CHAP. 5. a year, which will not materially weaken the royal powers; the interval is not so long as to deprive him of 1810. the influence derived from favours and expectation and Continued. sure I am that the power of the Regent, under the restrictions imposed by law, would be greatly stronger than if left unfettered, when he might be called on to exercise a forbearance which might create jealousy and dissatisfaction on the part both of his ministers and his supporters. Upon these grounds, I am of opinion that full regal powers should not at once be conferred upon the Regent, and that the proposed mode of limiting his authority, by restricting the limitations to a single year, is preferable to the course formerly adopted of parcelling out the royal power among many councillors. The principle of restriction is justified, so far as it is confined to the protection of the reversionary interest of the King in his government, preserving at the same time to the Regent the most enlarged exercise of the powers of the crown which is consistent with this consideration. Upon these grounds I object to the fifth resolution, which separates the household of the King from the executive government, and vests the appointment of the former in the Queen. This separation does not appear to fall within the conservative principle I have mentioned. I deprecate a contest between the splendour of the crown and that of the Regent: I wish the latter to show himself as deriving everything from the monarch to whom everything is to revert the moment his Majesty is restored to health. I object to the appearance of the Regent being anything per se; it ought to be marked that he was an individual authorised to represent the King still upon the throne. It is open to Parliament to limit his powers or withhold them from him as they think fit; but whatever power or dignity the regent should assume, it ought to be the King's and not his own. On these grounds, I think the project of a separate household for the Regent objectionable, both on the ground CHAP. VI. 1812. ence on his position, and in the end opened the way to a great and auspicious change in his fortunes; but, in the first instance, it was the cause of heartfelt grief to Sir Charles Stewart, for the deceased was a person endowed with every virtue, and who had inspired an attachment as strong as she felt towards her soldier husband. It was some consolation in this bereavement that he shortly after received the honour of a Knight Grand Cross of the Feb. 26. Bath from his sovereign, in recognition of his eminent services as Adjutant-General of the army in the Peninsula, and was soon appointed to an important military and diplomatic situation at the court of Prussia, then in the most eventful crisis of its history, the duties of which gradually withdrew his mind from the memory of his domestic loss. VOL. I. 2 H CHAPTER VII. LORD CASTLEREAGH, FROM HIS RESIGNATION OF OFFICE IN CHAP. VII. 1809. 1. career of Lord Castle reagh when out of office in Parliament. THE resignation by Lord Castlereagh of the situation of War Minister in September 1809, already recounted, in consequence of his duel with Mr Canning, and the disImportant covery that the majority of the Cabinet had combined for his overthrow, of course led to the cessation of his official duties, but did not interrupt his public services. He remained, though without office, a member of the House of Commons, and that too during the most trying and momentous period of British history. As an ordinary legislator, he had still the means of following out his views and asserting his principles; and he was, perhaps, enabled to do this the more effectually from his time being no longer consumed or his attention distracted by a multitude of official cares. By discharging his duty as a member of the House of Commons, he was enabled to render the most important services to his country; and never was a time when they were more called for, for never had there been a period when the Opposition was more powerful, or were pledged to measures more certain to prove disastrous, if not fatal, in their consequences to the country. It was easy to see how this came about, even with the many able and clear-headed men who then led the Opposition in Parliament. It was party-spirit which did the whole. That important and often salutary element VII. 1810. in a free constitution, was then in a state of unprece- CHAP. dented activity, in consequence of the shipwreck of the Whig party, when apparently firmly seated in power, on the Catholic question, and it now had acquired a degree of violence which led to a vigorous assault on the whole policy of Government, both foreign and domestic, with scarcely any regard to the real merits of the questions at issue, but a desire only to make them a subject of contest, which might lead to the overthrow of the Ministry. Four questions stood pre-eminent in the parliamentary debates of that period, in all of which Lord Castlereagh took a leading part, and which present in a favourable light his oratorical powers. These were the Regency, the Peninsular War, the Orders in Council, and the Bullion Question. 2. The first of these questions, and not the least important in a constitutional point of view, was that of the Regency Regency of the Prince of Wales. The venerable monarch question. who had so long swayed the sceptre of these islands, had been so seriously afflicted by the death of his favourite daughter, the Princess Amelia, in September 1810, that he had experienced a recurrence of the mental disorder which had plunged the nation into such consternation in 1788. The physicians having pronounced the disease, if not incurable, likely to be of long endurance, it became necessary to make a proper provision for the discharge of the royal functions during his incapacity. This was done by a bill brought forward by Ministers, which proposed to vest the office in the Prince of Wales while the malady of the sovereign continued. So far, all were agreed; but there was a great diversity of opinion as to the foundation on which the authority should be vested, and the restrictions with which it should be accompanied. Strange to say, the two parties took sides here diametrically the reverse of what might have been anticipated from their previous principles. The Whigs contended, as they had done in 1788, that the Prince was entitled to the office VII. 1810. CHAP. jure divino, in virtue of his right of succession to the throne, without any restrictions: the Tories maintained that the office should be conferred by the two Houses of Parliament, and under such restrictions as to them should seem meet. Great efforts were made by the Whigs to limit the restrictions; as they anticipated from the Prince of Wales, if unconstrained master of his own actions, an immediate summons to form an administration. To prevent such a change, Ministers exerted their whole strength in support of the restrictions. The debate took place on 31st December 1810, on certain resolutions proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pledging the House to confer the office subject to certain restrictions. The Opposition contended that these limitations tended to cripple the royal power at a time when its full exercise was required, and that they implied an ungracious and unfounded distrust of the royal personage to whom it was proposed to tender the Regency. In answer to these objections, Lord Castlereagh said :— 3. reagh's speech in support of the restrictions. With respect to distrust of the Prince of Wales, I can Lord Castle with perfect truth declare, that such a feeling does not exist in my mind; on the contrary, my conviction is, that were the full regal authority intrusted to his Royal Highness, it would be exercised with the utmost forbearance and moderation on his part. Were I providing for an interest of my own, I would not hesitate a moment in acting on that conviction; but as a representative of the people, I do not feel myself at liberty to act on principles of personal confidence. I have a public duty to perform, which requires me to provide for a constitutional emergency on constitutional grounds. Under these impressions, I am bound to declare that the security we must look for is that of legal enactments, and that, in the discharge of a public trust, it is impossible for me to recognise any other as adequate. In like manner, and with equal sincerity, I disclaim any inference being drawn from my vote, that I impute dangerous views to the possible advisers |