progress as are and ought to be insuperable, let them see what must follow, if we were now to abandon this proceeding. For it is quite clear, that in such a case the regent himself must resort within a week, or a month at the farthest, to the same identical authority, and to the same fiction, if it be such; or his government cannot be solid and durable. He must come to the two houses for a confirmatory statute, or he must endeavour to govern by force of our address, which he will find to be unavailing for all practical ends of government.

"In the first place, if there is to be a statute, the commission for passing it cannot be in any other name than that of his majesty ; and for the use of that name, there can be no foundation but our advice and assent: To that commission also there can be no sign manual of the king. The royal assent, whether it be given by commission, or by the regent in person, must then equally be given, in the name of him, whom you have already declared to be incapable of having any volition what

ever.

"In short, that must be done by the regent, (with all the same objections, such as they are,) done also to establish his own power by his own act, and done by him circuitously, which we are now prepared to do for him at once, and before-hand. But if the regent's government is to rest wholly upon our address, the regent must still necessarily use the king's name, without the king's authority: and although the great seal may be in his hand, and its acts unimpeachable, is it equally clear that the privy seal officers will obey its mandate, or that every act of the privy seal will be equally unquestionable? And moreover, is it clear that the multitudinous acts of royal authority which pass only under the sign manual, for the grant and execution of all offices and authorities, civil, military, and ec

clesiastical, will be acknowledged by those whose lives and fortunes may come under their operation? Or rather, is it not manifest that they must and would be contested in every court of justice where litigation can enter ? To resort to our votes as the foundation of the power exercised by the regent, it is true, would in such case be just and natural; but we could only place in his hands our mace, instead of a sceptre. And why, then, should we expose the regent's dignity, and the nation's interest, to such a hazard, when by a statute we can at once clothe his authority with an armour that will be impenetrable, and deliver into his hands a sword that will be irresistible?

"The result of the whole is this; that, in every way of viewing this question, the course to be taken is not by address, but by bill. 1st. The regen

cy must be defined, whatever be the description of its powers, and the regent must be appointed by us. 2dly. Not the regent alone, but the reigning monarch also must be provided for; in all cases, as to his present welfare, and in most cases to assist him in the resumption of his power. And 3dly, these ends should both be accomplished by one and the same measure, of equal solemnity as to both, of contemporaneous effect, and of universal obligation; all which can be only done by a statute. And for these reasons, I am now prepared to give my full and ready concurrence to the resolution sent down to us by the Lords; with the clearest conviction, that this proceeding is at

once the most reverential to the sove

reign, the most effectual for the regent, and the most beneficial for the empire.

This very able speech produced little effect upon the opponents of the bill. Mr Ponsonby still insisted, that to assume the king's consent, when it was known that he was incapable of consenting, was a fiction, a fraud, and

an usurpation of the royal authority. Lord Porchester reminded the committee, that the parliament of Charles I., which overturned the monarchy, had possession of the great seal for a year and a half in the beginning of the civil war, and yet had never had the presumption or the folly to use it. And Mr Sheridan, referring to the statute of Charles II., which declared it high treason to make a law without the consent of the king, maintained, that they who were parties to such a measure were guilty of misprision of treason, and advised those who had carried the bill through to secure themselves afterwards by an act of indemnity for their gross violation of the law of the land. For my part," said he, "I have no hesitation in stating, that the house, when they forgot their duty, by encroaching on the prerogatives of the crown, forfeited their title to be considered as representatives of the people." The question, however, was put and carried. Sir Thomas Turton then moved a long amendment, purporting that the two houses, in directing the great seal to be used as proposed, were guilty of an assumption of the royal prerogative, in direct opposition to the statute law. This was of course negatived, and the bill having been returned to the Feb. 5. Upper House, the attendance of the Commons was desired, and the lord chancellor, by virtue of the commission issued under great seal, notified the royal assent to the act, which was then passed by the clerk assistant of the parliament in the usual words,* Le roy le veut. The ceremony of installing the prince regent was performed on the following day, Wednesday, the 6th of February. About 12 o'clock a party of the flank companies of the grenadiers marched into the court yard of Carleton House,

the

where their colours were pitched in the centre of the grand entrance. The privy counsellors assembled in the Gold Room, and, the levee being over, moved in procession, with the prince, to the Grand Saloon; a room hung with scarlet drapery, and having, as the fittest ornaments of an English palace, the portraits of those admirals by whom Great Britain has won the dominion of the seas. The great chamberlain of England, and the vice chamberlain to the king, led the way with their wands of office. The master of the horse, the lord steward, the treasurer, and the lord comptroller of the household, and the gold and silver sticks, came next; his royal highness's attendants next; and then the prince, followed by the royal dukes, the archbishops of Canterbury and York, the lord chancellor, the lord president of the council, and lastly, the other ministers and privy counsellors. A long table, covered with crimson velvet, stood in the saloon; the oaths which were to be subscribed by the regent were laid on it, written on vellum, and massy silver inkstands were placed by them, which had been made for Queen Anne. The prince took his seat at the head of the table, having the lord president on his right hand, and the lord chancellor on his left. The other privy counsellors being seated, the lord president stated the indisposition and incapacity of the king, briefly recapitulated the proceedings which had taken place in parliament for the appointment of a regency, and read the oaths which the prince was required by the act to take, to enable him to fill that office. The prince then said, "My lords,-(the privy counsellors when assembled being addressed by that title)-I understand that, by the act passed by the parliament appointing me regent of the

united kingdom, in the name and on behalf of his majesty, I am required to take certain oaths, and to make a de. claration before your lordships, as prescribed by the said act. I am now ready to take these oaths, and to make the declaration prescribed." The lord privy seal then rose and read the oaths, which the prince, with an audible voice, pronounced after him, in these words: "I do sincerely promise and swear, that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to his Majesty King George. So help me God.

"I do solemnly promise and swear, that I will truly and faithfully execute the office of Regent of the united king. dom of Great Britain and Ireland, according to an act of parliament passed in the fifty-first year of the reign of his Majesty King George the Third, and that I will administer, according to law, the power and authority vested in me by virtue of the said act; and that I will in all things, to the utmost of my

power and ability, consult and maintain the safety, honour, and dignity of his majesty, and the welfare of his people. So help me God.”

The prince then subscribed the two oaths. The lord president presented to him the declaration prescribed in the act for the more effectual preserving the king's person and govern ment, by disabling papists from sitting in either house of parliament. This declaration his royal highness repeated audibly, and subscribed. The privy counsellors signed these instruments as witnesses, and they were then delivered to the keeper of the records. The prince then delivered to the president of the council a certificate of his having received the sacrament of the Lord's Supper; this also was countersigned, and deposited by the keeper of the records in a box at the bottom of the table, with all the other instruments. The ceremony was concluded with kissing hands.

THE hopes of the opposition were raised to the highest pitch during the progress of the regency bill, and their partizans scarcely even attempted to conceal their joy at an event, which, as they fully expected, was to restore them to their places. The disposition of the prince, it was well known, was favourable to these hopes: he had a personal regard for some of the leaders of the party, and it was believed that many of his political opinions were imbibed from Mr Fox; though to what extent he might be disposed to act upon these opinions, was as yet necessarily unknown. It was therefore extremely probable that a change of ministry would take place; and all the opponents of government, however greatly they differed among themselves as to their ultimate objects, from the regular opposition, under Lords Grey and Grenville, down to the very dregs of the Burdettite faction, vied with each other in exulting over a falling enemy, and in hailing what, according to their representations, might be considered as the advent of political redemption. Wherever the agitators were numerous enough, they drew up petitions against the restrictions; the Livery of London led the way, and the silly charge of usurpation against Mr Perceval and his colleagues, was re-echoed by the city orators with their usual intemperance. "The ministers," they

said, "were the true jacobins ; the ministers were verifying all that Paine had written, by striving to show how long the government could be carried on without the executive; for themselves,-(injured men!) who had been accused of wishing to overthrow the throne, they were as anxious to support the just prerogatives of the crown, as they had ever been to support the rights of the people."

Two years before the king's illness, the Morning Chronicle had said, that " of all monarchs, since the revolution, the successor of George III. would have the finest opportunity of becoming nobly popular." This sentence, connected as it was with the anticipation of "a crowd of blessings that might be bestowed upon the country, in the event of a total change of system,' had most unwisely been selected for prosecution by Sir Vicary Gibbs, and the defendants were of course immediately acquitted. Such language was perfectly consistent in the Foxites, and in the Grenvillites, now that they were allied with them; but in the mouths of Sir Francis Burdett and the anarchists, flattery toward the prince appeared not a little extraordinary. At a tavern dinner,* after the investigation concerning the Duke of York's conduct, Sir Francis declared for himself and his party, "that they were ready to shut their eyes as much

as possible upon the vices of princes, and to overlook their indulgencies; that if the people were relieved from the depredations of the borough-mongering faction, he and the people should have no hesitation in granting to the royal family, or any of its members, any sum which they could reasonably require for pleasure or magnificence; that he believed the Prince of Wales was more of the Englishman than any prince of his family; and that he was persuaded the prince was not unwilling to promote the wishes of the people." It had long been observed, that the coarsest of the demagogue journalists, amid all his virulent attacks upon the royal family, cautiously abstained from any attack upon the prince: this journalist now joined in the cry of the united-oppositionists. "Never," he told us, "was there so fair an opportunity for producing a great and salutary effect, as the prince now had." "We want," said he, "a change of the whole system, a radical and a sweeping change of it; and it is because we hope that such a change would be the consequence of giving full powers to the prince, that we wish to see full powers given to him. Is not the Prince of Wales as likely to be able to judge of political systems as his father; afflicted as the latter unhappily has been in more ways than one, and bent down with age as he now is ? Is not the prince as likely to be able to choose proper advisers as his father was, or ever can be? Why then should powers, of any sort, belong ing to the kingly office, be withheld from him?”-“I know,” said this writer, it has been said, that we are binding for the prince; and who can bid above us? We have to offer him hearts, and sinews, and lines, if he needs them, and we ask for nothing but our well-known rights in return.

We want to strip him of nothing. We grudge him and his family nothing

that the constitution awards them, or that they could ever wish for, in the way of splendour. All we have to beseech of him is, that he will resolve to be the ruler of a free people, and not the leader of a faction.”—“ His succession to power," we were told by another of these journalists, "with such opportunities before him, and at so momentous a time, appeared a lot so enviable, that it might turn philosophy itself into ambition. Hitherto he had been seated in that domestic privacy, which he had learnt how to value and dignify. And so wonderfully had past circumstances held back the cause of radical reform, and so favourable for it were the present, that Fate seemed purposely to have reserved the amiable task for his royal highness, that with one restoring breath he might melt away the accumulated oppressions of half a century.”

The opinion of this party concerning the king's resumption of authority was sufficiently implied. They told us, that it was exposing the government to the contempt of foreign pow. ers, to have a person at the head of affairs who had long been incapable of signing his name to a document, without some one to guide his hand; a person long incapable of receiving pe titions, of even holding a levee, or discharging the most ordinary functions of his office; and now, too, afflicted with this mental malady! They cited cases to show how doubtful and precarious were the appearances of recovery from mental derangement; observed that persons having been so afficted were easily hurried, and inferred that a man subject to hurries was not fit to wield the executive power. When they were charged by their opponents with thus disclosing a determination, that if they acceded to power the king should never resume his functions, the manner in which the charge was repelled, was such as confirmed it.