aggravated case before us-and what is it? what is this great public inconvenience? Why, that ministers have found it necessary to come to parliament to authorise the issue of money, for services for which that very money has been appointed!"

The resolution passed without a division. When it was moved in the Upper House, Lord Grenville said, "he thought that his majesty's ministers had acted in a manner as completely injurious to the real interests of the country, and as diJan. 6. rectly subversive of the principles of the constitution, as they could possibly have done, if they had really sought out the most effectual mode of doing wrong." Then justifying his own conduct, he said, "If there be any thing more clear and determinate than another in my office of Auditor of the Exchequer, it is this, that it is purely ministerial, and of such great and important trust, that upon the due discharge of its duties depends the security and preservation of the public treasure, the just and conscientious payment of the public money. There is nothing that I am bound to hold so sacred as this principle, that I am, by law and by duty, to consider the usual course of the Exchequer as it is established by some acts, and as it may have been varied or confirmed by others. State exigency, or state necessity, may be fit considerations for those who hold state offices; but for those who hold such offices as I do, to tamper with an act of parliament, would be quite inconsistent with our duty to our sovereign and to the public. In the first place, the act required of me was illegal; and secondly, if such act were to be done at all, it ought to have been done by those who could take upon themselves the political responsibility, and not by those who hold such official functions

as I did."

The same grounds of objection were gone over as in the Commons, and twenty peers, among whom were all the royal dukes, protested against the resolution; because, they said, the principle on which it was founded would justify the assumption of all the executive power of the crown by the two houses of parliament, during any suspension of the personal exercise of the royal authority. This business attracted more notice than it otherwise would have done, because, upon Lord Grenville's accession to power after the death of Mr Pitt, a bill had been passed, empowering him to hold at the same time the offices of First Lord of the Treasury and Auditor of the Exchequer; offices which, according to the arguments at that time used by his friends, might with perfect propriety be held by the same person. Now, Lord Grenville told us that the of fice of auditor was a check upon the lords of the Treasury, established to ensure the faithful discharge of their duties, and thereby the security of the public treasure: the question, therefore, forced itself upon every man, what kind of check would Lord Grenville, Auditor of the Exchequer, have been upon Lord Grenville, First Lord of the Treasury?-The imprudence of bringing thus to recollection a measure, which at the time had been sufficiently obnoxious, and which his own conduct now showed to have been indecorous and improper, did not tend to lessen the unpopularity of Lord Grenville and his party.

That party fully expected their return to power. They were strong in borough influence, while Mr Perceval, by the course which he pursued con cerning the regency, lost the support of those members of the royal family who were formerly most closely connected with their father's government. Their journalists were numerous and active, and they depended upon

the

prince's favour. But though all the various sects and subdivisions of opposition had united in one cry against the king's ministers, there were too many points of difference between them to easily accommodated. Earl Grey and Mr Cobbett both talked of a radical change of policy, but they affixed very different meaning to the words. On the question of catholic emancipation, all these united parties were agreed; but only on this question: The Grenvilles were at variance with all their allies upon the subject of parliamentary reform, and the reformists were at variance among themselves, as to the nature and extent of their purposed reformation. The war also was another ground of dissention. The Burdettites, however fond they might be of declaiming about liberty, were incapable of sympathizing with a noble people struggling for their independence against the most inhuman and insolent usurpation; they, with Mr Whitbread, would have sacrificed our allies, our interest, and our honour, for the sake of obtaining vile popularity, by concluding a nominal and deceitful peace. This party saw no difficulty in accommodating our differences with all our enemies; according to them, their country was in the wrong upon every disputed point; she had therefore only to concede every thing to America, and suffer Buonaparte, without farther opposition, to regenerate the peninsula in his own way then we might have illuminations for a definitive treaty, transparencies of Peace and Plenty, and quartern loaves and pewter pots carried in triumphant procession, in honour of the reduced prices of bread and porter. This was the foreign policy in which Mr Whitbread would have coincided with the radical reformers; that of Lord Grenville and the despondents would have been equally ruinous; be lieving it impossible that we could re

sist the military power of France, and yet knowing that peace would be only a snare, they would have carried on a timid defensive war, without the hope or the possibility of bringing it to a glorious termination. Lord Holland, on the contrary, would have acted with additional vigour in aid of Spain, and in this policy he would have been supported by Earl Moira and Mr Sheridan, and perhaps by the Marquis of Lansdowne and Mr Ponsonby.

Accustomed as the various members of this motley combination were to coalitions, and compromises, and concessions, it was no easy task to form a coherent ministry out of such heterogeneous elements; and the temper of the persons with whom the prince had to deal did not diminish his difficulties. At the very commencement of the arrangements, Lords Grey and Grenville could not accord, and the earl left town in disgust; they found it, however, expedient to agree, and he returned in time to give counsel when the Prince of Wales had to answer the proposed restrictions sent to him by parliament. It is said that the answer which these lords had advised was shown

by the prince to Mr Sheridan, and that it was so much in the character of their own speeches, that Mr Sheridan declared it would prove of the most pernicious consequences, inasmuch as it could hardly fail to involve the prince in a dispute with the House of Commons. This better advice was listened to, and the answer which was delivered was composed according to Mr Sheridan's counsel. The two joint opposition lords were highly offended at this, and sent to inform the prince, in the manner of a humble remonstrance, that, as he had not deemed it proper to adopt their advice, they could not be of any service to him in the intended arrangement. The prince upon this requested Lord Holland to make an administration; but Lord Holland

had no borough influence, and, however willing and fit he might have been to have taken the reins of government, was utterly unable to ensure majorities. The prince, therefore, who now began to feel the difficulties of government, was driven back to Lords Grey and Grenville, and a temporary conciliation took place. The triumph of the opposition seemed now to be complete; they thought the field was their own, and that nothing remained but to distribute the spoils. This distribution, however, excited claims and contentions, of which the prince heard more than he liked.

When the time of the regency drew near, Mr Perceval waited on the king at Windsor, and found him well enough to converse upon public affairs, though not sufficiently recovered to bear the weight of business. He inquired anxiously concerning the prince's conduct, and expressed great joy at finding that he had not thrown himself entirely into the hands of a party who were directly hostile to all the measures of his father's government; and he desired that the queen would write to the prince, to signify this approbation, and to request that he might not be harassed on his return to society by having to change an ephemeral administration, pointing out to him the great inconvenience of changing a ministry for a short time. The prince, it is said, was well pleased to be thus relieved from the difficulties in which he found himself involved by jarring opinions and contending claims. He made known his determination of making no

change, to the opposition; Feb. 4. and on the day before the regency bill passed, he officially acquainted Mr Perceval that it was his intention not to remove from their stations those whom he found there as the king's official servants. "At the same time," said he, "the prince owes

it to the truth and sincerity of cha racter, which, he trusts, will appear in every action of his life, explicitly to declare, that the impulse of filial duty and affection to his beloved and afflict. ed father leads him to dread that any act of the regent might, in the smallest degree, have the effect of interfering with the progress of his sovereign's recovery.

This consideration alone dictates the decision now communicated to Mr Perceval.-Having thus performed an act of indispensible duty, from a just sense of what is due to his own consistency and honour, the prince has only to add, that, among the many blessings to be derived from his ma jesty's restoration to health, and to the personal exercise of his royal functions, it will not, in the prince's estimation, be the least, that that most fortunate

event will at once rescue him from a situation of unexampled embarrassment, and put an end to a state of affairs ill calculated, he fears, to sustain the interests of the united kingdom in this awful and perilous crisis, and most difficult to be reconciled to the genuine principles of the British constitution."

Mr Perceval replied, that, in the expression of the prince's anxiety for the speedy restoration of his father's health, he and his colleagues could see nothing but additional motives for their most anxious exertions to give satisfaction to his royal highness, in the only manner in which it could be given, by endeavouring to promote his views for the security and happiness of the country. "Mr Perceval," he continued, "has never failed to regret the impression of your royal highness with regard to the provisions of the regency bill, which his majesty's servants felt it to be their duty to recommend to parliament. But he ventures to submit to your royal highness, that, whatever difficulties the present awful crisis

of the country and the world may create in the administration of the executive government, your royal highness will not find them in any degree increased by the temporary suspension of the exercise of those branches of the royal prerogative which has been in troduced by parliament, in conformity to what was intended on a former similar occasion; and that whatever ministers your royal highness might think proper to employ, would find in that full support and countenance, which, as long as they were honoured with your royal highness's commands, they would feel confident they would continue to enjoy, ample and sufficient means to enable your royal highness effectually to maintain the great and important interests of the united kingdom. And Mr Perceval humbly trusts, that, whatever doubts your royal high ness may entertain with respect to the constitutional propriety of the measures which have been adopted, your royal highness will feel assured, that they could not have been recommend. ed by his majesty's servants, nor sanc. tioned by parliament, but upon the sincere, though possibly erroneous, conviction, that they in no degree trenched upon the true principles and spirit of the constitution."

The opposition had made so sure of coming into power, that they committed the unhappy imprudence of letting the list of their intended arrange ment get abroad; "an arrangement," they told us," of one united, compact body of men, all holding the same principles, and all animated by the same views; and an administration," they added, "of more internal strength, by the ties of mutual friendship,-of more public influence, by talents, integrity, and stake in the country, never had been submitted to any prince.' A meeting of the common council was called by their city partizans, to prepare an address of congratulation to

the regent upon the change of men and measures which he was about to make. Their disappointment was in proportion to their hopes; they affirmed, however, that the prince's determination would be received with real satis faction by the friends of Lords Grey and Grenville, who must all feel that nothing but a sense of imperious duty could have induced them to undertake the irksome and arduous task of office in such times. "Three months," they said, "had already elapsed under a total suspension of the functions of government,-three months the most important, perhaps, that had ever occurred in our history; another month must have been added to the delay, if the prince had yielded to his patriotic sentiments, and recurred all at once to the principles upon which he thought the administration would be most beneficially conducted. Thus much time must have been required for the reelection of those who would have vacated their seats, and for the re-establishment of the routine of office; but this delay might certainly, in a moment of such emergency, be productive of the most serious evil." But while the Whigs thus affected the language of resignation, the Burdettite journalists declared, "that a ministry formed by the two joint opposition lords would have excluded almost all the prince's friends; that from those lords the peo ple would have expected nothing; but that they would have hoped for something from an arrangement that should have placed Lord Holland at the head of affairs, to the great mortification of those less popular and less liberal leaders. It was as well to retain Perceval and Liverpool, as to supersede them by Grey and Grenville." Whigs and anarchists, however, both agreed in asserting, that the prince had no confidence whatever in his ministers. "He signs papers," said one of these jour. nalists, "receives addresses, expresses

his opinions respecting court martials and criminals, and has ten or a dozen people to walk before him; but with regard to the nation, he can only wish it prosperity, and has no more to do with its government than a keeper of geese."

A few days after the installation of the regent, the session was regularly opened by commission. In Feb. 12. the speech, after lamenting, "not only in common with all his majesty's loyal subjects, but with a personal and filial affliction, the calamity which had imposed upon him the duty of exercising the royal authority," the prince congratulated parliament upon the success of our arms in the Indian seas, and the repulse of the French and Neapolitans in their attack upon Sicily. "In Portugal and at Cadiz," he said, "the defence of which had been the principal object of our exertions in the last campaign, the designs of the enemy had hitherto been frustrated. He trusted parliament would enable him to continue the most effectual assistance to the brave nations of the peninsula, being persuaded that it must feel how deeply the best interests of the British empire must be af fected in the issue of their contest. It was his earnest wish that he might be enabled to bring the discussions with America to an amicable termination, consistent with the honour of the crown, and the maritime rights and interests of the kingdom. He had great satisfaction in stating, that though the difficulties which impeded commerce had in some degree affected a part of the revenue, particularly in Ireland, yet that the revenue of Great Britain in the last year, though unaided by any new taxation, was greater than had ever been known in any preceding one; and he trusted to their zeal for adequate supplies in the great contest in which we were necessarily engaged."

The Earl of Aberdeen moved the

address, which was seconded by Lord Elliot. It was not opposed, but Earl Grosvenor said, "the speech was one of the most flimsy that had ever been made to parliament; it was in unison with the phantoms which they had lately witnessed, phantom-like, spiritlike, or skeleton-like. There was nothing in it with regard to the internal situation of Ireland-nothing with respect to our relations with the powers of the Baltic-nothing with regard to the affairs of India, which were soon likely to occupy considerable attention-and nothing at all on that most interesting subject, the state of our circulation and paper currency. These were all topics of the most vital interest and importance, topics upon which it was the duty of ministers to give to parliament the fullest possible information, and yet to no one of these topics did the speech contain the most distant allusion. Their lordships also were entitled to much more abundant and satisfactory information before they pledged themselves to increase or continue their efforts in favour of Spain and Portugal. Some months ago, we had heard that Massena's army was in the most deplorable situation, possessing only the ground upon which it stood, and reduced by famine and desertion; it was now found, that this army had not only plentiful supplies, but that it had received numerous reinforcements. It was too true also, that there were dark spots in the horizon of Spain; it was still uncertain whether the nobles were worthy of their ancient fame, or the people at large determined to conquer or perish."

Lord Grenville said, " he would willingly refrain from saying any thing on that part of the address which related to Spain and Portugal, yet he felt himself bound to say, that it contained a pledge contrary to the opi nions he had all along entertained on that subject of policy, contrary to that