right honourable friend near him (Mr Arbuthnot.) The sum paid to his right honourable friend was distinctly and simply a return for the expences and losses which he had incurred during the mission on which he had been sent. Before any jealousy was allowed to exist on these subjects, at least justice ought to be done to those who were connected with them. Did the honourable gentleman conceive it pos sible, that the affairs of a great nation, such as England, could be successfully carried on in such missions as he had described, if the individuals employed in those missions found themselves actually ruined in the discharge of the important trust reposed in them? Let the house consider the manner in which Mr Arbuthnot's mission terminated; he was obliged to make a precipitate retreat. The hostility of the court at which he was a resident rendered it necessary for him to do so. He was compelled to leave every thing behind him. Not a single article of the charge was there that had not undergone the strictest scrutiny by the treasury, and all that really was paid over to Mr Arbuthnot, was merely a fair return for the losses which he had inevitably sustained. When this occurrence took place, he and his right honourable friend were perfect strangers to each other. Mr Arbuthnot was not then secretary to the treasury; so that it could not be suspected that any undue influence existed favourable to his right honourable friend, but unjust to the public. These observations would serve as an answer to all remarks on missions abruptly terminated. It was but just that the individuals who suffered should successfully apply to the country for redress. If, however, any further scrutiny on the subject were thought necessary, let it be entered into, but let not the progress of the

bill before the house be impeded by a circumstance so little connected with it. Another objection," continued Mr Perceval, "made to the measure by the right honourable gentleman, related to the manner in which the funds granted to his royal highness the Prince Regent were left at his disposal. In the first place, he could not agree with the right honourable gentleman, that parliament were making final arrangements as for the Prince's coming to the throne. They were only making arrangements for the better management of the household during his majesty's indisposition; not a final arrangement as for the Prince's coming to the throne. It would not be dealing fairly with the house to say there was complete and utter despair of the king's resuming the royal authority; nothing existed to justify so dark and gloomy a view of the subject. If, therefore, parliament kept in mind the possibility of his majesty's recovery, they must also keep in mind the possibility of the regent's return to the situation of Prince of Wales. How, therefore, would they be justified, under such circumstances, in breaking down his exchequer revenue? It had been asked, If it was intended to constitute two privy purses? Certainly, it was intended to give his royal highness the Prince Regent a privy purse. To this the right honourable gentleman had no objection. Then as to the charges incurred during the present reign, it surely would not be right to encumber the regent with them, nor with the expences of the medical men, which the unhappy state of his majes ty rendered it necessary should be about his person. All these charges would come with propriety out of the 60,000l. allotted to his majesty for such purposes. There was one point of the new arrangement, however, on

which both the right honourable and honourable gentlemen had thought fit to lay great stress. It was that part of the establishment which was reserved to attend on his majesty's person, and which was to be under the controul of her majesty. There were various objections to this part of the proposition. The first was to the extent of the establishment so reserved. It might be recollected, that on a former occasion he had stated it to be his opinion that the house would not do well if they provided in this respect, as if his majesty must remain in the unhappy state in which he was at present placed; and that they ought to consider the possibility of his regaining complete consciousness, even should he never be enabled to resume the reins of government. But he was accused of not having put questions on this subject to the physicians. There was no reason for putting them. They had distinctly stated that there were intervals in which he was capable of enjoying the society of his family.("Not since July," from the opposition benches.)-That was true; but there was no reason to conclude that the thing was impossible; and when cases of a similar description were considered, it appeared that it was not less probable since that period that his majesty should recover the consciousness to which he alluded, than that before that period he should have recovered the power of being able to exercise the royal authority. If, therefore, the house at all took this circumstance into consideration, they must determine that something like the dignity of a king should surround his majesty, and surely that which was proposed was not too much for such a purpose. But the principal objection, it seemed, lay to this establishment being placed under the controul of the queen. The honourable gentleman af

VOL. V. PART I.

fected to perceive in that circumstance symptoms of a continuance of that most determined and settled distrust of his royal highness the Prince Regent, which, according to him, had pervaded the whole of the propositions which he had thought proper, on a former occasion, to submit to the adoption of parliament. Now, really, if the honourable gentlemen opposite could find out any motive by which the most despicable and most foolish of men could possibly be induced, under the present circumstances, to evince a deep and marked disrespect towards, and distrust of, his royal highness the Prince Regent, he left them to enjoy their discovery. For his part, he was not conscious of any feeling in his own mind so absurd. But let the house see what those who were so tenderly anxious about the Prince Regent's feelings and character proposed. They contended, that because his royal highness was worthy of confidence, (in which he cordially concurred with them,) that therefore the whole controul of his royal father's household should be left in his hands. They thought this would conduce to his ease and comfort. For his part, he could not conceive a more invidious situation than that in which such an arrangement would place the Prince Regent, nor could he imagine any thing more revolting to his royal highness's feelings. The honourable gentleman opposite acknowledged that the care of his majesty's person ought to be entrusted to the queen. If, therefore, any distrust of his royal highness existed, here was distrust of the blackest kind. But, surely, if it was right that the person of his majesty should be placed under the care of the queen, it was also right that the attendants of his majes ty should be placed under her majesty's controul; and he was persuaded that nothing could be more grateful to

B

his royal highness's feelings than that it should be thus arranged. The right honourable gentleman, however, seemed to think that he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) and those with whom he had the honour to act, had no means of knowing the sentiments of his royal highness, because of the restrictions under which he was placed. But he would ask the house whether, if his royal highness really thought that his ministers were insulting and degrading him, there was any thing in these restrictions, so soon about to expire, which would so restrain him in the exercise of the royal functions as to induce his royal highness not to withdraw the sanction of his authority from such servants? But if it were supposed that ministers were ignorant of the prince's pleasure, at least it ought not to be supposed that they would be so absurd as to propose any thing to parliament highly offensive to his royal highness. The house ought rather to believe that the subject had been submitted to the mature consideration of his royal highness; that his royal highness had been advised to adopt the plan which had been submitted to parliament; and that that advice had been accepted. No one could suppose for a moment that his royal highness was not as free to change his ministers, or that he did not possess as much authority in his councils, as if those restrictions which were so soon to terminate, had already expired. With regard to the situation in which his royal highness would have been placed, had the controul over his majesty's person, and the invidious task of doling out such a portion of the civil list as he thought proper, been committed to him, he had no hesitation in saying, that the situation in which the bill before the house would place his royal highness, manifested a much more delicate attention to his character and feelings. Had the

other course been pursued, had it been proposed by him to transfer the whole controul to his royal highness, then he should have been told (and told with infinite justice) that it was casting an invidious task upon his royal highness, and laying by in order to have a future opportunity of insinuating that the royal father had been neglected by the royal son. What evils did not the honourable gentleman affect to see in this proposed establishment! What patronage! Four lords of the bedchamber! and all the pages! Then so many seats in parliament! and that was the retreat he had prepared for himself! This had been called a new court. As individuals surrounding the monarch, they were unquestionably a court. But there was nothing new in this. When his royal highness the Prince of Wales arrived at that period of life when an establishment became necessary for him, an establishment was formed, and parliament entertained no apprehensions of the influence which his court would occasion. Surely the constitution of England was not so nicely balanced that four lords of the bedchamber could overturn it, even with the addition of all the pages. He could not conceive that, either in or out of the house, there could exist on the one hand any rational apprehension as to evils which the co-operation of the two courts might be the means of occasioning; or, on the other hand, any rational apprehension of the inconveniences which the hostility of the two courts might be calculated to promote."-After some farther discussion in the future stages of these measures, in which there was nothing of novelty or interest, the plan originally proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer received in all points the sanction of parliament. Whoever reflects with candour and impartiality on this important measure in all its bearings,

a measure on which the opposition made a vigorous stand, and which they described as of the highest importance in a constitutional point of view, will be prepared to acknowledge the firmness and good sense displayed by the ministers. In the most critical circumstances, while their own destinies were uncertain, and their enemies were flushed with hopes never to be realised; when the nation had been anxiously taught the lessons of a narrow and pitiful economy, while it was, at the same time, warned against the insults which an ambitious ministry was offering to the royal authority, did these same ministers, at a small additional expence of the public treasure, combine a due regard for the comfort and dignity of an aged and afflicted monarch, with a suitable care for the splendour and magnificence of that illustrious character who was now to be permanently invested with the highest functions of the state. The prudent firmness of the ministers, in this as in other instances, obtained a complete triumph over the animosity of their opponents. Some questions of considerable importance, and intimately connected with the establishment of the civil list, were agitated during the present session of parliament. It had been avowed by ministers, during the discussions on the household bill, that the deficiency arising on the civil list had been supplied partly out of a fund which is denominated the "Droits of Admiralty," and which had, from the earliest periods of English history, been vested in the crown.---The king, in ancient times, had a right to this fund as lord high admiral of England; and as that great office had not, for a century past, been conferred on any individual, the droits of admiralty remained vested in the crown. This fund is partly composed of the profits arising from the sale of wrecks, of prizes, and of goods belong

ing to pirates; ships detained or taken previously to a declaration of war, such as come into port in ignorance that hostilities have commenced, and all those which become prize to noncommissioned captors, are sold, and the profits arising from the sale are thrown into this fund. Its gross amount, when the question, as to its appropriation, came before parliament, was 7,344,6771. From this sum, however, several heavy deductions fell to be made. The payments to captors amounted to 2,336,7451., to neutral claimants 406,5541., to the receivergeneral of droits, law charges, &c. 289,6911.; various miscellaneous payments had, moreover, been made to the amount of 425,6871. Large sums had, also, been paid out of this fund to indemnify officers for the costs incurred in admiralty courts; the deduction on account of such payments, which, from the character of the late war, must have been considerable, could not well be challenged even by the most scrupulous economist. The balance, therefore, could not, at the period at which this question was agitated, amount to more than three millions sterling. This balance, however, was still considerable; and it deserved the consideration of parliament, whether the constitution placed it under the absolute controul of the crown.

From the earliest periods of English history, the maxim universally prevailed, that "all prize vests in the crown;" and very high authorities have declared, that prize is the very creature of the crown. Some old statutes, indeed, in the reigns of Edward III. and Richard III. have either omitted to mention prize as the peculiar property of the crown (an omission from which no inference can safely be drawn,) or have, in express terms, given all prize taken at sea to the captors. Great constitutional lawyers have also decla

per

red, that the droits of admiralty, as well as all the other prerogatives of the crown, are granted for the attainment of certain specific purposes, and that the specific purpose in this case, is the guarding and maintaining the rights and privileges of the sea. Lord Coke thinks that tonnage and poundage were granted to the crown for safeguard of the seas, and that it tains to the lord high admiral to see these droits administered; he qualifies this opinion, however, by stating, that the guard of the sea belongs not to the high admiral alone, but to private adventurers also, who fit out vessels for that purpose. But opinions of a date so ancient cannot be implicitly relied on with reference to the circumstances of the present times. In judging of the question, whether the droits of admiralty belong to the crown as matter of right, or are subjected to the controul of parliament, it is safer to look to more modern authorities. When the civil list was originally established in the reign of William and Mary, various rights and prerogatives of the crown were formally surrendered; and in all the acts re-establishing the civil list at the beginning of succeeding reigns, several branches of revenue, the exclusive property of the sovereign, have been collected into one aggregate fund, and named specifical ly as the surrender which the crown agreed to make in consideration of the civil-list granted by parliament. The principle of this arrangement is obvious; nothing was surrendered by the crown but what was specifically mentioned; and, as the droits of admiralty were not included in this specification, they were left of course with the crown on the same footing on which they had been formerly claimed. This principle has been recognised and acted upon at the commencement of each reign, from the Revolution downwards;

and, in particular, by the act passed in the first year of the present king's reign, which settled 800,0001. on his majesty for life, several branches of revenue were collected into one aggregate fund, in which, however, the droits of admiralty were not included. The right of the crown, therefore, to this fund, seems unquestionable; and when we reflect, that, so lately as the commencement of the present reign, when the various funds out of which the royal expences were to be supplied had been carefully examined by parliament, the droits of admiralty were left with the sovereign in addition to the ordinary revenue of the civil-list, the fair presumption seems to be, that unless gross abuse can be made out in the application, the legislature has no right to interfere.

Mr Brougham, however, was either unacquainted with these facts, or chose to disregard them. He accordingly brought forward a motion, by which he tried to establish, first of all, that the crown has no right to the fund in dispute; and, in the second place, that even supposing the right to be proved, it is proper that it should be abolished by parliament. He considered the subject to be of the gravest importance, as it involved the consideration of the best privileges of the House of Commons; of that privilege, the power of granting or refusing the supplies, which is the great and only security that the people have in their representatives, against the influence and encroachments of the crown. He gave an exaggerated account of the value of these droits of admiralty, which he stated in round numbers to amount to no less than eight millions sterling, and enlarged upon the absurdity of allowing funds to such an enormous amount to remain at the disposal of the crown, without any act of parlia ment to controul the application. He