further, that it ordered them, upon pain of suffering all the penalties of high treason, to proclaim as Sovereign the person next in succession to the Crown, according to the limitations of the Act of Settlement. He was not aware that that Act was to be construed as requiring the same ceremonies to be used in each succeeding reign as were used on the accession of the House of Hanover: yet that Act, in enjoining the performance of such ceremonies as were usual at the proclamation of former kings, must be understood as sanctioning all the ceremonies which had been performed as of immemorial usage. He would now put to the consideration of the House this difficulty; suppose that in case of a demise of the Crown, the nation was expecting a posthumous issue,—the Privy Council were ordered to assemble and proclaim the Sovereign,—whom would they have to proclaim? They must preface their proclamation by taking the Oath of Allegiance. To whom must they take it? The proclamation must be continued by succession from them throughout the whole kingdom. Whom were they to order to be proclaimed? By the same Act of Parliament, the subsisting Ministers of the Crown were to be continued for six months in their respective places, unless discharged by the succeeding Monarch. Whose ministers would they be? and by whom would they be discharged, if discharged at all? The present Parliament, in case no other were in existence, would have to assemble again to provide for this crisis. It is assembled: but its proceedings must be opened either by a Speech from the Throne, or by a commission emanating from the King. Who could deliver that Speech? Whence could that commission emanate? The first act which every Member would have to perform would be, to take the Oath of Allegiance to the new Monarch. To whom must they swear it? A bill must be brought into Parliament to provide against the existing emergency. From whom is that bill to receive the Royal assent? What would be the state of the King's subjects at home and abroad? Whose subjects, indeed, would the people be? and against whom, in such a case, would they be guilty of high treason? These questions, which he could multiply to a great extent, he placed before the House for the purpose of showing the gross improvidence of which it would be guilty in not providing a solution for them before they actually occurred in practice. He could imagine—but he would rather not—an eclipse of royalty, which would shroud the whole country in gloom. Suppose, however, that some foreign news of importance should arrive; suppose that some casualty should happen at home; suppose, and he meant no disrespect in making the supposition, but—suppose that the illustrious head of the present Administration should be taken away from it by death,—who, in that case, would have a right to nominate his successor? It was impossible for any prudent man to treat these as mere hypothetical cases, conjured up to confound the unwary and to alarm the timid; and that for this simple reason,—that when the first event happened, all the rest must happen as matter of course. He had mentioned these points in order to call the attention of Parliament to a consideration of the difficulties which would arise in proclaiming a successor: but there was a great class of difficulties still behind, of much higher importance. He would not, however, mention them at present, but would reserve them for notice when he brought under discussion the consequences which would follow on the second of the two contingencies which he had described. That contingency was the demise of the Crown, and the falling of the succession on the niece of his Majesty, who, though not an infant, was still a child of very tender years. Then would arise the question—difficult indeed before, but still more difficult in that crisis—as to who should be Regent. Were they to adopt the doctrine held by Mr. Fox and Lord Loughborough in the unfortunate emergency of 1788, that the next heir in blood has as strict, as paramount, and as indefeasible a right to the Regency as he would, in case of the then Sovereign's dying, have to the Throne? or were they to adopt the doctrine held by Mr. Pitt and. Lord Eldon, that however august the name of the heir-apparent might be, he had no more right to the Regency than any other subject in the kingdom? Take either supposition you please, as to the party claiming the Regency being either heir-apparent or heir-presumptive, and Mr. Pitt thought that it made all the difference in the world, whether the party was heir-apparent or only heir-presumptive,—must we say, that as heir-presumptive the party is entitled to the Regency, or that, as the claim of the heir-apparent is defeasible, he must not succeed to it as of right? Let them decide that question as they might, how would they apply their decision when the heir presumptive, having become, by the death of the reigning Sovereign, King of another country, stood before them in the capacity of an alien King? Were they to say, that because the presumptive heir though an alien King, would on the death of the infant Sovereign succeed as of right to the English Throne, his possession of a foreign throne would form no obstacle to his being Regent here? Were they to set aside all the presumptive heirs to that foreign throne as unqualified for the situation of Regent? and were they to look for some individual members of the Royal House who were not in the course of succession to that foreign throne—a consideration which would confine the Regency to the illustrious Princesses, the sisters of his Majesty? Or were they to let in the question which member of the Royal House was fittest for the Regency, without considering at all what title they had to the succession? These were questions, all of which must be decided on the occurrence of this second contingency. He was surprised that any set of men could, in speaking of this subject, treat it as one of no difficulty. He presumed to press it upon the House—not because it was an easy, but because it was a difficult subject. He wished the House to consider the difficulties of it now, rather than when they had become aggravated in another Parliament. Even these difficulties, which he had offered as a sample, were not all, nor even the chief difficulties with which they would have to contend. The whole question was still behind, whether they would have a sole Regent or a Council of Regency; and never would he disguise it, either from himself or the House, that that was a question of great difficulty. The House would see that from many delicate considerations he had entirely abstained; but if any of the questions which he had mooted should arise, that abstinence would be impossible; for they would be forced upon public attention, in spite of any wish which they might individually have to prevent it. If the House would only recollect the complaints made in the year 1788, that all the private details of the King's situation were hawked about the streets, and placarded on the walls, they would pause before they declined taking this matter into present consideration. It might be said that these were difficult questions to be taken into consideration at this period of the Session, and that it was hard that Members of Parliament should be kept there in these discussions, whilst their more fortunate rivals were paying court to the constituent body. But if it were to be considered as a mere question of convenience, the inconvenience which would arise from taking the discussion now would not bear comparison, even for a moment, with a tenth part of the inconveniences which would attend the actual occurrence of either of the contingencies which he had mentioned. Was it possible, then, on the ground of convenience, to adopt the course recommended by the Ministry, weighed, as it ought to be, against all the inconveniences and disadvantages which might attend the agitation of the question at this time, when circumstances rendered the appointment of a Regency absolutely necessary? If they neglected their duty now, the whole country would be justified at a future period in casting on them the blame of the difficulties that might then arise. What were the objections urged to the course he now recommended? He believed that, if carefully examined, they would all be found to consist in underrating the probability of the occurrence of such a necessity; in undervaluing the importance of providing against it; and in despising the difficulties to which, if it occurred, it must inevitably give rise. He wished those who underrated the difficulty of dealing with such an emergency to consider for one moment the probability of its occurrence. The event to which he must refer, and to which he declared he did refer with none but the most painful feelings, was one which they must expect. Was it possible for them, in their experience of the common course of human events, to infer from the present health of the King that his stedfast appearance would always continue? Could they put out of the question the evils and dangers to which all mortals were subjected? Could they forget—was it possible that Parliament should forget—the instances of casualties which they had witnessed among them, or the circumstances of apparent strength and health which had preceded them? What had been the case with the late Lord Liverpool? In the midst of his administration of the affairs of this country he was unexpectedly carried off, and left Parliament deliberating on a most important question—namely, on that which related to a grant to a part of the family now on the Throne. Could they forget that on one day that noble Lord had appeared as if his life were likely to endure to the length of any one who was of the same, or nearly the same age with himself, and that within three days afterwards he was struck with that fatal apoplexy which on the instant deprived him of the full use of his mental and bodily powers, and shortly afterwards utterly incapacitated him for the performance of his Ministerial duties? Could they fail to recollect Mr. Canning—his eloquent efforts received with such acceptance in that House—pursued with such vigour, and attended with such success? He recollected hearing a Member observe, "I could say to Mr. Canning, as the Spartan said to the father whose sons had been victorious in the Olympic games, 'Now die, for thou canst not be a God!'" and within one month Mr. Canning was taken ill, and in one fortnight more he had followed that eloquent orator and illustrious Statesman as a mourner to the grave. These were events of which none could be ignorant, which all must remember, and which yet the Government wished them to forget, or to treat as forgotten. In the family which now filled the Throne similar events had occurred. Within ten years George 3rd and his immediate successor had died, and immediately before the death of the former, a Prince of the Blood Royal was taken ill—a Prince who, if now living, would have been the heir-presumptive to the Crown, and within a short time of the commencement of his illness he died, and yet that Prince, immediately before that melancholy event, had been in the enjoyment of perfect health, and had no reason to anticipate even the approach of disease. The Sovereign, too, who had lately filled the Throne, had been in like manner subjected to the attacks of illness nearly at the same time, and but for the almost miraculous vigour of his constitution, and the bold and decisive course adopted by his medical attendants, could not have escaped a similar fate. Indeed, had it not been for those bold measures, there might have been three members of the Royal family all at one time unburied. Might not that, which they were afraid would have happened, actually take place? It might indeed be said, that 1,000 years had occurred without our history affording us a single case in which the Crown had descended upon a posthumous child. But if they were arguing probabilities, it should be considered, on the other hand, how seldom a British Monarch had died in that time leaving a Queen without issue. It had occurred only twice since the Conquest; once in the case of the Queen of Charles 2nd, and again in the case of that of Richard 1st. Besides, there was an instance in a neighbouring country, where the crown was now in direct course of descent to a posthumous child—he meant the Duke of Bourdeaux. Was it then too much to say, that what had happened elsewhere might happen here; and was it too much to call on Parliament to provide, as far as Parliament could provide, against such a contingency? Were they to say that these things were out of the course of nature, and would not again occur; and were they to content themselves with the chance of seeing a posthumous Prince—instead of performing the important duty of appointing a Regency? There was, indeed, one precedent of a similar delay in appointing a Regency, and that occurred in the reign of George 3rd, who suffered four years to elapse without attempting to provide for such an event; and because he had delayed so long in proposing a Regency, it seemed they were now to be called on to delay the same important business for six months. What, was it because George 3rd had come down to Parliament on occasion of a sudden indisposition, and had accused himself of being guilty of a culpable omission in not coming to them before, to advise and concur with him in such a measure, that they were to act in the same manner as that for which his Majesty had then blamed himself? Were they to copy the example, not as a warning, but as a precedent? Were they to imitate, not the expression of regret for the error, but the error itself? As well might those who atoned for past misconduct at the hour of a deathbed repentance, be cited as examples—not of the benefit of a repentance, however late and tardy, but of the wisdom and propriety of continuing in misconduct till that hour should arrive. Yet who was there that would not loudly protest against such a doctrine? Who was there that would not admit the propriety of the example of repentance, but that would not, at the same time, condemn the strict imitation of the man who, till the last and latest moment of life, had persevered in a course of misconduct? These were, however, the sort of arguments employed on this serious and important question, to underrate the necessity for the consideration of that subject it was his intention to submit, and to induce them to believe, that those things which, in their own experience, they knew to be daily happening, were not again likely to happen until this Parliament had been dissolved, and another had been elected, and taken on itself the performance of its legislative functions. The opponents of his Motion said, in fact "There are no such difficulties as you predicate; things will go on much more smoothly than you imagine; even in the case you suppose, Parliament might meet again and provide for the emergency; but in the other case they would be certain to meet before that emergency could occur." He called on the House to beware how they adopted the course recommended by such a line of argument. A Princess only two days old was, in the eye of the law, no minor if she became the Sovereign; and at that early period of her existence the law supposed her capable of performing the duties of one. Against such a contingency he called on the Parliament to provide; but the Government, on the other hand, urged them to reverse the order of things, saying, that the difficulties of the subject were great now, but yet, affecting to suppose that those difficulties would not exist when the circumstances out of which they naturally arose had actually happened, and had come on them when they were, as they must be, totally unprepared. Let the House consider the proposal he made, and the difficulties that would arise if it were neglected. If there were no person, or a minor, at the head of the Government, the Parliament would become, in fact, a Convention Parliament, as strictly so as were those who met without the authority of the King, to confer the right to the English Throne upon a foreign Prince. Were they to neglect a duty in order that they might, in effect, call a Convention Parliament? Were they to say that the two Houses might meet a case of necessity as a Convention Parliament, and give the same effect to their Acts as if they were actually a Parliament? Were they, he asked, to resort to this means for carrying on the public business; or was it not rather an evil and a calamity to be reduced to such a course, scarcely less objectionable and less to be avoided than that which it was intended to remedy? In his opinion it was deplorable to be reduced to such a shifting expedient. When they had reduced themselves, by their own act, to the necessity of calling a Convention Parliament, they would impose on that Parliament the necessity of doing acts which would show they were not a Parliament. They must acknowledge that they could not act without the authority of the Throne, and they must proceed to fill the Throne in order to enable them to give weight and authority to their measures. Nothing but the necessity which the law itself created—nothing but the emergency by which all laws would be, for the moment, suspended, and even all constitutional maxims lose their power—nothing, he said, but all these considerations could authorise them in resorting to such an anomalous course. He thought that the object which Parliament wished to ensure by constituting a Regency was the prevention of any act of royalty being performed by an infant; and yet the very first thing which the infant Sovereign, under this arrangement, would be called upon to do, would be to pass a measure suspending for a time his own constitutional existence. Lord Mansfield, in 1751, expressed himself as follows, in the debate on the Regency bill—"From the whole of this debate, I find Gentlemen do not enough consider, that the necessity of such a bill as this proceeds from a most glaring, and, indeed, tremendous defect in our Constitution; for, with respect to the Sovereign, the law acknowledges no such thing as a minority. A child of two or three days old may, by our Constitution, come to be our King or Queen; and the moment the father dies, that child is by law invested with the whole sovereign or executive power of the Government: so that whoever gets possession of the person of that child, whether by fair or forcible means, becomes of course possessed of the government, and all the prerogatives belonging to the Sovereign." How different was the state of opinion in 1751 and 1830! At the former period, a great lawyer was of opinion, that the defect he had pointed out was a reason for introducing a Regency bill, whilst, in 1830, another great lawyer cited the same defect as a reason for not introducing a similar measure. There existed the possibility of two evils occurring; namely, the meeting of Parliament in the manner of a convention, without a Sovereign, or the having of a Sovereign without his being capable of executing the duties of his office. A Convention Parliament had already said, that they were inadequate to do the acts of a Parliament, and then were guilty of the great inconsistency of doing that most important of all acts, the appointing of a King. 'On the other hand, there was this equally gross inconsistency, that the infant Sovereign, on the ground that she was incapable of performing any act of government, proceeded to perform that most important act, the appointment of a Ministry, and the creation of a government, to act without that power which called it into existence. In the time of Henry 6th a law, not exactly in the shape of an Act of Parliament, but in that of an edict or proclamation, which in those days had the same effect, was issued, and contained these words:—"The King, considering his tender age, and his inability to concur with the Estates of this realm in the Government thereof, hath appointed the Duke of Bedford and the Duke of Gloucester to act as Protectors of the Realm and Governors of his Council;" and the King who made that appointment, on account of his tender age, showed a true sense of the exigency of his situation, for he was at that time just ten months and a half old. What would the people say if Parliament, with their eyes open, rushed into such a difficulty, and having the opportunity of avoiding it, allowed it to overtake them, and then tried to take refuge from its consequences in this anomalous remedy? What would they say of Parliament, if, with the means of taking a choice of occasions, it resorted to a remedy scarcely a shade less an evil than that which it was adopted to remedy? He apologized for having so long troubled the House, but the difficulty and delicacy of this question had forced him to go somewhat into detail. He had stated the facts, and he now called on them to guard themselves from being misled by those precedents which might be cited, and from the references that might be drawn from them, and seriously to employ themselves in the strict investigation of the merits of this case. Whatever might be the blame attempted to be thrown on the House of Commons, for not getting through the public business of the Sessions, he thought it would all be forgiven, if, casting aside all considerations of petty convenience, they applied themselves in good earnest to the consideration of this great and important public measure. If the measure should prove to have been adopted without the occurrence of that sad necessity, which in his argument he had been obliged to anticipate, they would then have the honour of having performed their duty, of having vindicated the character of Parliament, and of having set a precedent which in future times might ensure the safety of the country. They would have given an example of alacrity and energy in providing for difficulties which, if suffered to occur unprovided for, would have lowered the Parliament in the eyes of the country. If they did not pursue this course, and those difficulties should occur, they would then feel that they had been guilty of a great and culpable neglect of duty. They would not, in that case, have performed their duty to themselves—they would not have discharged their duty to their constituents, to whom they were just about to render up their trust—they would not have performed their duty to that Monarch, or to that Monarchy, for the preservation of whose constitutional rights they exercised their legislative functions; in short, they would not have performed their duty to their country, or to mankind, or to that great Being whom they ventured to ask, at every time of their meeting together, to bestow on them grace to act for the advantage of their country, and to prosper their councils for its welfare—a prayer which certainly they could not be said to follow out if they neglected this opportunity of adopting a measure called for by a regard to the honour of the Sovereign, for whom they entertained an anxious regard, and for the safety of the country, whose welfare required at their hands the faithful discharge of this first and most important duty. The hon. and learned Member concluded by moving, "That an humble Address be presented to his Majesty, assuring his Majesty that, deeply affected by the gracious declaration made by his Majesty on his accession to the Throne, of his Majesty's attachment to the Constitution of these realms, we, his Majesty's faithful Commons, should not be doing our humble duty to his Majesty, if, amidst our general feelings of gratitude, mingled with our ardent prayers for the prolonged duration of a reign so auspiciously commenced, we omitted to make known to his Majesty the anxiety felt by his Majesty's loyal subjects at the possibility of a misfortune which might deprive them of the blessings of his Majesty's paternal reign, and in its consequences endanger the best interests of the Empire, that we are induced to lay the expression of this anxiety at the foot of the Throne, from the deep attachment which we feel to his Majesty, and his Majesty's august family, and from the conviction which we entertain that the safety of the State, and the stability of our institutions, essentially depend on the unimpaired exercise of the powers vested in the Crown as the first of the three Estates composing the Constitution of this limited Monarchy. That under the impression of these sentiments we approach his Majesty with the dutiful assurance of our readiness to take into immediate consideration any measure which, in his Majesty's Royal solicitude for the happiness of his people, his Majesty might be graciously pleased to recommend, in order to guard against the possible hazard of those evils which cannot but be apprehended from the demise of the Crown under the present circumstances of the succession."

said, he should oppose the Motion. It was founded on the contemplation of an event that could not happen without casting a shade of sorrow over the whole country. It would be his attempt to show that this question had been introduced without that paramount necessity which could alone justify its being brought forward. The hon. and learned Member had stated, that if they looked at the difficulties of this subject now, they would see that those difficulties were of a nature that would increase fourfold if the consideration of them were postponed. It should be his business to show that no such consequences would follow from its short postponement. It might not be out of place for him to refer a little to what was the constitutional law upon this subject. Our ancestors, who, in remote times, had much more experience of infant kings than we had in modern times, had never thought of providing for such an event before it happened. "When the natural body met, as it must, (so Lord Coke said) the body politic, the smaller body, that is, the body natural merged in the larger body, that is, the body politic, and though the body natural might be an infant, yet the effect of the body politic upon it was to change its condition, and there was no minority at all." The fact was, that the Sovereign, however young, was competent to do all acts of Royal authority, and in every document from the time of Henry 6th, in assistance of whom the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, on account of the want of capacity of the infant king, were formed into a council, his authority was acknowledged; and with reference to his kingly capacity, he was the same as if he had been in his majority. It appeared, therefore, that with all the difficulties which had been so much talked of, it had been thought more prudent to leave the constitutional law to provide for the case, than to attempt to prevent the evil by an anticipatory measure. If it were not so, how happened it that up to this moment no one general measure had ever been introduced into Parliament? How happened it that Lord Mansfield, whose opinion, as expressed in 1751, had been quoted to them, had never thought of meeting the tremendous evils of a minor king by any general law relating to a Regency? flow was it that that noble Lord had not even attempted to remove from the laws of England the tremendous evil he was represented in the', debate to have pointed out? That great lawyer must have been convinced of the impossibility of making any general law that would have applied to every individual case. The law, therefore, was left to be provided in every case in which circumstances might occur to call for it. It was but recently that Parliament had thus been called on to provide for an emergency not before expected. Within a few days since, Parliament had provided a measure against the difficulty arising from the physical impossibility of the late King affixing his signature to public documents, and the measure had not been attended with any great difficulties. In the same manner, whenever the event now spoken of might arise, Parliament would be ready to provide for it. The common law did not provide against physical difficulties of that sort on the part of the Sovereign, but supposed him always competent to do those acts the right to perform which was vested in him. Whether they looked to cases in which the infant had not had time to acquire the capacity of acting for himself, or to those in which from illness, or extreme old age, that capacity had passed away, they would see that in neither the one nor the other had any provision been made by the Constitution of the country. He thought that in the present, as in other instances, it would be most wise to leave the settlement of this matter to the constitutional law of the kingdom, whenever circumstances should arise to call for its interference. The want of any general law, as he had before observed, had arisen from the circumstance, that every man had found it impossible to make a law that would adapt itself to all cases; and people had, therefore, thought it better to leave the matter to Parliament whenever the case should happen to arise. He made that observation with reference to the point which the hon. and learned Gentleman had so much relied on. The great force of the hon. and learned Gentleman's argument rested on the possibility of an invisible child, which might succeed to the Throne. That case had not been contemplated for the first time this night, and yet, in all times, it had been passed over without any one pretending to create a general remedy for the evil. The case supposed had not, indeed, occurred in this country; but it had happened in a neighbouring kingdom, and yet no mischief even there, and in the early times in which it did occur, had followed from it. St. Louis had died, leaving a pregnant Queen; the child was born, the Royal name was conferred on it, and it died within a short period afterwards. As far, therefore, as a precedent did exist, it was against the presumed necessity for this Motion. He could, indeed, imagine that providing a Regency beforehand might increase the difficulties of the case, instead of diminishing them. In the first place, he would ask whether they would run a race against death—whether they thought no risk was to be encountered in life—whether nothing was to be left to chance—and whether it was possible for them to go into the Royal house of mourning—into the Palace of the Sovereign—and while he was lamenting the death of his beloved brother, they could state to him that the House of Commons anticipated his own demise, and therefore called on him to concur in a measure, which every man must feel, nothing but a present necessity could justify? They were not discussing whether the subject ought not to be considered at a fit opportunity, but whether that was the moment in which to present his Majesty with an affectionate and humble Address on such a subject, and to tell him that they expected his demise, and that he ought to consider and prepare for it. If they believed that the appointment of a Regency would entirely disembarrass the country from all difficulties, they were mistaken. The Regent himself might not survive. It was a contingency whether he would or not. In a few weeks he might prove to them that the provision they had made was useless. It was only the balance of one life against another. But was there no other danger—might there not be another Court, and might not other interests be excited? Were all the benefits on one side, and were there no drawbacks on the other? The question would arise—who was to be the Regent, and what were to be his powers? From the attention he had paid to the former debate, he did not find that any two Gentlemen had agreed on these questions. Some were for an unrestricted Regency, others for a Regent with a Council. He had understood, too, that one hon. and learned Member had declared that the heir-presumptive had an undoubted right to succeed to the Regency, and that so Mr. Pitt had considered it.

said, his statement was, like that of Mr. Pitt's, that the heir presumptive possessed not a right but a paramount claim.

continued: Mr. Pitt had never so considered it. In that part of the debate Mr. Pitt had only said, that the claim of the Prince of Wales was one which was deserving of serious consideration; but he denied that, in any part of the debate, Mr. Pitt had ever treated it as a claim that he admitted directly or indirectly, to be unanswerable. Mr. Pitt had only put it on the ground of expediency, whilst Mr. Fox, (he must say with every respect for that great man's talents) had put forward the most extravagant doctrine that had ever been promulgated on that subject, either in or out of the House. [Some symptoms of dissent were here manifested by the Opposition, and some rather loud denials were uttered.] He could not avoid hearing those observations but he hoped the hon. Members opposite would have the courtesy to allow him to express his sentiments. He must repeat, that a more mischievous doctrine, and one less justified by the principles of the Constitution, he had never heard, in or out of Parliament, than that which treated the Prince of Wales as having a vested right to the Regency. Mr. Fox afterwards changed his ground, and said, that the right existed, but must be adjudicated upon by the two Houses of Parliament. Mr. Pitt met that claim of right, and denied it as a constitutional doctrine, and said that the Prince of Wales had no more right (whatever might be the case with regard to expediency) than had the meanest subject in those walls to the Regency. There was one other question. He asked the House whether in its present tone and temper it was fit for the discussion of this question? Where, too, were the Members who had left town on the Address being agreed to? Were they, whose paramount duty it was to remain, or those who had felt it convenient to do so—were they alone to decide this question? A time more inopportune never had presented itself. There were but a few precedents of even similar cases. They were in the reigns of Henry 3rd, Edward 3rd, Richard 2nd, Henry 6th, and Edward 5th. In the first four a provision had been made by Parliament after the Crown had descended on a minor, and the last was hardly a precedent, on account of the particular circumstances of the usurpation that attended it. Our Constitution was so utterly and completely blended in all its parts, its spring and energy were so great, that it would save us from all anticipated difficulties. There were but few precedents at all relating to this case, and that circumstance, which had been urged as an argument for conceding this Motion, was rather a reason why the House should avoid being guilty of any hasty legislation. The statute of William 3rd, which provided for the assembling or re-assembling of Parliament on the demise of the Crown, provided against any dangers whatever, and would enable that House itself to prevent any serious inconveniences arising from such an event. Suppose an infant Sovereign did succeed to the Throne, that infant might do many things; and among others, it might dismiss the Ministers found in possession of authority; but before it dissolved the Parliament, another Ministry must be appointed, and then the dissolution of Parliament would be directed on the responsibility of that Ministry. Was there any man who gave credit to the existence of serious difficulties, or who believed that any bold aspiring individual might get possession of the Royal infant's person, and engross all authority to himself? Before he could do this, he must annihilate the two Houses of Parliament, and must destroy the loyalty of the people; for the Royal infant would be cradled in the arms of the people, and in their hearts would find a sanctuary and refuge from every possible calamity. The child in the womb was a living being in the eye of the law, and nobody doubted that it could be the Sovereign of these realms. There might possibly appear something ridiculous in these statements, but they were necessary to the full understanding of the question. Beyond all doubt such an infant would be the Sovereign of these realms. The statute of the 6th of Anne provided for the difficulties of which his hon. and learned friend had spoken, and declared how, on the demise of one Sovereign, the other should be ascertained and declared. His hon. and learned friend had asked, who was the Sovereign? and if treason was committed, against whom was it committed? But how singular it was, that with all these difficulties, which had always existed—as much at the time of passing the Act as at this moment—with a married Queen upon the Throne, and with the probability of issue, that Parliament did not think of providing a remedy. Mind, capacity, and physical power were wanted for the Acts to which he was alluding, and the difficulty was, therefore, just as great with a child of a month old, as with a child not yet born; and yet the statute of Anne in no way met the difficulties. Then, as to the second branch of the case of his learned friend—for he had dwelt quite as much upon the second alternative as upon the first—by the Act of Anne, a Regency was expressly named—the attention of Parliament was called to the appointment of a successor, and yet no Regency was provided against the minority of the issue of the Queen. The Regency was named in case the Queen herself should die without issue, and yet she was not of an age to render it unlikely that she should have children. Having glanced at these early precedents, he came next to consider whether his hon. and learned friend was right in the mode of proceeding he proposed. The two instances on record were those of 1751 and 1765, in the one of which there was a message from the Crown, and in the other the King himself came down in person to Parliament: the attention of both Houses was therefore directed to the subject from the Throne itself; and he could show from occurrences of a late date in history, that in cases of greater difficulty than now prevailed, no Parliament had called upon the Monarch to provide for such a contingency, much less in open defiance of a previous vote of the two Houses. The precedents, in fact, were all one way; in the case of James 1st no person had ever dreamt of providing a Regency; yet upon his accession to the Throne he was the father of boys of a tender age. He travelled through a long reign without any body, certainly not Parliament, ever requiring him to provide against these supposed and imminent dangers. He said nothing of the reign of Charles 1st, in consequence of the state of the country and the prevailing discordance between the Court and the Parliament; but the case of Queen Anne, he submitted, was much stronger than that now before the House, and a Regency to govern the kingdom during the possible minority of her issue, had never been provided. His hon. and learned friend had dwelt more particularly upon the events of the years 1751 and 1765; but an examination of the facts, as regarded the first of those periods, he apprehended would not support the argument of which they were brought in aid. The question then arose upon the more modern precedents; whether they warranted, at this early period after one demise of the Crown, an Address to the foot of the Throne, requiring it to make provision for another similar contingency. Looking at the circumstances of the year 1751, he was astonished that it should be deemed a parallel case; in 1751, there was something like a disputed succession; in 1751, the country had just escaped from a rebellion; in 1751, the Monarch had been long seated on the Throne, and he was himself advanced in years. At that date, consequently, there were many reasons why a Protestant king should endeavour to preserve a Protestant line of succession to the Throne; and it might be expected, that on the Message to Parliament, he would speak of that necessity. At this moment, he begged to ask, if the Protestant line was in danger? He believed that no man entertained such an opinion. Looking to the facts, the House would see that in 1751, Parliament did not go to the foot of the Throne, and tell the king, "You have reigned a long while—the Protestant succession is in danger; it is probable that you will die in a short time, and therefore you must provide against that danger." But the Prince of Wales having died on the 26th March, 1751, the king sent a Message to the two Houses on the 26th April, and the Bill was passed, he believed, on the 15th May. In that instance there was no indecorous haste, but at this time scarcely a week was to be allowed to elapse—for his hon. and learned friend thought that the Regency ought to have been pressed even on the former occasion—before even the funeral of the late King. On an imaginary case, and a supposed exigency, Parliament was to rush to the foot of the Throne, and to require the nomination of a Regency. He did not mean to argue that, in the due season, some provision of the kind ought not to be made; but he contended that the present was not that due season; and in 1751, six weeks were allowed to transpire before any thing was done. But the case on which his hon. and learned friend seemed most to rely, that which he made his sheet-anchor in this wild voyage of discovery, was the precedent of 1765? And how did that case stand? Although the Monarch had been afflicted with illness, it never occurred to Parliament to send an Address to the foot of the Throne to desire the Monarch to provide against an impending calamity. On the birth of our late Sovereign, had anybody thought of providing for the possibility of such a case? Did not the King himself allow several Sessions to pass after the birth of his first child, before he sent a message to Parliament? The late King was born in 1762, and it was not until 1765 that a Message was sent to Parliament. Where then was the precedent to justify the House in the course now recommended? He could find none. That such a Resolution as he proposed had never been agreed to was beyond all question. But it would put the matter in a stronger light to examine the provisions of the Act of 1765. His hon. and learned friend would, of course, be content to be bound by the precedent he had himself cited, and on which he so much relied; and what was done on that occasion? The whole that was done was to leave it to the uncontrolled power of the King himself to appoint whom he chose to be Regent, only pointing out a particu- lar line. Suppose George 3rd had never exercised the power thus intrusted to him, what would have been the situation of the country? On the demise of the Crown there would have been no Regent. The facts, therefore, did not bear out his hon. and learned friend, at least to the extent he supposed; and if precedents were to govern, there was nothing in history to warrant the step now recommended. He did not mean to argue that danger might not be so imminent, and motives arising from that danger so powerful, as to call upon Parliament to disregard all precedent, but he argued that no such danger, and no such motives existed here, and that there was no specialty that could not be found in all other cases where nothing of the kind had been attempted. There was no instance upon record where the Queen Mother had been Regent, excepting upon usurpation. Here there was a double difficulty, for, as he apprehended, it would be impossible to provide against the case of the heir-presumptive without providing also for the case of the heir-apparent. What might be a very proper appointment of a Regent in the one case, might not be a proper appointment in the other; hence the difficulties to be coped with were greater, and yet the House was called upon to arrive at a decision on a sudden. He deprecated very much the discussion of abstract principles upon this question, and in any future discussion he should hold himself at full liberty, when the provisions were brought forward, to take whatever course appeared to him expedient. He was not now considering who was to be Regent, or upon what terms—he only touched those points incidentally while arguing the only material question now at issue—whether this was the proper time for adopting the proposed Motion. The situation of the Royal Family required no such haste. There was a Royal Mother, out of whose custody the heir-presumptive was not to be taken, and no danger was to be apprehended that could not be duly provided for in the next Parliament. As to the other case of posthumous issue, the character of the Queen Consort was a perfect guarantee, that no difficulty could arise in that quarter. As men of the world, the Members of the House must look at circumstances—they must balance the difficulties, and then exercise a sound and sober judgment. As men of the world, then, he asked them where was danger, and from whence was it to arise? The Constitution sufficiently provided for any events that were likely to occur, and in the meantime, nothing-should be done without deliberate consideration. It was impossible for the House, on a question of this sort, not to advert to what had been already done. The majority must bind the minority, and the former decision must be considered the general sense of the House, and if ever there was an instance in which it would be injudicious to retrace steps already taken, it was that now before the House. After a gracious Message had been received from the King, an answer had been carried to the foot of the Throne, re-echoing the sentiments of the Message, and declaring that it was not the intention of Parliament to proceed to the discussion of this subject. This very day an answer to the Address had been received at the bar, merely pointing out the desire of the Sovereign to terminate the Session without addressing himself to this or to any other question. In what situation then would the Monarch and the country be placed, if the Address to the Throne now moved were to be adopted? What would it be, but to tell the King, "We came to a hasty decision a few nights ago—we have revised our proceedings, and we now come to tell you, that the danger is such and so pressing, that it is absolutely necessary that we should proceed to the discussion of the Regency without a moment's delay." Such would be a most inauspicious commencement of a new reign, and not be that kind of loyal and affectionate proceeding with which the House of Commons would be desirous of hailing the accession of a new Sovereign. The difficulties also of the present position of the House could not be overlooked. How was it possible, in the present state of public business, and with the approaching elections (for it was of no use not to speak out), to enter properly into considerations of such a subject. He might reasonably envy Members who, from whatever cause, confident of being returned, had no occasion to look after their constituents. He was in no such happy condition—he should be obliged to go down among his electors, and he believed that not a few others were in a similar, he hoped none were in a worse situation. He should lament, not indeed for any assistance he could afford, that this great question should be discussed and decided in his absence. If the subject were commenced, it would be almost interminable—at least no one could foresee its conclusion, and it would have to be considered at a time when the few who could attend would be unable to debate it calmly, or to decide deliberately, to the satisfaction either of the Crown or of the people. Was nothing due, also, he would ask, to the feelings of the illustrious individual who filled the Throne? Approaching him with the Address now moved would be to call upon him to consider not only the possibility but the probability of his own demise. Having just succeeded to the Crown, his Royal brother yet unburied, his own affairs yet unsettled, and before he had had an opportunity of consulting the wishes of his Queen, or the views of any member of the family, was it fit to demand of him his immediate consideration and decision of such a subject? With the near prospect of a dissolution of Parliament, which had been promised by the Crown, was it decorous to rush to the foot of the Throne, and to tell the King, "Haste! we acceded to your wishes, but we repent that we did so—time presses—we cannot delay; and, yet, we are waiting for a measure to settle the Regency." On the other hand, by postponing the question, what had the country to fear? An event might happen, and it was not necessary for his hon. and learned friend to quote precedents and cases to show the uncertainty of human life; all that lived must die, and no man could say when; but that was no sufficient reason for proceeding with indecorous and injurious speed. It did not follow, because all mankind must die once, that everything must be done at once. Moral, and not mathematical, certainty was all that could be acted upon in such matters, and in this particular case the advantage of delay was obvious: the decision would be more mature—better calculated to support the dignity of the Crown, and to preserve the rights of the people. After what had passed, it would amount to a breach of that affectionate regard due to the Sovereign, if the House consented to recall and contradict its former vote; but in so saying he meant not the slightest accusation against his hon. and learned friend, who, in bringing forward this question, was, no doubt, actuated by as pure feelings as those which impelled him to resist it. He opposed the proposition because he was satisfied that this was not the proper time for considering the question.

said, that he had listened with much surprise to the speech of the hon. and learned Member who had just resumed his seat, in which he seemed so much to have consulted the feelings of the Monarch as to forget the great, paramount and permanent interests of the people. The hon. and learned Gentleman had spoken of the delicacy due to the new Monarch, and in this sentiment all would sympathize; but in his zeal upon this point he omitted to advert to the circumstance, that delicacy was as much violated by the decision of the previous night, as by the now-proposed Resolution. I cannot but think (continued the hon. Member) that when the right hon. Secretary, on the former night, with great ability and due decorum, opened the subject, he just as much violated the delicacy with which the Crown ought to be environed, as my hon. and learned friend who moved the Address we are now considering. Indeed, it appears to me, that to discuss the question without arriving at any decision, is more indelicate than to debate it with at least the prospect of a determination. We are to recollect that Kings are not like common men—they are placed alone and aloft to be the objects of general regard, and they cannot expect to enjoy that privacy which is the delight and luxury of their subjects. At the very birth of a Sovereign the great Officers of State are present, and the public solemnization of a Royal marriage is in some respects a scene of grossness and indelicacy. The House of Commons addressed Queen Anne, soliciting her to form a new matrimonial alliance at the very moment when her husband was lying dead. Sure I am, to whomever these proceedings may seem indelicate, there is one person in the country to whom they will not appear so; whatever pain might thus be given to a pusillanimous Prince, like James 1st, or Louis 15th, the head of that Illustrious House, which it is our boast to have placed on the Throne of these Kingdoms, will be above such paltry sufferings. The hon. and learned Gentleman attempted to show that in the cases of interference that have happened there had been a suspension of the executive functions, that these extraordinary provisions became necessary, and that no alarming consequences had attended them. I should wish to ask the hon. and learned Gentleman what he conceives to be the end and object of Parliament? The history of our hereditary form of Government does not present us with any certain security for the wisdom or virtue of the Chief Magistrate. The destinies of the community may be intrusted to the feeble hands of infancy; and this and other consequences have afforded ample themes to the satirist and the declaimer. Look, at this moment, at the enormous weight and extent of power confided to the hereditary Monarch, whether an infant or an adult: the population he governs is scarcely less than 120,000,000 of souls, dispersed over the world, from the Mediterranean to the Indian Archipelago—from the extreme North of the Western to the extreme South of the Eastern hemisphere; an authority so vast and so intricate, that perhaps few even of those who have the task of guiding the councils of the Sovereign are fully aware of its extent and bearings. Yet this enormous empire, with all its complicated interests, may be placed under the control of a thoughtless boy or girl. For a child, unable to walk or to express the simplest wish in its mother tongue, the claims of veteran Generals and of accomplished Statesmen are passed by—Senates pay it homage, and by the years of its rule laws are numbered and public Acts are dated. To many this system may appear, if not absurd, unreasonable; and what is the answer? Why in this enlightened age do we resist, and would oppose even with our lives any change of that system? What is the advantage that counterbalances its numerous and admitted evils? It may be designated in one word—certainty. For this, and for this alone, we are content to forego all the advantages that might result from "securing to the realm a succession of Chathams and of Marlboroughs." Under an hereditary government the Royal authority passes without interval from one Royal depository to another, and none can dispute in whom the right to the supreme magistracy resides. If this certainty be of more value than wisdom, virtues, or public services—if it be paramount to every other consideration, then, I ask, what becomes of all the arguments of the hon. and learned Member? He tells us to pause in the appointment of a Regency, and to choose well, rather than to choose soon; but if we follow his advice, we forego the only advantage of our here- ditary form of government—its certainty. Not only he, but the Ministers, in their speeches, in effect, assert, that the advantage of hereditary Monarchy is an unimportant advantage, and that the evil of an elective Monarchy is an unimportant evil. We are to run the most fearful risk to which a nation can be exposed—we are to be left in doubt as to the person in whom the supreme power of the State shall reside—we are to incur the danger of a vacant Throne and a disputed succession rather than—what? Rather than that hon. Gentlemen shall stay in London in the dog days, and incur heavier charges for ribbons at an election. Is it the wish of the House that the Monarchy of this country should be elective? I doubt if such be the sentiment of a single Member in it; but why by our measures should we teach the people to wish it? When an extremity of the kind arises, we must face it; but is it the part of wisdom to promote and invite that extremity? Shall we, to use the expression of Burke, teach the people to make that which ought to be their rare repast their daily bread? The Solicitor General has talked much about discussing this subject with temper and calmness; but let him reflect upon the circumstances under which we might be called upon to debate the question of a Regency, should an event contemplated unhappily occur. We have heard of the expense of elections; of the length of the Session; of the lateness of our sittings; and of the refreshing effects of country air. I hope no unforeseen calamity may prevent the enjoyment of it; God forbid there should be any necessity for relinquishing it; and I am sure there is not a subject in the country who will not heartily join in this prayer: but if we reject the Address of my hon. and learned friend, and the contingency contemplated should happen, in what a condition will the nation be placed? If God should avert that calamity against which we refuse to provide, all that we can say is, that Providence is more beneficent than we are cautious. If we rise without deliberating and deciding upon the subject of a Regency, we leave it to mere chance whether, before we meet again, the executive power of the State may not be in a state of abeyance in the hands of an infant. The Solicitor General tells us that the House has already voted an Address—that it has determined not to throw any obstacle in the way of its dismissal. I cannot see how that vote pre- judges the present Motion; and when I recollect through how many stages every legislative measure must pass, in order to give time for Parliament to debate and consider, surely it cannot be expected that on a question of this magnitude we should decide in a single day, especially when so large a minority pressed the fitness of an adjournment. Is that insulated vote, in the face of such a minority, to preclude the House from entering, before it rises, into this great and momentous question? Because I wish for an opportunity for reconsidering the question, I am obliged to ray hon. and learned friend for his Motion of to-night, which shall have my most earnest and hearty support. Some of the arguments of the Solicitor General seem to me entirely futile and groundless. He said that in 1788 and 1810, a necessary suspension of the Royal power took place—that Parliament provided for the occasion, and that no harm was done. Parliament did provide for the occasion, but was no harm done? All such measures do harm—and why? Because they are revolutionary. Nothing can justify them but the necessity of the case, and they were as unconstitutional as the vote that James 2nd had abdicated the Throne. The fact that Parliament was compelled so to interfere in 1788 and 1810 seems to me a strong argument against the postponement of this great subject. All irregularities of this description are dangerous in proportion to their frequency; and if, in a little more than forty years, the two Houses of Parliament shall be obliged to interfere three times to con for the supreme executive power by a positive enactment, in the present state of the public mind it is utterly impossible that the foundations on which hereditary monarchy rests should not be shaken. Other arguments of the hon. and learned Gentleman seem hardly to deserve notice. He said that the attendance would be thin; just as if the House had not itself the power to compel a full attendance of its Members. Next he talked of the great expense of elections; and, no doubt, expensive elections are a great evil; but this objection comes with the worst possible grace from those who have uniformly resisted any change of the representative system which would make them less expensive.—But, admitting it to the full extent, it affords no reason why we should break up, and leave the most important business undone, the Civil List unsettled, and the Regency unprovided. At all events, the people ought not to smart for it; and if expensive elections are a small evil when the question of reform is argued, we are not to permit those who then asserted that, to tell us now, that it is a great evil when the topic of a Regency is discussed. Either it is great or it is small; if great, we ought to have reform; if small, it ought to be no bar to the discussion of the Regency. We all know, that when a Parliament has lasted for seven years it must be dissolved: it is usually dismissed at the end of six years, and it is perfectly well understood and notorious, that such an event is about to occur, and I ask the right hon. Secretary, or any other Minister of the Crown, whether he can give any reason for now dissolving Parliament, which would not have applied to the year 1826? Yet in 1826 no question was pending or undecided approaching the consequence of that which we are now about indefinitely to postpone. Thinking it of the greatest importance to the happiness and welfare of the people, as well as to the dignity and stability of the Throne, that the House should not separate without making provision for an event which may occur in the Royal Family before the next Session; and thinking also that a matter of such high concern should not be postponed merely that an incapable Ministry may get rid of an unmanageable Parliament, I shall most cordially vote with my hon. and learned friend.

lamented the late decision which the House had come to on this subject; but, under all the circumstances, he thought it would neither be decorous nor expedient to re-open the question. The House, after a long discussion, had decided by a large majority, that this question ought not to be entertained in the present Session of Parliament; and, however he might regret such a decision, he still felt persuaded that no advantage could result from rescinding that resolution. The Crown, in its Message communicated to the House, had informed them that it was desirable to despatch the necessary business of the Session with as much speed as might be convenient, and to proceed afterwards with the election of a new Parliament. By this communication the Members of that House were, to a certain degree, made Councillors to the Crown; and it placed them, as he thought, in an unfortunate situation, for it made them judges in a case where they ought not to be consulted. Thus far, therefore, he thought that his Majesty's Ministers had pursued an injudicious course. His own decided opinion was, that before they separated they ought to set about making provision for the Civil List, and settling the question of the Regency, in order to avert those evils which might by possibility occur. But his Majesty's Ministers advised Parliament to adopt a different course, and Parliament, by a large majority, agreed with them. This decision, as he had already said, he greatly lamented; but as it had been come to, he thought that the House ought to abide by it. There was no instance of the appointment of a Regency being the act of the House itself, without a previous Message from the Crown. While the course followed by his Majesty's Ministers appeared to him a very unwise one, he would still say, that, if danger should arise from it, let the mischief and responsibility be on their own heads.

could by no means concur in the sentiments expressed upon this question by the hon. and learned Gentleman, the Solicitor General. It did not show any indecent haste, neither was there any disrespect to the Crown in calling upon the Parliament to address the Crown on a question of so great importance as this, with a view to an early settlement of it. His Majesty's Ministers having failed to do so of themselves, there could be no indecency in urging the matter upon their consideration. In the earlier periods of our history there were instances of Regencies being appointed without any previous Message from the Crown. Such was the case in the time of Henry 8th, when two bills were brought in, by which the Regency was vested in the Queen Mother, first in relation to the Princess Elizabeth; and afterwards conferring the power on Queen Jane, in contemplation of her probable issue. In neither of those cases were the measures disapproved of by the Crown. Even Queen Elizabeth, who was very jealous of her prerogative, found no fault with the Commons for advising her to marry. The usual course, he admitted, was, that it should be left to the Crown in the first instance to submit a proposition to the House, and that the House should in the exercise of its judgment, state its willingness to agree to it. He did not think with the hon. and learned Gentleman that any suggestion of this nature would ap- pear indecent to the Royal mind, immediately after the Monarch's accession to the Throne; or that it could be at all deemed indelicate, to state that the Monarch was subject to the numerous evils of nature. It could not be deemed indelicate towards the Illustrious Personage now on the Throne, to remind him that the late King was only three years older than himself, and that, therefore, a provision ought to be made to meet one of the greatest evils that could befal the country, an evil involving a question of the greatest national importance. Though a suggestion of the kind might excite alarm in a weak mind, it could not possibly alarm so strong and sound a mind as his present Majesty was known to possess. He would ask if any private individual who had an estate to bequeath, and who had to make provision for a large family could in the slightest degree be offended by such a suggestion? He would ask the hon. and learned Gentleman if any of his clients came to consult him in such a case, whether he would say, that it would be wise in him to let a single day elapse without making a suitable settlement of his affairs? In the case now before the House the family was the people; and should the demise of the Crown unfortunately take place while Parliament was dissolved, there could be no doubt that for a considerable time the people would be bereft of all protection. Nor did he think that the course now proposed was inconsistent with their former proceedings, or with their feelings of respect for the Sovereign. The Crown had already received an Address founded upon the Royal Message, and the House pledged itself to make such temporary provision as might be requisite for the conduct of the public service in the interval that must elapse between the close of a present Session and the assembling of a new Parliament. But he would ask, when such provision had been made, as it ought to be, would there be any inconsistency, if the House thought that there were other subjects demanding its immediate attention, in addressing the King to authorise Parliament to take them into consideration? He saw no inconsistency in such a proceeding, and if it were inconsistent he would not hesitate to adopt it; for it was their first duty to their constituents to adjust without loss of time a matter intimately connected with the succession to the Crown and with the safety of the State. Nothing should prevent them from undertaking such a task but being quite incompetent to perform it; and accordingly, most of the arguments urged against the Motion had been directed to show that the present Parliament could not attend to the subject. But the greater part of the hon. and learned Gentleman's arguments would equally apply after the new Parliament was convened as at present. The hon. and learned Gentleman argued as if the better plan would be, to leave all the cases to right themselves, and that the wisdom of Parliament should only step in after the events had occurred. But he would ask, why was it more expedient to provide three months hence against an evil that might possibly occur within twelve months after, than to provide against it now? The question was, not to provide only for a minority, but also for the case of an unborn successor; though whether there was a probability of such an event occurring or not, was not then the time to inquire. The House night, how ever, suppose the evil occurring suddenly; the Privy Council would then be called on the instant, and the first question asked would be, whether the Queen Consort was pregnant? It might take a long time before a decisive answer could be obtained 011 this point. Then what was to be done? Parliament would not be sitting, and its Members, or rather the Members of the two Houses, might be dispersed all over the country, so that they could not be collected sooner than a fortnight, and who, he would ask, was to provide for the execution of the public service in the mean time? It was true that in 1789 and 1810, the Ministers of the existing King continued to act in his name, the Courts of Law continued open, and writs were issued. But here the case was very different, and he should like to know how that confusion could be avoided which must arise upon the demise of the Crown, when no successor was appointed? He would ask how was the public peace to be preserved? Individuals might exert their authority, but it would be optional with the people whether they paid obedience to them or not. Upon the interruption of the Royal authority by the demise of the Crown, it was the imperative duty of the two Houses of Parliament to make provision against a contingent evil. The hon. and learned Gentleman was cheered when he argued that the period of six months was too short to allow of any de- cisive measure being fully considered; but he (Mr. Wynn) would ask, what was to be done when, upon the demise of the Crown, no provision whatever was made, and the two Houses of Parliament were not sitting? Let him ask, could not the question be more calmly and dispassionately considered now, than at a time when different persons would be urging their claims? In 1789 there could be no doubt whatever as to the person who was to exercise the Royal authority, and at that time an argument was unadvisedly urged by Mr. Fox, which gave to Mr. Pitt an advantage that he never afterwards lost during the whole discussion. He might here observe, that perhaps Lord Loughborough had used stronger language than Mr. Fox. All parties, however, then agreed that, whether the power was to be more or less restricted, the heir-apparent was to be the person who should discharge the office of Regent. Matters were now, however, on a very different footing and precedents might be quoted from our history, as in the reign of Edward 3rd, and two Regency Acts of Henry 8th's reign, to show that the mother of the minor, not the heir-apparent, should be Regent. In Queen Mary's reign, the powers of the Regency, under her expected issue, were to be exercised by King Philip, and in 1751 they were vested in the Princess Dowager of Wales and a council. There were other cases which favoured the pretensions of the heir-presumptive, and all these claims were complicated in the present instance by the possibility that the heir-presumptive might be the Sovereign of a foreign kingdom. These circumstances showed that there might be, in case of the demise of the Crown, a number of conflicting claims to the Regency, all of which might be supported by the practice of former times. Let the House suppose, that in the event of a case suddenly occurring, one of these persons might be advised to exercise the Royal authority while Parliament was not sitting, would not the country be placed in a most inconvenient, and even hazardous predicament? It was wisdom to guard against such a case—it was the reverse of wisdom not to guard against it. It was not wisdom to say "Oh, nothing of this kind will occur; but, if it does, Providence, and the wisdom of the two Houses of Parliament, will bring us out of it." The hon. and learned Gentleman said, we ought to look to the wisdom of our ancestors, and referred to the instances of Henry 3rd, and Richard 2nd. For his own part, however, he was not disposed to look to such precedents as authority that ought to guide his conduct in cases like the present. They might as well ask him to look to what had occurred upon the death of St. Louis, after his return from the Crusades in 1314. There were no cases, however, which the Parliament could take for their guide in providing for the possible occurrence of the demise of the Crown during the dissolution of Parliament; but there were many cases to prove, that Parliament had taken especial care to provide for the Government of the country during a probable minority. The right hon. Gentleman then referred to a series of cases in the history of this country, with a view to show that since the Revolution the principle which was now contended for, had been recognized, and that it had repeatedly been acted upon for the purpose of guarding against any contingencies which might place the succession in difficulty, or occasion any embarrassment in the affairs of the State. With respect to Charles 2nd, one of the articles against Lord Clarendon was, that he had encouraged the King's marriage with the Princess Katharine, knowing at the same time that there was no probability of issue in fact, whatever there might have been in law. With respect to the time of James 2nd, there was then a case which loudly called for the interference of Parliament; but that bigotted and besotted Monarch dreaded nothing more than the assembling the two Houses of Parliament. As to the case referred to by an hon. and learned Gentleman, in which allusion was made to the possibility of posthumous issue, he was sure that, if the pregnancy of the Queen had been declared, Parliament would have made provision for the emergency, but it was not necessary to pass a bill of that nature when there was no probability of any necessity arising for its operation, as there would be time enough to take such a precaution if it became necessary. On the death of a Sovereign it was, of course, necessary to make provision for the exercise of the Royal authority during the minority of a child. In the reigns of George 1st and George 2nd, no possibility of this kind could have arisen, because they had children at the time of their coming to the Throne. In the case of his late Majesty, George 3rd, the provision which was made in 1765 might more wisely have been adopted immediately after the King's accession; but the moment that the possibility of his demise was brought painfully before the public mind, the King himself went down to the two Houses of Parliament, and caused the necessary measures to be taken. Was it desirable that the Royal authority should he left with a child only ten years of age? If a case should arise, he was ready to agree that it must be provided for by an ordinance of the two Houses of Parliament, and the necessity of the case would give such an ordinance the force of a law passed in all its forms; but he should consider such a necessity a great calamity. It would familiarise the country with the principle of passing laws to which the Head of the State did not assent, and it might establish a dangerous precedent for future times. He thought that the appointment of a Regent was a Legislative act, to which the assent of the Sovereign as well as of Parliament was most essential. It was essential that the succession to the Throne should not be altered or settled without the concurrence and assistance of the reigning Monarch. What evils could arise from the consideration of this question at the present moment? It might, perhaps, be the cause of some inconvenience to Members who were anxious to betake themselves to their constituents, but it should be recollected that their duties in that House were paramount. Those who were desirous of proceeding immediately to the consideration of the question had an ungracious task to perform. But he was sure, that the House of Commons would object to the influence of petty personal motives on an occasion where the interests of the State were so deeply involved. What was it to the public if no one of the 658 Members who now sat in Parliament, were returned at another election. He was not one of those who were disposed to find fault with the Parliament as at present composed, but he was satisfied that if by any calamity they should all, at one fell swoop, be removed from their seats, the country would not fail to find those who would be able to discharge the duties with equal fidelity and with equal effect. They ought not to put their own personal convenience in competition with the public interests. It would be found, by a reference to past events, that from the institution of septennial Parliaments, down to 1784, there was hardly one Parliament dissolved in less than six years, while some sat till within three or four months of the time at which they would naturally expire. Why, therefore, should the Members of that House consider themselves so important, that, come what might, they must go and look after their constituents? It was plain that this or any other measure could not take up the whole time during which Parliament might continue legally to sit, all the other business being disposed of in the manner it was. He was, therefore, prepared to support a supplication to the Throne that some measures might be adopted to guard against any suspension or embarrassment in the exercise of the Royal authority. The tone and temper of Parliament would be more calm now than could be calculated upon at a future meeting of the House.

said, that he would be the last man in the world to be guilty of any indecency, or any thing that could bear the semblance of disrespect, to the Sovereign who now sat on the Throne; but he regretted that his Majesty's Ministers had not advised that illustrious personage to guard against the contingencies to which the hon. Member, in the discharge of his duty, had adverted. Ministers should have taken up the business in a spirit of sound policy, and with a view to the future. "Non modo quod ante pedes videre sapere est, sed etiam illa quœ futura sunt, prospicere." Ministers would better secure the confidence of the people if they adopted a firmer and more consistent course than they had hitherto done.

observed, that the subject was a very delicate one, and that the measure which was proposed would be most ungracious at this moment. He did not think this the time for a cool and dispassionate consideration of the question, and was of opinion that it would be better to defer it to the next meeting of Parliament.

said, he supposed his Majesty's Ministers grounded their claims to the confidence of the public, as to the course to be pursued in the delicate emergencies which might occur, upon the judicious manner in which they superintended the Regency of Portugal, leaving an unprotected infant with a tottering kingdom. The thing that they calculated upon was the certainty of human existence, and the risk which they ran was the possibility of civil discord.

said, that, as he had already suffered five nights to pass over since the last debate, he was not sure that he ought now to advert to an attack made by the hon. and learned member for Knaresborough upon himself, and other hon. and independent Gentlemen who surrounded his Majesty's Ministers on that occasion. [The noble Lord was proceeding to make some further remarks upon this subject, but was called to order by the Speaker.] He then expressed his dissent from the present Motion, and said that the question had, on the former evening, received all the discussion which was desirable at present.

declared his confidence in his Majesty's Ministers, and condemned this Motion as indecent. It was disrespectful to the uninterred remains of the late King, and discourteous towards the present Sovereign. It seemed to him to have been dictated by party spirit. He thought some other subject might have been selected for discussion under existing circumstances.

wished to know in what way the present Motion was indecent, disrespectful, or discourteous—or what part of his hon. friend's speech appeared to have been dictated by party spirit? If it was indecent or discourteous to discuss this subject, he would ask, had it not already been discussed on the Message from the Throne, and had not the right hon. Secretary of State then said, that the inconveniences which might arise from the demise of the Crown without a Parliament must be uppermost in the mind of every Member of Parliament and of the Government? The House was now only doing a duty which was paramount to every other, and he had heard no reason advanced against the discussion, except that it was desirable to have a dissolution as soon as possible. He was not one of those who denied that the Crown had a right to dissolve the Parliament, nor that other Administrations had occasionally advised the Sovereign of this country to take the same step. Of that advice, in the present instance, he did not complain, because the Estimates were not all voted at the moment when the announcement of a dissolution reached the Representatives of the people, although this fact would show how little prepared the state of the public service was for this important and unexpected announcement. The precedent of 1820 was not at all in point; and certainly the proposition for some permanent arrangement of the Civil List, on a better foundation, should have been supported and carried into effect. He might be supposed to be more intimately acquainted with the details of that subject, from official sources, than others; yet he was decidedly of opinion that the subject would not be better or more competently discussed in a new Parliament than in the present. In fact, everything, in that instance, would depend on Parliament being enabled to make a good bargain for the public. He could not, in looking at this question, and the conduct of Government in postponing to another Session such a vitally important subject, help contrasting it with their conduct in the last Session, when, although the Table of this House had been disencumbered of the numerous bills which crowded it early in June, such was the eagerness of Government to leave nothing unsettled, that the House continued to sit for three weeks, merely to give the great coal-owners in the North of England an opportunity to settle a dispute about duties with the City of London. Yet the Ministry affected to think it altogether unnecessary that, before separating, Members should now have an opportunity of expressing, for their own sakes, and that of their constituents, what were their opinions on this very momentous question, and what ought to be the course pursued in the event of the melancholy contingency alluded to in the Address. In answer to the argument of his right hon. friend, he would just remind him and the House, that a contingency of this nature had occurred with respect to his late lamented friend, Lord Liverpool, who, in the perfect possession of all his faculties, appeared in the debate at the House of Lords on the 16th of February, and the next day was stricken to the earth by an infliction of Divine Providence, which deprived him of the exercise of his faculties, and occasioned thereby considerable inconvenience to the public service: that his successor, a man in the fullest exercise of a vigorous mind and good constitution, having witnessed the prorogation of Parliament on the 28th of July in the same year, survived that event but ten days, when he was snatched from a career of energy and usefulness, and the name of Canning numbered amongst those of the illustrious dead, although he had been, but three days before that melancholy event, engaged in a long conference with his Sovereign at Windsor. With such mementos of the uncertainty of life before them (and he believed this country might yet have deep cause to regret the loss of the services of such men) he could see no want of respect to the Crown, or discourteousness, in supposing such a calamity possible as that alluded to; nor did he think that either of those illustrious individuals, so untimely snatched from a career of usefulness, would have had the rashness to advise the Crown, under such circumstances, to dissolve Parliament, and run such a fearful hazard as might be incurred, should such a calamity befal this country as the sudden demise of the present illustrious possessor of the Crown of these realms. In contemplating the possibility of such a distressing event, he felt there could be nothing, by implication, discourteous or presumptuous towards a British Prince, who had many times braved death on the quarter-deck of an English man-of-war. It would be recollected, that under the injunctions of the Statute, the Privy Council must be called together as soon as conveniently might be. Not, be it remembered, a Privy Council of Councillors to the living Prince, to whom they had sworn no fealty, nor yet to the dead Monarch, to whom their duty had ceased with his life; but a Privy Council who were to be called together, specifically, to point out and proclaim the successor to the Crown. How was such a Council to proceed in that inquiry? Upon what examination of facts were they to decide, in that case, as to the fitness or expediency of appointing a Regent? Were they calculated with effect to enter into all the minutiæ of a question, including considerations of the utmost delicacy, as well as of the most vital importance to the State? Was it possible this could be done by this Council as well or as effectually as in Parliament?—or could such a Cabinet for a moment imagine, that whilst they were employed, debating these delicate subjects within doors at the Council-office, there would be no debating upon it, of a more animated nature, out of doors? What would the proclamation of such a Council avail, desiring or requiring the people of this country to pay allegiance to A, B, or to C? What validity would their authority have with the body of the people of this country should they continue to debate within their own room such subjects for any length of time, whilst there was no exercise of the Royal functions by any recognized authority? True, the Parliament was to meet as soon as it might be convenient. But scattered, as the Members would be at the period of a general election, all over the country, would it be possible to convene it in less than eight or ten days, if so soon? And then, of whom would it consist? Possibly of 200 or 300 gentlemen, several, if not the most of whom, had been, in the meantime, repudiated and rejected by their old constituents. But, to such a Parliament, and so constituted, pursuant to the law as it now stood, must the adjustment of all these delicate subjects be intrusted. And in the case contemplated, this difficulty might be increased by the novel circumstance of both the heir-presumptive and the heir-apparent being in a state of minority. It was assumed by his right hon. friend, that, as a "matter of course, the infant would act by known, recognized, and responsible advisers. But he would ask, who was to act in the first instance for such Royal infant, and choose for it such responsible advisers? If it were said, that House was to be consulted, he imagined they would be consulted only so long as they consulted the wishes of the predominating influence, in the same way that Corporations were called on, in some boroughs, to choose officers at eleven o'clock, and told at twelve to go about their business, having finished their election. There was open to adoption, by those who now were called on to exercise this important duty only, a choice of difficulties; and, considering the great effect which their determination must have on the tranquillity and stability of our institutions, it was highly desirable and expedient, that the regular continuance of the exercise of the office of the Crown should not be suffered to be interrupted, and that its assumption, immediately on the demise, should be fixed by regular law, so as to remove us from all inconvenience likely to result from being in a state of abeyance, for any length of time, to that Royal authority, which ought to regulate the motions of the whole machine of government, and keep everything in its place, revolving round it as a centre. It was unwise and injudicious, to say the least of it, to call the other members of the State, or the public generally, to deliberate when, or how far, the prerogative, and even the functions, of royalty might be in abeyance without inconvenience or difficulty. He would put it to the common sense of the House, and to each Member individually, and particularly to the hon. and learned Gentleman, the Solicitor General, who had alluded to the postponement of this discussion as of no material importance, whether, if they were called on to advise on a case of this kind, within their own families, or with the hon. and learned Gentleman, as a professional adviser—whether they would not recommend each and all of them, not on the possibility, but almost probability, of a minority in the succession to a large entailed estate, that there should be an immediate appointment of a guardian to protect the interest, and watch over the welfare, of the infant heir; and not expose the property to the risk of a Chancery suit, and the child to ruin? That was the course he was convinced the hon. and learned Solicitor General would recommend to a client, and the right hon. Secretary of State would adopt, with regard to his own infant family. If, however, the advisers of the Crown did give that counsel relative to the interests of the Throne and of the State, which they never would have given with respect to their own, it was but justice that the responsibility of that advice should rest on the heads of its authors; and that the minority in that House, as he anticipated the advocates of an immediate appointment of a Regency, in the event of a demise, would be, should be exonerated from any share in the responsibility of adopting a course which was full of complexity and possible confusion, in the event of so fearful a contingency as that in contemplation. All that had been said as to the inexpediency of pressing the subject on the attention of the Monarch at present, who was busy in arranging the details of his household, fell to the ground the moment it was recollected of how much greater importance such arrangement must be than matters of ceremonial or of private convenience and accommodation. The public convenience and public safety were paramount objects; and there must be abundant time to provide for both, if the disposition existed to press them on the mind of the illustrious individual most interested. The supporters of the Motion had nothing to apprehend from the attempt made to implicate them in a charge of implied disrespect to the character of that illustrious individual, It was unworthy of refutation. The charge was levelled at I and against the responsible Ministers of the Crown, for having neglected that which, under the circumstances, was their obvious duty. The object of the Motion was, to assert a right which was equally applicable to parties interested in the appointment of a guardian to the heir of property, or to the heir of the Throne of these realms, except that, in the present instance, when public and general objects were at issue, the anxiety of all men ought to be proportioned to the magnitude of the risk that was run, and the danger which might possibly result to our liberties, and the safety and tranquillity of the State.

absolved from all party feeling the Mover and the supporters of the present Motion. The question before the House was one rather of expediency than of law; namely, whether a Regency, in the event of a demise, should be the creature of this, or of a subsequent Parliament? That resolved itself into the consideration—whether this was the proper moment to entertain the question of the Regency. He agreed with the hon. member for Dorsetshire that they could not, without inconsistency, adopt this Motion, after the vote of Wednesday last. The whole discussion involved the probability of a certain event happening, to which it was painful to allude. If he thought that there was any probability of that event coming to pass, he should be disposed to agree with the motion of his hon. and learned friend. But he had heard no statement that led him to come to that conclusion; and when he recollected the importance that was attached to the question itself, together with the number of delicate points that were involved in it, he could not persuade himself that the consequence would not be the prolongation of the inquiry beyond the period when the present Parliament must necessarily die by law. Let them look at what took place in the course of the reign of George 3rd. In November, 1788, the malady of the Sovereign was communicated to Parliament, and the propriety of a Regency came under discussion. What was the consequence? Although it was admitted on all hands that the Prince of Wales had a right to the Regency vested in him, or at least a paramount claim to it, and there was no dispute, and could be none, as to the person of the Regent, yet the discussion continued till the 19th of February, when the King's recovery rendered further proceedings unnecessary; so that in this case four months were expended; and it was admitted now, by the very persons who supported the present Motion, that the case, in this instance, involved still more delicate questions. He therefore thought it highly probable, that if they were to begin on this question to-morrow, they would find that its discussion would be prolonged beyond the legal duration of this Parliament. But there were other considerations, which, in his mind, were imperative. He looked upon it that Parliament was to be considered in the same light as a man. With respect to the latter it had been observed, that if he was aware of the period of his decease, he would cease to have that activity of mind which fitted him for the affairs of life. So it was with Parliament; and when it knew that, in the course of a few months, it would cease to exist, he would defy any Parliament to look at such a subject as this with that temper and foresight which were so absolutely essential. For all these reasons, then, he thought he was justified in coming to the conclusion, that it would be much more expedient to postpone this question till the new Parliament should have assembled. He also begged to observe, that no precedent could exist for the discussion which they were now invited to undertake. Previous to the Act of William 3rd, by which Parliament was empowered, at the will of the Sovereign, to extend its sittings six months into the new reign, it was of course evident that no precedent could have occurred; for, as the Parliament had no power to sit, a discussion such as this could never have been agitated. At the death of James 1st there was ample reason, according to the arguments of his hon. and learned friend, to discuss the question of a Regency; but no such question was discussed. In general, prior to the Act of King William, whenever a question of Regency was discussed, it was necessarily in a new Parliament. What, then, was the object of the Act of King William 3rd? It was passed with views quite different from any that now existed. It was passed immediately after the people had recovered their new, or, he might say, their old Constitution; and it was passed with an intention to secure that. It was intended to guard against dissension, and even civil war, which might have ensued at the demise of the Crown. King James was then alive, and he might have issued writs for a new Parliament. The Whig party, therefore, which had effected the Revolution, in conjunction with the most respectable people of the kingdom, thought it right to provide against such a contingency, by prolonging the life of the same body for some months after the King's death, so that the exclusion might be permanent. This was the purpose of that law. For a long time there was a disputed succession. During the reign of Queen Anne, George 1st, and George 2nd, there was another person existing, who might issue writs at the death of any one of these Sovereigns, and there was a risk of having rival Parliaments, a civil war, and a disputed succession to the Crown. It was on this account that the Act was passed to continue the Parliament, and the officers under the Crown, in possession of their offices, unless the King decided otherwise, six months after the demise of the Crown. He would not say that it was not wise to provide for some contingencies to meet some dangers; but it was certainly not wise to make laws for every possible contingency. Parliament ought not, in fact, to make laws for extreme cases. It ought not to make laws for speculative cases. The principles of Parliament were essentially practical, and it ought not to think of those extreme and speculative and barely possible contingencies, which had been referred to, unless it were made out that there was a probability, or an approximation to a probability, that the event which they all deprecated and deplored was likely to happen before the meeting of the new Parliament. He saw no danger of that; nothing to excite alarm. In his opinion, therefore, a new Parliament was the most proper to enter on the subject, and that only could fully deliberate on such an important matter, so as to bring it to that successful result which was desired by his hon. and learned friend. One of the advantages of an hereditary Monarchy was the certainty of succession to the Throne. It was uninterrupted, and there was no doubt about it. With a limited Monarchy again, the country never could be destitute of responsible Ministers; and having both a certainty of succession and a certainty of responsible Ministers, he really saw no danger from a minority, when the minor was twelve years of age, which made it necessary for the Parliament immediately to settle who should be Regent. There was nothing at present in the circumstances of the country that made it even advisable for Parliament to have a Regent ready prepared in its pocket to be brought forth in a case of necessity. In many cases the Queen Consort had been in a situation similar to the present Queen, without Parliament having thought it necessary to provide a Regency. This was the case after the accession of George 3rd, and during the first pregnancy of Queen Charlotte, and the same arguments might have been then as were now urged. It might have been stated, that it was essential to appoint a Regency to provide for the possible case of the succession of a minor not then born. But if this were right, why not go further? He would suppose an extreme case of a Dowager Queen being pregnant; and it being probable that might have twins, why not bring in a bill to determine which of the offspring should reign? But if such a case as that did not require to be provided for, neither did the existing case with that extreme haste which was implied in the present Motion. Considering that there was no probability of that event occurring, which all alike would equally lament and deplore, he thought it was neither consistent with decency, nor with respect to his Majesty's most gracious Message, considering that a new Parliament would be far better to discuss this subject than an old Parliament; that it would then be done more safely, and with greater advantages; that no danger could arise from leaving the question unsettled for a few months; he saw no reason whatever for agreeing to the Motion of his hon. and learned friend.

saw nothing, in voting for the Motion, either of inconsistency in regard to the late Resolution of the House, or of indecency in regard to the Crown, which ought to make him vote against his hon. and learned friend. The Motion was opposed on two grounds—that the House had already pledged itself to a different course, and that the present Motion would be an indecency towards the Crown. There was no man in that House who felt greater delicacy than he felt in touching such questions, or more respect for the King; and if he thought that voting for the Motion was disrespectful to the King, he would not support it. But when a great and serious evil was likely to arise—when difficulties and danger were threatening—it would not be disrespectful to the King to engage in a discussion that involved the best interests of the country. It was a question in which the interests of the whole people were deeply concerned. His hon. and learned friend said, if there was a probability of the event occurring, he should be ready to enter into a discussion of the question; but if there was no probability, there was, at least, a possibility; and every man must feel, that against that possibility it was imprudent not to provide. The case had been compared to a man neglecting to make his will; but it was worse than neglecting it—it was precluding himself from the power of doing so for a considerable time. It was like a man having to suffer a recovery, in order to enter into the possession of an estate, and his hon. and learned friend's arguments were like advising him not to do that now, but to wait till the end of the long vacation. But his hon. and learned friend would advise no client to act in that manner; and was then the business of the country to be conducted on a principle that would be severely condemned in the management of a private estate? Was there any disrespect in that House reminding his Majesty that his life, like that of all other men, must be uncertain in its duration, and against the consequences of that uncertainty it was desirable to provide? His hon. and learned friend had referred to the time during which the Regency bill was agitated in 1788, but that fact, if it had any force as an argument on either side, told against his hon. and learned friend. What was the cause of the delay? Was it not because no provision had been made for such a contingency before the Throne was actually vacant, and the strongest party feelings were roused in the contention? The question then became one of great difficulty; it required much and serious deliberation. So, he admitted, would the present question; but to say that it could not be settled in four or six months appeared to him a great exaggeration. He did not mean to follow his hon. and learned friend who had introduced his Motion through all the details of the question; he did not mean to enter into a consideration of all the contingencies which might arise in case of an event which he, in common with all his hon. and learned friends, should deplore; he admitted the difficulties of the discussion, but seeing in it nothing like disrespect to his Majesty, he should give his support to the motion of his hon. and learned friend.

could not help thinking, that the apathy which had appeared during this debate was an evidence that this was not a desirable period to enter on such a protracted discussion as must necessarily ensue should the Regency Question be brought forward. If it were now commenced it would probably be so far advanced at the end of August, that the bill might be got to the second reading, when neither the attention of the House, nor the number of Members in attendance, would be such as the importance of the subject required. He could enter into the feelings of those who were in the minority the other night, who felt themselves included by the vote of the House, thanking his Majesty for being unwilling to recommend to them, at this advanced period of the Session, and the state of public business, any new matter, and assuring his Majesty that the House would apply, without delay, to make temporary provision for the conduct of the public service during the interval between the close of the present Session and the meeting of a new Parliament. He could enter, he said, into their feelings, but that ought not to induce the House of Commons to contradict its own resolution. To the Address which the House had formerly agreed to, the Crown had that night returned an answer, and his Majesty thanked the House of Commons for its dutiful Address. If the Motion were carried, they must go up to the Crown with a very different Address, which would require another answer. The Address moved by the hon. and learned Gentleman could not, however, have the approbation of the House of Commons. It was hardly respectful to the Crown, after the King had communicated to the House of Commons that he had no intention to recommend to it the consideration of a Regency, or any other matter which would have the effect of delaying the proceedings of Parliament, to vote an Address to compel the Crown to deliver a Message which it declared it had no intention to deliver. It would be not a very auspicious commencement of a new reign for the House to oblige the King to do what he had declared he had no intention of doing. The proposal of his Majesty's Government, to permit a sufficient time to elapse for maturely considering the proposal of the Crown, was reasonable and proper. He could conceive nothing more difficult than to determine what were the contingencies likely to happen on the demise of the Crown, so that they might be properly provided for beforehand. There were very many contingencies which might occur, and which it might be extremely difficult to provide for; and after exerting the utmost ingenuity in devising remedies, they might produce ten thousand times more danger than if the contingencies took place without the remedies. Some specific calamities, to which the Crown was subject, as well as private individuals, had been adverted to; and his hon. friend had instanced the calamity which had befallen Lord Liverpool, who was in the full possession of his health and strength, and in one short week was struck to the ground, and deprived of his mental faculties. But was it proposed to make provision for every possible contingency by which the exercise of the Regal functions might be suspended? If not, what had the case of Lord Liverpool to do with the question? The House would recollect what had passed in the reign of George 3rd. In 1788, when a calamity had visited the Sovereign, proceedings were taken, to provide a Regency. But did Parliament think it desirable to provide against the recurrence of such an event? No; for in 1810 it did recur, and did not Parliament find itself without any provision for that contingency? It did; and why, after having obtained the knowledge that the Royal faculties might decay, did it refuse to provide for such a future contingency? Because it would rather permit its recurrence than be guilty of the indecency and the indelicacy of presuming upon the possible future derangement of the King. The hon. Mover had stated eight or ten suppositions, and these only by way of sample. If the contingencies were so numerous, and the difficulty so great, was it decent, before the funeral of one King, to force his successor to deliver a Message, requiring the House to consider all the contingencies? If the question was so complicated, let it be left to the Crown and its advisers to devote a sufficient time for its consideration. There were two contingencies which had been mainly dwelt on. The first was not a question immediately connected with that of a Regency, because it might occur when the heir-presumptive was not a minor; namely, when on the demise of the Crown there was an heir-presumptive, and also a Queen Consort who might be pregnant. The question in this case was, whether it were desirable to make any provision; and, if so, what provision? "When he referred to this case on a former night, he had mentioned its having already occurred, and the possibility of its recurrence, and he then stated that the absence of a remedy was a strong proof of the conviction of the Legislature of the difficulty of providing a satisfactory remedy, and of the necessity of mature consideration before any remedy was suggested. The hon. member for Montgomery (Mr. C. W. Wynn) had said that in this case, that of the existence of an heir-presumptive contemporary with a Queen Consort pregnant, was most important, and required to be provided for, His answer was, that that was a case of which there had been examples in our history, and that they had not been provided for; and therefore, before the subject was submitted to Parliament, the Crown should have at least six weeks for considering it. He would content himself with taking all the illustrations he should have occasion for, from recent times; and taking the reigns of our Monarchs from James 1st, reign by reign, the result was, that in almost every case similar circumstances existed as at present. In the reign of James 1st the case was similar, at least it was equally necessary for Parliament to provide a similar remedy. There was a King in possession of the Crown, an heir-apparent who was a minor, and no provision was made for a Regency. In the reign of Charles 1st, at least for some period of his reign, the Parliament might have felt a deep interest in regulating the succession to the Throne, nor were the contests between that Prince and his Parliament a reason why they should not feel such an interest. In the reign of Charles 2nd the King was married, but had no legitimate issue. There was an heir-presumptive (James 2nd) and a Queen Consort. Charles 2nd died, and the Queen Consort might have been pregnant. The heir-presumptive was of full age, and he begged to say, that the danger of a struggle was far greater when the heir, as in that case, had been accustomed to military service. In the reign of James 2nd this was the state of things. James, by his first wife, had two daughters, who were the heirs-presumptive. Thus, in every reign hitherto, a case might be found parallel to the present. In the reign of Anne there was something, if not parallel at least analogous. During the life-time of George, Prince of Denmark, Parliament made a provision as to the successor to the Throne, who then resided abroad,—the Princess Sophia or George 1st; but it made no provision for the possible case of the pregnancy of the reigning Queen. Then came the case of George 3rd, in which, for three years, the contingency might have occurred, and yet no provision was made: so that he did not despair of Parliament finding a remedy, if the contingency should occur; nor was Parliament so dependent on mere forms that it could not make a precedent. In the case of the abdication of James 2nd Parliament had found a remedy, as well as on the occasion of the mental indisposition of George 3rd. God forbid that he should exclude all consideration of provisions against possible dangers; but they should be adopted after due consideration, and he could not admit, that at present the risk was so great as in former instances. In all instances prior to the Reformation, no Regent was ever appointed till after the demise of the Crown. His hon. friend observed that it was not wise to refer to such precedents. Perhaps so; but he would remark, that Lord Coke, in writing of the office of Regent, said that it was unknown to the common law. He had referred to the Regency appointed by Henry 8th, and said that it was for the King to appoint a guardian, or Regent, with the advice of the great council of the kingdom. If precedents upon this subject were always clear, then nothing could be more easy than the adjustment of this question; but it was singular that there was no one precedent which had ever been followed in the appointment of a Regency. There had been no less than five cases in modern times, and every one of them had been different. This fact showed the immense importance of the question, and how each case was accommodated to the circumstances of the times, so that one was in opposition to the succeeding case. In the reign of Henry 8th an Act of Parliament was passed authorizing the King to nominate the Regent, and a more complicated regulation could not well be conceived than that contained in the Act of Henry 8th. The Regency in the reign of Anne was a commission composed of seven great officers of the Crown. In the reign of George 2nd one Regent was appointed, who was the Princess Augusta, Dowager of Wales. In the reign of George 3rd there was a totally different precedent. Parliament did not nominate the Regency, but left the nomination to the King, limiting his choice to a certain number of persons named in the Act. All the instances, therefore, varied according to the circumstances of the case and of the times. There being, then, two difficulties to provide for,—one the minority of the heir-presumptive to the Crown, the other the possible pregnancy of the Queen Consort,—and no case being in existence which would serve as a precedent, it was too much to force the Crown to devise a remedy before his Majesty's Ministers could apply their consideration to so grave a question. It was but decent to give the Crown an opportunity of maturely deliberating upon the subject. As five different cases had occurred, in each of which the provision had varied, that very fact was a proof that this was a question environed with difficulties, and requiring mature deliberation before a decision could be formed. It was a question on which it was dangerous to pronounce hasty opinions,—præpropera consilia, as Lord Coke called them. The Crown should have ample time and opportunity for consideration. There was not such great risk of evil occurring to render it necessary to make hasty provisions; at the same time it was unwise to presume that no contingency would occur. But if it did, that was no reason to apprehend the calamities which had been referred to. The good sense and the reason of the country would, he was convinced, support the decision of the House of Commons. It had been asked, to whom the House of Commons should swear the Oath of Allegiance in that event? He would ask, where was the Act of Parliament which required the oath to be taken at the meeting of that Assembly? It had been said by one hon. Member that Parliament could not take the oaths until after the proclamation of the new King. That was, however, a mistake. It certainly was the practice of the House of Commons to take the oaths subsequent to the proclamation; but suppose that the Privy Council proclaimed a Sovereign who ought not to be proclaimed, it would then become the duty of the House to abstain from taking the Oath of Allegiance to the person so proclaimed. The House of Lords, he believed, proceeded to take the Oath of Allegiance to the Crown previous to the proclamation of the King by the Privy Council, and the Earl of Eldon, a high authority in such a case, was the first to do so on the late occasion. Therefore, the difficulty could not occur which had been stated, of the necessity of taking the Oath of Allegiance to some person, it being uncertain who that person might be. On the demise of King William, and the accession of Queen Anne, Parliament, for some reason, proceeded to act without taking the oaths at all. Some of the inconsistencies which had been pointed out would not arise, and many of the difficulties which had been started would not occur. At the same time he was not contending against Parliament, at a proper season, and after due deliberation, providing for a Regency; yet he would not attempt, considering the variation of human affairs, to foresee every contingency, or to devise too much before-hand for what must necessarily occur at a distant period. If immediate dangers pressed, he would advise the House to provide a remedy: but he believed that more danger would arise from an inconsiderate provision for a Regency, and he would therefore rather incur the risk of delay. On these grounds he should vote in opposition to the proposal of the hon. and learned Member. He did hope that the House, before coming to a division for the purpose of finally disposing of this question, would well consider whether, after the course which the House had already taken,—after an Address had been presented to the Crown, if not by a preponderating, at least by a considerable majority,—after the amendments on that Address, which were precisely in conformity with the Address of to-night, had been negatived,—after the House had led the Crown to believe that it was prepared to act in conformity with his Majesty's recommendations,—after having received that very day the grateful acknowledgment of the Crown for the assurances given,—he hoped the House would well consider, he repeated, whether, after taking that course, it would be compatible with its own dignity, and whether, in the words of the Address, it would "tend to make the commencement of his Majesty's reign auspicious," if the House were now to approach the Crown, informing the Crown that it had repented of its determinations, and that, scared by the approach of its own dissolution, it begged for a more distant day, in order to consider the question of the Regency.

spoke to the following effect:—If in the vote I shall give in support of the present Motion I saw any inconsistency with our former proceedings—any of that discourtesy referred to by the right hon. Secretary—if I deemed this proceeding at all likely to make the commencement of his Majesty's reign inauspicious, I should hesitate and pause, and I should have a long conflict with myself before I could support the proposition of my hon. and learned friend. In the first place it must be conceded to me that there can be no deviation from the consistency of the House, any more than there can be an imputation on its judgment, when it faithfully discharges its duty to the people it represents, and to the Crown whose subjects we are; and in the second place, I must beg leave to make a broad distinction now, which, with God's blessing, I mean to preserve in any future Parliament, between what is courteous to the Prince, and courteous to his Ministers; between what is inauspicious to any Sovereign's reign, and an event less auspicious to his Ministers: because I am well aware, that neither what is called the inconsistency of this House, nor what is described as discourtesy to the King, is any more than an inconvenience and an inauspicious beginning for his Majesty's Ministers. It is not auspicious, I know, to them that I shall give my cordial and hearty support to the motion of my hon. and learned friend. If there were inconsistency between the vote come to the other evening by a very narrow majority—there having been, on the first division, a minority of 139, and a minority of no less than 146 on the second occasion—I should not so cordially support it. But there is none, the House is only asked to add something to that Address, and it is because the proposition is only to add to, and not controvert our former Address, that my hon. and learned friend's motion has now my assent. I am prepared to deny that there is any discrepancy between them: I deny that there is any discrepancy, because, in our former Address, in answer to the Message from the Crown, recommending us to prepare for the dissolution of Parliament, we promised to provide the necessary supplies; and the supplies are now voted; we have done as we promised. I have no wish more fervent than that the House should not be inconsistent, nothing I would recommend more strongly than unanimity and concord; and I like the addition now proposed, because I think it is calculated to advance that harmoniousness which we must always wish to be preserved in our Addresses. There was one appeal made by the right hon. Secretary—one false step made by the Solicitor General, which I must notice, though out of no disrespect to him—out of no unfriendly feeling either to the right hon. Gentleman; but I wish he had forborne so to demean himself, and that he had omitted what was quite unworthy of him; that appeal which was followed by clamorous applause. I wish that he had not suffered himself to be seduced into the use of a sort of clap-trap, which was quite unworthy of the right hon. Gentleman, from his long standing in this House, though it might suit the tender infancy of the Parliamentary life of my learned friend, the Solicitor General: but for him who is always sure, from his seat in the middle of the Treasury Bench, to obtain a willing, and generally an applauding audience—in him it was unworthy to make use of a clap-trap to secure the vote of Members of Parliament, or invite rapturous applause, by referring to the late King being not yet cold in his grave, and insisting on the indecency of provoking discussion about a Regency ere his funeral was performed. It was quite unnecessary for him to refer to the King being yet unburied, to obtain applause. When the right hon. Gentleman mentioned the funeral, it was heard and answered by repeated cheers! when he spoke of the King's being unburied, cheers again encouraged him to proceed. But whose fault is it if I call upon the House to go up to the Throne with an Address to appoint a Regency, before the obsequies of the late King are performed. Why, if we do not go now, the obsequies of Parliament will be performed, and Parliament will not be able to address the Throne. If I am driven to intrude on the King in the midst of his grief, and warned against such discourtesy by the hon. member for Hampshire, whose fault is it? by whom am I driven, but by Ministers, who are anxious to dissolve the Parliament? It is their act, and not mine. They are indecent and discourteous: I am not; and on their heads, not on mine, must be all the blame. The present is the best, because it is the only time we can address the Throne on the subject before the Parliament is itself dissolved. We must go up with the Address now, or not at all. Did the other illustrious persons who have sat on the Throne of this kingdom abstain from the performance of their duty because the former Sovereigns lay unburied?—Did they even dream of being guilty of any disrespect to the memory of the King, by doing those things which were required from them at his decease? No; they entered into the smallest details of their expenditure—into the minutest particularities—into the whole mysteries of housekeeping and family arrangement—how much they were to pay for the Board of Green Cloth—how much they were to give for board wages to servants—how much they were to bestow in dole from the privy purse—how much they were to provide for the King's personal expenses, down even to the minutest article of personal attire. All this they entered into on all occasions—at the conclusion of every reign down to the year twenty, when, from peculiar circumstances, they first found the precedent which went to justify a contrary course of proceeding; but, till that time, the conclusion of every reign displayed a course in all respects uniform with respect to that order and arrangement to which we are now told it is indelicate and indecent even to allude while the Sovereign remains uninterred. The right hon. Secretary alluded to another point in answering my right hon. friend, the member for Liverpool, and my hon. friend who brought forward this Motion; a point which, although I believe he did not intend it to go beyond the meaning he gave it for the purposes of argument, is yet, I think, exceedingly liable and well calculated to create misrepresentation hereafter. I mean the reference which he used, as an argument, to the state of Lord Liverpool. I do not, I repeat, mean to say the right hon. Secretary intended it to bear such a construction, but the tendency of the case, which he used merely for the purposes of argument, would go to insinuate that this Motion raised a question of there being other visitations to which the Crown of this country might be subjected, besides that of death. I use that supposition now, merely as an argument. I know, what- ever interpretation may be placed on it, that the right hon. Secretary used it in the same way; because I believe him utterly incapable of advancing it for the accomplishment of any sinister purpose. As an argument I deal with it, and purely as an argument. The right hon. Secretary then says, "you do not provide for all the cases which may arise, even supposing a Regency to be appointed; and although you cite the case of Lord Liverpool, you seem to forget that Lord Liverpool laboured under mental deprivation. Now the present possessor of the Crown may possibly labour under the same disease, and you do not propose to provide any remedy for that. You did not even do that in 1788, although you had warning that the Sovereign was afflicted with a complaint of that kind, and might be so again." That I take to be the right hon. Gentleman's argument. Now I would appeal to his candour and sagacity if I do not demolish it altogether. Why did Parliament provide for everything else and leave this part of the mortal deprivation untouched? Why, from delicacy! From a delicacy to the King, to his family, and to the people—from a personal reason very different from that which arises out of the visitation of death—an affliction to which all must bow, Kings as well as their subjects. It was because delicacy went hand in hand with policy, It was because it was contrary to all the maxims which govern the policy of this country, and contrary to all the principles of the Constitution, while the Sovereign is alive, and holding the sceptre of this country, to contemplate even the bare possibility of his being affected with mental deprivation. Parliament felt that the Throne could not be secure, nor the respect of the people preserved to it, if they were to adopt any measure which would seem to imply the possibility of such an event; and that was the reason, and the only reason, why they did not provide for it. The case, therefore, of Lord Liverpool, had no application to the question, in the manner it was put by the right hon. Gentleman. You may contemplate, I say, the possibility of death, because it cannot trench on the respect due to the Throne, to say that the Crown may be subject to such a visitation as that; but to adopt a course which would imply the possibility of the mind of the Sovereign being alienated, destroyed all the respect which the people should entertain for the dictates of the Crown. There have been a number of speeches delivered on this question, and many hon. Gentlemen have supported the Government, with very great honour to themselves, and, no! doubt, very much to the satisfaction of! their constituents. I am bound, however, to say, that those who have not distinguished themselves in this debate, are those: from whom, on such a question, we expected most—the law-officers of the Crown. Whether it is, that my learned friends have higher duties to perform, or that they are engaged in setting their house in order, I know not; but certainly, of all the arguments I have heard this evening, those of my learned friends made the least impression on me. The hon. and learned Gentleman (the Attorney General) has, to be sure, argued much on the indelicacy and indecency of pressing this question on at such a time, and the same line of argument has been taken by the learned Solicitor General, but I confess it does not seem to me to be altogether applicable to the exigency of the case. Suppose, now—to take a case somewhat less exalted, but not less applicable—suppose that a man had succeeded to an estate in tail about the end of Trinity Term, and just before the four months of the long vacation; and suppose that he had a wife enceinte, and three or four children whom he wished to provide for. It would be very natural looking at the uncertainty of life, and the danger of losing the whole property in the event of his sudden death before the conclusion of these few months, that he should be anxious to suffer a recovery, and thereby bar the entail, and have it in his power to dispose of the property for the benefit of his family. Well, he goes to his attorney, and the attorney agreeing with him, proposes to consult one of the learned Gentlemen opposite, probably the Solicitor General, as most conversant with the method of disposing of property of this description. The attorney states the case, and tells him that his client has just succeeded to the estate under the circumstances I have mentioned, and that it is necessary to do something before the long vacation. What would my learned friend say? If we are to trust to the speech we have just heard, he would exclaim—"Go to! indelicate man that you are. You an attorney! You a person who dares to call yourself 'Gent, one, &c.' Out of my chamber—out of my sight! Talk not to me of fines and recoveries, or of barring entails, while the late tenant in tail lies yet un-buried in the hall of his ancestors! Talk not to me of your recoveries, or your family, or of the danger of delay; the late tenant in tail lies yet unburied, and it would be indecent in the highest degree to discuss such a question at present! Let me hear no more of your estate in remainder or reversion; and I never wish to see your face again, unless you come in the shape of a client." Does the House think that this would be the advice of my learned friends? No. They would say, "the tenant in tail may die before Michaelmas Term. You must suffer a recovery forthwith, and a settlement must be made on the family." This would be the honest advice of the learned Gentlemen to their client; not the sentimental, and over-nice and delicately-scrupulous advice which it seems they give his Majesty's Ministers with respect to the settlement of the Crown; but the honest and unsentimental advice, which I take it for granted must flow from the deep and practised conveyancer. We are told, however, that the language of the Motion is uncourteous, and that there never was an Address to the Throne which contained language so uncourteous and so indecent. Now I really conceive there never was an Address couched in language so courteous and so submissive. To call it disrespectful seems to me, indeed, only to be paralleled by the hallucinations of a great functionary who once held a responsible situation in another city, and that was Dogberry. When that worthy, who was somewhat choice in his selection of expressions, heard that the Prince's servants were called villains—longe absit omen—he declared that to call a Prince's servants villains was flat perjury. And I confess I think his ability in detecting an offence in the way of language is only equalled by those who detect any disrespect or uncourteousness in this loyal Address. It is said, however, that it is uncourteous to press this matter on the Crown when his Majesty's Ministers do not think it necessary to adopt this course. If the Ministers, who are bound to counsel the Throne, neglect their duty, it is ours to supply their deficiency. What they leave undone, it is our duty to do. We, the House of Commons, are ever bound to advise his Majesty of the course we conceive the Crown should take, and to supply the defects of his Ministers when they become plain and unquestionable. We are sent back to precedents, however; I too can cite precedents; I do not wish to go back to the Wittenagamote, nor even to the time of Henry 3rd, because, however good it may be to know the time when the seeds of the Constitution were sown, it is better to examine the period when they began to expand into print, like the time of Charles 2nd, and then I find, not only that the Parliament did provide for the possibility of the demise of the Throne, but provided for it moreover by a Bill of Exclusion, which passed through the House of Commons, after repeated discussion, and shut out James, the brother of the King, because he was a Catholic. Talk not to me, therefore, of precedents. Here is a case of Parliament having considered the necessity of making provision for the succession to the Throne at the time there was an heir-presumptive, the brother of the King—and at a time too, when, for anything they knew, the Queen of Charles might be enceinte. It was true that the Parliament which met afterwards, in the reign of James, sat for three weeks, and merelysettled the CivilList; but then it was immediately prorogued, and not summoned again, except for a very few days; they had afterwards much more important business on their hands, during the whole of that bigotted and subtle tyrant's reign, than settling a Regency. Then, however, there was the precedent of Queen Anne. I do not, however, think the case of Queen Anne will furnish much for the learned Gentleman's argument, because, if I mistake not, at the time to which he alludes, Prince George was dead, and Queen Anne was a widow, and there was no probability of there being any heir to the Throne, unless the hon. and learned Gentleman means to insinuate the possibility of there being a child in ventre sans père. In that case, therefore, I do not see the slightest application. We are told, however, that George 3rd abstained from making any provision of this kind, even after the calling of the new Parliament. Yes, but that is the very case; we are not going to sit for six years, we are going to be sent back to our constituents. The country will be left without Representatives in the event of the occurrence of such an event as that we anticipate with alarm, and that is the reason why we now press the settlement of the question. The Solicitor General, how- ever, with all that manner which prevailed through his speech, and which gave it the air of triumph, if not the substance of victory, here steps in and furnishes us with an argument better than any taken from the time of the Heptarchy or the Wittenagamote. He tells us at once that George 3rd at his succession was not pressed in this manner by his Parliament to settle the succession to the Throne. But there was a good reason for that; George 3rd was a bachelor,—there was no Queen—there was no person enceinte, that I know of, and there was an immediate heir to the Crown in the person of his brother, the Duke of Gloucester: and when the new Parliament came, it came to sit for six years. This was the real grievance. If the Parliament was to sit, it would matter not whether the question was postponed for two or for three weeks; whether the question was to be discussed next week or the week after next. But they were going to be dissolved, and dissolved without making any provision for the dangers which might arise before a new Parliament could be summoned; but then it was said, he made no provision of this kind for years after [for a Regency? said Sir R. Peel.] Yes; but the King was vigorous and young, and his brother was in the immediate line of the succession. I take that case, however, and ask the House to look at what that King, did the moment he recovered from his illness, and became aware of the necessity of such a measure. He was a man of firmness and strength of mind—qualities in which he is well and worthily imitated by his descendant, our present Sovereign—a man, like his father, above that womanly feeling of indelicacy which his Ministers would have us entertain as his sentiment on this subject, and who looks not to false notions of delicacy or decorum, but to that course which would tend best to promote the happiness and welfare of his people. George 3rd, the moment he recovered from his illness, and became sensible of the necessity of taking such a course, the moment his attention was drawn to the caducity of human life—that moment he took measures to avoid the recurrence of such a dangerous conjunction of circumstances. What happened then may happen again, but the country may not have the good fortune to escape so easily from the con-Sequences of its neglect. I have now discharged my duty to the Throne and to the country. I am about to return, with my fellow Representatives, into the great body of the subjects of the Crown, and we may not meet—certainly we cannot all meet-again in the same place. Do not, I implore you, let it be said that you were, as a body, inattentive to the great duty which was imposed on you. Do not let it be said, that you employed yourselves in considering the question of providing beer for the rabble, and that you were indifferent to those more vitally pressing subjects, which are dependent on the settlement of the Crown. I am told, however, we should have confidence in his Majesty's Ministers. So says one county Member of this House. I never knew the time when, many a county Member was not ready to leap up and say much the same thing. An eloquent and enlightened Member of the House, now no more, has recorded the opinions of the county Members of his day on that subject, and certainly their confidence does not seem to have suffered much diminution since. He said, I think, that if the Thames was blockaded, and Plymouth had fallen, and Portsmouth was besieged, and London was the only place that still held out, there were abundance of county Members who would have as much confidence in the Ministry as ever; and worthy Aldermen who could sleep even sounder than ever, under the full security that the Ministers deserved the trust which had been reposed in them. I have no distrust of the noble person now at the head of the Government. I disavow in the most solemn manner all imputation of mixing up anything arising from personal considerations in the discussion. When I call on the House to address the Crown to take measures to provide against those chances which may produce the calamitous results I have described, it is not that I harbour any distrust of the motives of that noble person; that I wish to cast even the shadow of a shade of suspicion on his character, or that, by neglecting to take those steps which I consider so imperiously called for, I would insinuate that his noble nature, or his tried honour and public virtue, could think of compassing anything treacherous to the Constitution of his country. I acquit him of all intent or conception of that kind. His public services are my guarantee for the integrity of his conduct. His civil services, for which this country—and, above all, regenerated Ireland—owe him so much—for which posterity will bless his name, and which place him higher on the record of fame than the victories of Waterloo or of Salamanca. They are my pledges for the purity of his motives; but I am here to represent the people of this country—I am here as one of the Commons of England to distrust and to watch Ministers, because they are the public servants of the Crown—to know no difference between man and man in that capacity, but to take all the security I can obtain against even the principles of the Constitution, or the rights and privileges of the people, being endangered. What I dread is, the possibility of the occurrence of the dilemma of a disputed succession, or the evils which flow from the succession of an infant Sovereign; and it is no answer to me to be told, that the oaths may be administered to us by the Lord Steward in the same manner as they have been administered to us now; and that we shall have the same facility of proceeding to the discussion of public business. It is not the taking of the oaths by a new Parliament that affrights me; I am terrified at the prospect of the occurrence of such circumstances as would render it necessary for the Crown to accept the services of the remnant of this Parliament; and to see those who may be rejected as unworthy by their constituents, called on to assist in the settlement of a question, the most important which can be submitted to the Representatives of the people of this country; a question which involves the integrity of the Throne itself. In such a conjuncture of affairs, we shall be a Convention and not a Parliament, without a Sovereign on the Throne to give a veto on our proceedings, or to direct the measures of the Government. Sir, the right hon. Secretary would reconcile us to the delay, by an argument which, much as I have been accustomed to fallacy, seemed more fallacious and more sophistical than any argument I ever heard in the House, though the right hon. Gentleman seemed to exult in it as a complete triumph over all his opponents. The right hon. Gentleman asserted, that if any defect should occur in the sovereign power of the State, for which it might be necessary to provide a remedy, that the Constitution gave to Parliament itself the power of providing such a remedy in a constitutional manner, and he referred to the instance of the abdica- tion of James 2nd, when Parliament voted the throne abdicated, and gave the Crown to a foreigner. Good God! is this the precedent which we are to have quoted for the ordinary course of the Constitution? Are we to refer for a constitutional precedent, in a case like the present, to an act of revolution which changed the dynasty and the order of succession? Are we to recur to the Convention Parliament of that period for the precedent by which we are to be guided on this occasion? That is not the way in which I should recommend the House to proceed, nor is it to guard against such an evil as occurred at the time of the Revolution that I am desirous to provide a remedy. I am anxious to provide a remedy against that evil, to the possible occurrence of which every individual in the country is fully alive. My fears are derived from the apprehension of seeing the two Houses of Parliament with an empty Throne, and competitors fiercely contesting their right to the succession, without any authority in the empire able to crush rebellion, and to stand up for the rights of the law. There are many great evils in an hereditary monarchy, there are many grievous burthens to which it subjects us, and there are many sound political principles to which it is opposed; but it has one great redeeming feature, which reconciles me to it, and would reconcile me even were its faults still greater and more numerous—it renders the succession to the Throne certain, and provides in that way an effectual remedy for those evils which could never be thought of without horror—the evils of civil war; a state of things where all life dies, where death alone lives, and all combines to introduce mischiefs abominable and unutterable, such as fable never feigned or imagination devised. And it is to guard against such a risk that I call on the House to decide in favour of the Motion—to which I give my most cordial support, both as a faithful Representative of the people and a loyal subject of the King.

opposed the Motion, not only on the ground of delicacy of feeling, but because the subject could be much better discussed some months hence. He contended that the country was in a much more difficult situation after the marriage of George 3rd, and before the birth of the Prince of Wales, and that if the Parliament then thought there was no occasion for a Regency, it appeared to him that there was no necessity for addressing the Crown on that subject at present.

replied. He utterly disclaimed, as he had done at the outset, the imputation of having introduced this Motion through party or factious motives. The propriety of discussing and settling such a question now, had been enforced in those organs from which they usually collected the public opinion, and more particularly in one of them, which was generally regarded as the one most in possession of the confidence and sentiments of Ministers, and indeed he understood, upon good authority, though he did not mean to say that it was official authority, that up to two or three days after the accession of his present Majesty, Ministers had been determined to bring the question forward in the present Parliament. He should persist in his Motion.

The House divided; For the Motion 93; Against it 247—Majority against it 154.

said, he rose, pursuant to the notice he had given, to move an Amendment to this clause. By the 60th of George 3rd, a publisher of a newspaper was obliged to give security in London to the amount of 300l., and in the country to the amount of 200l. The clause of the Bill then under discussion said,—"And whereas it is expedient to increase the amount of such recognizances and bonds, and to extend the same, for the purpose of securing the payment of damages and costs, that may be incurred by actions at law, for libels published in such newspapers, pamphlets, or other papers aforesaid: be it therefore enacted, that the amount of such recognizances and tonds, in all cases whenever it shall be hereafter necessary, according to the provisions of the said Act, to enter into any new recognizance or bond, shall be extended to the sum of 400l. for the principal, and the like sum for the sureties in any such new recognizances, and the sum of 300l. for the principal, and the like sum for the sureties in any such new bond." That was an addition of 100l. to the amount now required, and it was this addition to the present obligations of the Press that he wished to prevent. He could not recognize the grounds of expediency upon which it was proposed to be made. Was it the general state of the Press that could induce the Attorney General to propose it? The security required by the 60th George 3rd, was originally directed against blasphemous and seditious libels, and surely it was not with reference to the prevalence of such libels now, that this additional 100l. was required. Instead of being as heretofore, almost entirely devoted to party politics of the most violent description, the periodical press was now used as the channel for conveying useful practical knowledge, and was, generally speaking, in the hands of men of science and education. With reference to private libels, disturbing the peace of families, and injuring private character, he was ready to admit that they could not be too much reprobated; but he doubted whether a person determined to carry on slander as a trade, would be prevented from doing so by the addition of 100l. to his sureties, whilst that addition might stand in the way of those who, with good intentions and abilities, might not have such a command of money, or of friends, as to make this additional obligation not a burthen. In fact, it might possibly prevent many persons, not in affluent circumstances, but otherwise properly qualified, from embarking their talents in the Press. His chief objection, indeed, to this clause was the sort of monopoly it would give, in a field where no monopoly ought to be allowed—that of intellectual exertion. He did not mean to defend the abuses of the Press, but surely they were already sufficiently guarded against. The law and the Courts were open to all complainants, and a retrospect of what had happened of late years must be sufficient to convince every hon. Member that the present powers of the law were sufficient to punish, nay absolutely to ruin, any man who might abuse the freedom of the Press. Upon examination it would be seen, that no newspaper could stand a series of prosecutions; so that a proprietor, who had embarked in a course of slander, must either desist, or have his property annihilated. That was the case with respect to a paper called the Palladium, which was suppressed by the prosecutions that were instituted against it. That was also the case more recently of the Morning Journal, which was suppressed by prosecutions. He did not think it necessary to oppose those provisions of the Bill which extended this security, now rendered available to the satisfaction of public fines, and to the payment of damages in cases of actions for private slander. With respect, however, to that provision of the Bill, of which he had been speaking, he trusted that the House would not signalize the new reign by agreeing to anything so unfair and injudicious. He begged to move, therefore, that the words imposing the additional penalty be omitted.

said, he should be most happy if he were able to agree with the noble Lord; but he thought that the statement of a few facts would convince the noble Lord that he had good grounds for declining so to do. The law required, that the name of the editor or publisher of a newspaper should be entered at the Stamp-office, in order that some person might be found who should be answerable for anything that might appear in the newspaper: a practice, however, had arisen, to give in the name at the Stamp-office of some individual without property, who was liable for all prosecutions, and who, if damages were awarded against him, was content, for a small sum, to go into the King's Bench, whilst the party who really profitted by the libel continued to carry on his trade. He would illustrate his meaning by an example. There was a newspaper, called the Age, which some time ago was conducted by a person named Richards. No less than sixteen prosecutions were instituted against the paper, most of them actions for libel. He had conducted one of those prosecutions, and on that occasion Richards found it necessary to exonerate certain gentlemen who were suspected of being proprietors of the paper, and in the affidavit he made for that purpose, a letter to a friend, stating the views with which the paper was started, was incorporated. From that it appeared, that the object of the conductors was to raise it into notoriety, as the John Bull had been raised, by the publication of libels, and afterwards it was to be used as a political engine. Their first object they accomplished, and the result was, the sixteen proceedings he had already mentioned. Damages were given in the greater part of them, but not one farthing did the injured parties ever obtain, the person whose name was entered at the Stamp-office being pennyless. He need not mention names, but in one instance a poor woman was put forward as the ostensible owner of the paper, by which not only the real proprietors of the paper escaped unpunished but their instrument also; for there were few men with the common feelings of humanity, who would allow a woman, placed in such circumstances, to lie in prison. With respect to the Morning Journal, it was an error to suppose that the prosecutions spoken of injured it, for the fact was, that the principal proprietor, during the later prosecutions, was a beggar, a man of no substance whatever, and prior to those prosecutions, an action had been brought against him for a private libel, and not one farthing of the damages (250l. he believed), given against him, was ever paid. All that he wished, therefore, to insert this clause for was, that parties who were libelled might find a fund from which to receive the damages awarded them. With respect to the liberty of the Press, as long as juries existed it was in safe hands; and the additional 100l, was not so large a sum as to render it difficult for a man of a character fit to conduct a paper, to find security to the amount required.

was of opinion, that the law already afforded a remedy for the evils of which the Attorney General complained. Perhaps, as the learned Gentleman said, it might be sometimes difficult to find the really offending party, but were there not always the types which might be seized? Where then was the necessity of placing additional impediments in the way of the establishment of newspapers. The fact was, however, that all the shackles chiefly affected the liberal part of the Press, whilst they would be perfectly inoperative as regarded that part which furthered the views of Government. He had had some experience on that point, and he knew that the greatest difficulty of setting up a paper, on what are called liberal principles, arose from the amount of security required. The whole system, however, of compelling the finding of security against a wrong which might never be committed, and which it might never be intended to commit, was an innovation on the principles of the Constitution—an innovation, the further extension of which he meant to resist to the utmost of his power.

agreed with his hon. friend. If there could exist a doubt on the subject, the recent abortive attempts on the liberty of the Press by the Whig Attorney General showed where the latitude of interpretation should lie. That hon. and learned Gentleman had shown his animus against the Press—had shown, that if the Press were within his power, it should not, under a certain penalty, speak sentiments not in harmony with his own. There had been great animosity shewn against freedom of discussion by the Whig Attorney General, and he should oppose the present Bill at every stage, counting on the support of the House.

The Committee then divided—For Lord Morpeth's Amendment 27; Against it 21.