boast of nothing else to recommend it.-Colonel M Mahon had been highly praised, although no more than justice had been done to his character; yet to propose him to the Prince Regent as a person well entitled to a public reward, had been characterised as disgraceful to the individual, derogatory to the prince, and insulting to parliament. It was known that the abolition of the office had been recommended by a committee of the house of commons, and it was supposed that the office had been given to Colonel M'Mahon by patent for life. But be fore gentlemen came forward with such a statement, they ought to have given themselves the trouble of enquiring into the tenure of the office, and the terms of the appointment. Had they done this, they would have found that the office of paymaster of widows' pensions had never been granted for lite, and was not held by such a tenure even by the late General Fox. But Colonel McMahon did not hold the office on the same terms with Gen. Fox; the appointment had not been such as to throw discredit on the Prince Regent, to insult parliament, or even to contemn the resolutions of a committee of the house of commons. In bestowing it, a marked respect for the resolutions of the committee had been shewn; and so far were the Prince Regent and his ministers from throwing obstacles in the way of such economical measures as the house might approve, that it had been distinctly communicated to Colonel MMahon by his royal highness's command, that he was to hold the office subject to any view which parliament might take of it; that he was to consider his appointment as liable to the future adjudication of the legislature. -With respect to this and other sinecures, the house would recollect the course of its own proceedings. It had been resolved that no sinecures ought

to be abolished till some other provision was made for rewarding the servants of the public. The case of Colonel M'Mahon was that of a person whose services merited public remuneration; the power of giving pensions instead of sinecures had not yet been granted to the sovereign, and under those circumstances the office in question having become vacant, it had been given to as worthy an individual as the government could have selected.

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In consequence of this discussion, Colonel McMahon's appointment was recalled; nor was this the only occasion during the present session which this gentleman had to share with his royal master in the obloquy which it had now become fashionable to cast upon the actions of the Prince Regent. The great increase of public business had suggested to the prince the convenience of having a private secretary, and Col. M'Mahon, as the person best qualified to fill this situation, was accordingly named to it. Mr Wynn, however, immediately brought forward a motion on the subject, which he and his friends affected to consider as of the deepest interest to the welfare of the monarchy, and the safety of the state. The reasons assigned by them for the great alarm which they felt on this occasion were various. The office was a new one; there was no precedent for it in the history of the country. In such circumstances, when an appointment so novel and extraordinary had been made, it was the business of the House of Commons to enquire into the character and functions which it might confer, and, by resisting dangerous innovation and gross abuse, to watch over the public safety. But notwithstanding the novelty of this appointment, the uncertainty of the public as to the exact nature and duties of the office, and the imperious call for enquiry by the House of Commons, the representatives of the peo

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ple knew nothing more about it than what they learned from the Gazette, viz." That Colonel M'Mahon had been appointed private secretary to his royal highness the Prince Regent." No regular appointment had taken place, nothing appeared but a minute of treasury for the payment of salary. But what in reality was this office-what the nature of the holder's situation-was he to be a cabinet minister, or must he be considered as a mere clerk or amanuensis?-Did the circumstances of the present times justify the appointment? William the Third was the soul-the prime mover of the confederacy formed in his reign for the preservation of the liberties of Europe: He sate in his own cabinet exercised a vigilant scrutiny over every department of the state; looked into every thing with his own eyes; yet King William had no private secreta ry. When the house of Brunswick was called to the throne,-when George the First came to this country, a stranger to our language and manners, if at any time the appointment of such a secretary could have been reasonable, surely it was at that time; yet George the First had no private secretary. But it was unnecessary to go farther back than the reign of his present majesty; every one knew with what zeal he attended to public business till the period of his unfortunate illness. He bestowed more attention on business than any of his predecessors; no appointment, how trifling soever, was made without taking his pleasure upon it. From the close of

the American war, to the commencement of the present, he had ruled not only as a king, bnt in some instances as commander-in-chief, his pleasure having been always taken by the secretary at war upon commissions granted in the army; yet his majesty never had a private secretary till his unfortunate complaint led to the appointment of

Colonel Taylor.-At last, came this appointment, and it was for the House to consider whether it formed any precedent for the appointment of CoIonel M'Mahon. The appointment of Colonel Taylor did not take place till the disease in his majesty's eyes had become so severe, that he was unable to read the communications of his ministers, and assistance of some kind became indispensable. But it never was supposed that this appointment would be made a precedent for others of the same kind under circumstances altogether different. If such a suspicion had been even hinted, the appointment of Colonel Taylor would have been more particularly noticed; but on all occasions where the circumstance had been alluded to in the house, a feeling of delicacy seemed to prevail which for a time suppressed all enquiry and discussion. King William had no secretary! King George the First had no secretary! And why? Because the secretary of state for the home department is the king's private secretary, and it is his business to wait on his majesty and take his pleasure on the affairs of his office. Such had been the practice in former times; such had been the practice even in the reign of his present majesty, until the period of his malady; and even then it might have been better if the secretary of state had daily attended his majesty, and communicated with him without the intervention of another person. Perhaps the same plan might have been followed had not his majesty taken a dislike to his London residence, and determined to reside at Windsor, when the office to which Colonel Taylor had been appointed, of course became necessary. But where was the necessity for the creation of this new office at the present moment, with a salary of 2000l. a-year? It had been said that there was a great accumulation of business. Had it really accumula

ted so much within these few years as to require the creation of a new office when no disability of the Prince Regent to execute his high duties had been insinuated? "Look at the number of commissions in the army," it was said; "consider what a labour it is even to sign them." It might be so; but surely it was not intended that the private secretary should subscribe the Regent's name to these commissions. If the labour were really too burthensome, it might be lightened by an expedient which had at a former period been adopted. The sovereign might execute a warrant empowering the commander-in-chief to sign as many commissions as were to appear in the Gazette on one occasion. Was it proper to have a private secretary to read to his royal highness the communications of his ministers ? His royal highness resided in London, the ministers had an opportunity of daily consultation with him, and there could be no occasion for a private secretary to communicate the result of their de liberations and advice. It was a matter of no slight importance to determine whether the communications of the cabinet council to the sovereign should be allowed to pass through any third person whatever. If such a thing were intended, it became the more necessary for the House to examine into the objects of the appointment, and the consequences to which it was likely to lead. It was highly unconstitutional to allow the secrets of the council to pass through a third person, and that person, perhaps, not a councillor. It might be said that Colonel M'Mahon was a privy councillor, but this circumstance did not strengthen the argument on the other side. By his oath as secretary, supposing him a mere clerk, he would be bound faithfully to read the communications to his royal highness, and faithfully to write whatever the Prince Regent VOL. V. PART I.

should command; but in his character of privy councillor he was bound by his oath to give his advice upon what he read. Was it fitting that the cabinet ministers should have their advice to the sovereign exposed to the animadversions of his private secretary? If, indeed, interior and exterior cabinets were parts of our constitution, there might be some reason for having a secretary to carry the communications from one to the other. If it were constitutional for the sovereign to have both an ostensible ministry and a private junto to carry on the government, such a secretary might be necessary to conduct the correspondence between these two bodies. If it were expedient that the high offices of the household should be hawked about by the menial servants and attendants of the sovereign, as might happen on some occasions, then the use of such an officer as this might be apparent ; though even then there ought to be a formal appointment, that the officer might be responsible. This was an important view of the subject, and deserved the most serious attention.

If the time which the advisers of the crown had chosen for recommending this improper measure were considered, their offence would appear under heavy aggravations. Public opinion proclaimed, that at this period least of all should any addition be made to the vast expenditure of the country.Col. M'Mahon, in the first instance, was named to an office, the abolition of which a committee of the House had strongly recommended; and when parliament decided that he should not retain it, the ingenuity of government had been directed to discover a new office still more objectionable. What could be said of such a measure,but that a determination was evinced to create a place with the view of compensating Colonel McMahon for that of which he had been deprived, in obedience to

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the determination of parliament? It was needless to say any thing of the services of Colonel M'Mahon; no one doubted the propriety of rewarding them; but were the places in the household of the Regent seized upon with such rapacity that nothing could be reserved for a faithful servant? Would not the privy purse suffice; or if the salary were inadequate, could not the place of equerry be subjoined? If both together were insufficient, surely other situations might have been discovered to fill up the measure of reward.—But the Prince Regent, with all the vigour of youth, and without the infirmities of his father, could require no such assistance as ministers seemed anxious to provide for him.

In support of the appointment, it was said, that the renowned champions of constitutional principles, the great advocates of popular rights, were eager to declare what?--that the king should not have a private secretary—— that the head of the executive govern. ment should not be relieved from that bodily labour from which any other person in the kingdom, having only half as much to do, would certainly claim an exemption. Such was the object to be accomplished by all this show of argument and noise of declamation. To accomplish their purpose, they had moved for the instrument by which Colonel M'Mahon had been appointed private secretary to the Prince Regent. What occasion could there be for producing papers which could give the House no information? If the instrument specified the precise duties which Colonel M'Mahon had to perform, there might be some ground for its production; but it contained no such specification, as it merely announced that Colonel M'Mahon had been appointed private secretary to the Prince Regent. They who had ulterior views they who thought the instrument illegal, would of course vote

for the production of the papers; but others who had different views, would take an opposite course. The present was the proper moment to settle both the legality and expediency of the appointment; for even when it had been proved that the appointment was not illegal, its merits might still remain questionable.

It was difficult to conceive how any person could regard the act as illegal.— Was it contended that the crown had no power to create a new office?Those who entertained this opinion might be referred to the statute-book for proofs that such a power was constitutionally vested in the chief magistrate of this country. The statute of Queen Anne expressly recognized new offices created by the crown, although it disqualified the holders from sitting in parliament. But Colonel M'Mahon was not a new officer in the strict sense of the word. The situation which Colonel Taylor held about his majesty was the same with that held by Colonel M'Mahon about the prince; and both or none of the appointments was legal; yet when Colonel Taylor was named secretary to the king, no objection was made. Every party in its turn had availed itself of the instru mentality of Colonel Taylor, without discovering that his office was illegal or unconstitutional. The private secretary of the Regent, it had been said, was the organ of his pleasure to all his subjects. This was fine lan guage; but in what respect could he be called the organ of the Prince Regent's pleasure? When we speak of the king's pleasure, we understand the words to signify his approbation or disapprobation of any act of state; but in that sense of the words Colonel M'Mahon could not communicate the pleasure of the Prince Regent in any way that could authorise the subject to obey it, or to act upon it with official responsibility. The private se

cretary did not hold any office of state, but had been appointed for the sole purpose of relieving the incredible bodily labour to which the increased and increasing business of the country exposed the head of the executive government. The papers sent from the different public offices,-the numberless acts which it was necessary to submit to the Prince Regent for his approbation or for his signature, some of them very urgent, and consequently to be presented as such,-some less so, and hence to be disposed of in another manner, the manual labour attendant upon the discharge of such duties, required that some plan should be adopted for relieving the severity of exertion. Even the arrangement of the mass of communications submitted to the royal attention, was in itself a source of labour which required the employment of a secretary, by whose intervention the dispatch of public business might be greatly facilitated.-- His majesty, it had been said, discharged all that labour for forty-five years without any such relief, nor did he ask assistance till he was driven to it by an infirmity, from which the Prince Regent was happily exempted. His majesty certainly did transact the public business without the assistance of a private secretary, and he did so to the astonishment of every one; but while we did honour to the laborious activity and diligence of George III., we should remember some discriminating circumstances between him and the exalted personage who now exercised the sovereign authority. The king came to the throne at a very early period of his life, and was gradually train"ed to those habits of business which accommodated themselves to the gradual increase of labour which every year of his reign produced. In him it progressively became a task of comparative ease; but the Prince Regent entering upon the laborious details of go

vernment at a much more advanced stage of life, could not be expected to possess those facilities in transacting public business, or that severe appli cation to it, which was the result of early habit in his royal father; and must be overwhelmed at once by the mass of business which comes before him, were it not for the assistance of a secretary in the minor details of arrangement.-Looking, therefore, at this part of the question alone, without adverting to the great increase of duties annexed to the office of the sovereign, arising out of the present state of the country, the motion was the most extraordinary one that had ever been brought before that House. It seemed to betray deep marks of a disposition to complain in the absence of all grounds of complaint of a determination to find grievances where none existed; but at the same time it displayed a miserable poverty of invention. Great pomp and solemnity had accompanied its whole progress down to the present moment. A month or six weeks before, notice was given by the honourable member of a motion upon a most important constitutional question. Expectation was excited— the day arrived, and lo! they were to decide whether the Prince Regent was to have a private secretary! Really it was a subject scarcely deserving of the solemnity which had been attached to it; it was brought forward rather from party views-rather for the purposes of misrepresentation than any other. It was intended to persuade the country that Colonel M'Mahon would be the organ of communication between that cabinet behind the throne, of which so much had been said, and the official servants of the crown. He was to be represented as the channel through which would flow that stream of secret influence, of unseen power, by which the subordinate agents of government were supposed to be direct