be made manifeft? Had not the whole line of his ancestors, fince the revolution, had not even William the third, confented to fuch limitations? But he might diffolve the parliament a fuppofition, it was anfwered, in the higheft degree improbable. The diffolution of parliaments was a part of the royal prerogative, which had always been exercifed with much delicacy and caution even by the fovereign himfelf; and it was not to be imagined that any perfon would be fo weak and fhort-fighted as to advife fuch a meafure in circumftances like the prefent, efpecially as there was not a finge filling voted for carrying on the public fervice. Befides, the moderation which the prince had manifefted throughout the whole of this trying occafion, was a fufficient pledge for the rectitude of his future conduct, and entitled him in a peculiar manner to the confidence and affection of the house. Nor were the measures propofed more unneceffary than unwarrantable and unconftitutional. The refolution began with declaring," That "for maintaining entire the confti"tutional authority of the king, it "was neceflary they fhould deter"mine"-What? why, that the reprefentative of the king fhould have no other power than the houfe of commons fhould think fit to allow him. They were to devile means (as if they had to establish a new conftitution, inflead of preferving inviolate an old conftitution already eftablished) for altering and new modelling an effential part of the ftate; and in order to fix the form of a legal fanétion on their proceedings, they were to give a fictitious royal affent, but in reality their own affent, to their own acts. The glar ing falfehood and abfurdity of fuch a proceeding was treated with much ridicule and indignation. It having been urged on the other fide that the king, in the contemplation of the law, being fill in full poffeffion of his political capacity, the method propofed for fupplying the defect of his prefent inability to exercile his functions, was the most agreeable that could be devised to the legal forms of the conftitution, Mr. Fox replied, that no man could be more difposed than he was to regard the forms of the conftitution, but he held them facred only so far as they were the outguards and protectors of the conftitution itself. The moment that they ceafed to be the guardians, and became the betray ers, he could no longer venerate the forms, but muft inftantly refer to the fubftance and effence of the conftitution. He therefore in the present difcuffion felt it to be his first duty to inquire whether the meafures now propofed were not in direct hoftility to the principles of the conftitution, while by a miferable jug. gle and fraud they pretended to be confiftent with the forms. He did not mean to combat the doctrine, that the two houfes of parliament were competent, by refolution or addrefs, to fupply the prefent deficiency: but he should beg leave to contend, that if they proceeded farther, if they affumed to themfelves powers which belonged to the legiflature, and proceeded to legiflate, they would act in direct violation of the fpirit of the conftitution. What was there but their own difcretion as a fecurity from the most unconftitutional outrages? He fhould freely admit, that by addreffing the prince of Wales to take upon him the excrcife of royal authority, authority, they did an informal act, but it was an act which the neceffity of the cafe was fufficient to juftify. To make the chancellor put the great feal to the propofed commiffion was alfo informal. Let the two acts be examined and compared. Do the firft, and the prince inftantly holds the parliament, the legillature is complete, and the informal act may be ratified. If the chancelfor puts the great feal to whatever bill the two houfes fhall pafs for ratifying their proceedings, not a ftep is gained, for the remedy itself is allo unconftitutional and inefficient. Our propofition inftantly re-produces legiflature; your's, a monfter unknown to the conftitution. We do all that neceffity requires; you do infinitely more. It was faid, that "the power which neceflity creates, neceffity alfo limits:" we do but one informal act, you two or more. You proceed to chufe an inconvenient regent for the purpose of get ting a convenient regent, whom we reach at once. We proceed to limit his power, if it muft be limited, legally, when the legiflature is complete: you proceed to do this, when there exifts in the country no power that is competent to the measure. You do that by a fraud and a fiction, which we do conftitutionally and legally. All this, it had been faid, was very plaufible; but during the life of the king there was no perlon that could have a right to act for him. Then why did they prefume to confer this right on the lord chancellor? Oh," fays a learned gentleman, we have a right to make the chancellor do what we pleafe, and "to act according to our will, but we have no power to admit the prince of Wales to act according to his will." By this doctrine they had the power to appoint themfelves regents, but no power to appoint the heir apparent. Monftrous and indecent incongruity! But, he laid, the measure propofed was not only contrary to the fpirit of the conftitution, but to a direct act of parliament. The 13th of Charles II. exprefsly declared, that the two houfes could not make laws without the king. But, it had been faid, this ftatute could not apply; for the king, though at prefent incapable of exercifing, had ftill in the eye of the law his political capacity entire. The throne was to all intents and purpofes full, and nothing was wanting but an organ to convey the royal affent. What then was propofed to be done? To appoint a perfon who fhould give the royal affent to bills to be passed? Indeed! How was this perlon to know the royal pleature? Was he to go to Kew to apply to the royal perfon, whom Providence had deprived of the power of affent or dif fent? Human reafon revolted from the abfurdity. Was there a permanent authoritative counsel to which he could apply? None. Could he exercife his own will? No: he was deprived of all difcretion. To whom then could he apply? To the two houfes of parliament that gave him being; and thus we had a monfter unknown, unheard of in our history. We had indeed formerly two houfes of parliament, that proceeded firft to legiflate and then to act. Had the learned gentleman been then folicitor general inftead of fir Oliver St. John, he would not have felt himfelf at any lofs how to legalize all the proceedings of the long parlia ment; he would have itlued a commillion in the name of the king, allixed affixed the great feal to each of the ordinances, and having fo done, he would have exclaimed, Here are perfect ftatutes according to the law! But the king's name could not be ufed against the king's authority; and fetting up a man of straw for the purpofe of limiting the prerogative, was in fact and truth an infringement and outrage of the royal authority. Mr. Fox then proceeded to confider the precedents of the firit of Henry VI. and of the revolution. On the death of Henry V. the bishop of Durham, lord chancellor, delivered the great feal into the hands of the infant king, then nine months old; and the duke of Glou cefter of his own authority delivered it into the hands of the matter of the rolls, by whom it was fed. This was rather a firong measure; and yet in the parliament which fucceeded, although acts of indemnity were paffed for every other irregular meaiure, yet no act of indemnity was paffed for this; fo little doubt had our ancestors of that day of the right of the next perfon in the line of fucceffion. A commiffion was then iffued under the great feal, appointing the duke of Gloucefter to the regency, with full powers to exercife the royal authority, and to ufe his difcretion fully and freely in truft for the minor king. By this first ftep the third eftate was reftored before the two houfes took upon them to do any one act of legiflation; and the regent being thus vefted with the full exercife of the prerogative, the parliament was able to confirm by an act the firft measure of the iffuing of the commiffion. From this precedent he therefore deduced thefe two important facts: 1. That the power was given, in the firft inftance, to the next in fuc ceffion to the crown; and in this nomination the full abfolute authority of the fovereign was intrufted to him. 2. That though afterwards limitations were put to the duke's exercife of the prerogative, the limitations were made in full parlia ment, when the duke conftituted the third eftate, and when from each of the bills that restrained his authority he might have withholden his af fent. Mr. Fox then obferved, that tho' nothing could be more diftinct than the powers of the two houfes, taken individually, and the power of the three eftates in conjunction, yet in all this inveftigation they had been induftriously confounded. Moft of the precedents, on which they are called upon to proceed, were acts of the legislature. He infifted, that as they were not a legiflature, the only precedents applicable to the prefent queftion were fuch as related to the proceedings of the two houfes of parliament when deprived of the third eftate: of this kind were the proceedings of the convention at the revolution; and on this, fubject he faid he wifhed to be clearly underftood. He declared, then, that the revolution was evidently a cafe of neceffity, arifing from real and inminent danger: the vacancy of the throne was occafioned by the flight of the king, who having exdeavoured to fubvert the conftitution, and violated the fundamental laws of the kingdom, had provoked the juft refiftance of the people, and withdrawn himself in the tumult out of the kingdom. Thus outraged and injured, threatened with a foreign enemy in fupport of a ty rant, there exifted a neceffity m which all forms were to give way to the fubftance and eflence of the conflitution. They had not in that neceffity the choice of conduct. Their firft bounden constitutional duty was to protect themfelves against the danger which threatened, and therefore he affumed it as an uncontrovertible pofition, that what they did under the immediate preffure of this neceflity, did nos and could not apply to the prefent neceflity: but he was ready to acknowledge, that every proceeding of theirs which could be referred to free agency, and in which they were not fhackled by the dangers that furrounded them, did apply to the prefent cafe. Arguing on thefe two pofitions, if it thould be faid that the convention overlooked the line of hereditary fucceffion, his anfwer would be, that in doing fo they afted under the preffure of the necetlity, well knowing that they could only preferve to the kingdom its liberties and conftitution, by putting the erown into the hand of a perfon able to protect them. Their election of king William, therefore, he thought an act of pofitive neceflity, which did not apply to the prefent cafe. The mode of their electing him he confidered as an act of dilcretion, and that therefore did apply. King William, with all his great and glorious qualities, certainly did not poffefs fuch a knowledge of our conftitution, as to have had in his mind any preference as to the manner in which the crown fhould be conferred on him. His education, chiefly military, did not lead him much to the difcuflion of the forms of our parlimentary proceedings; and whether it came to him by declaration of the two houfes, by addrels, or by an act paff ed with the affectation of legal forms, was a matter which he believed would have been indifferent to him, and therefore he took it for granted that the convention acted from their own volition. And how did the two houfes act? They might have ordered a new great seal to be made, they might have created a pageant, and given to themfelves the empty form, without the reality or the effence of a perfect parliament; they might have committed an infulting fraud, and in the mere mockery of legislation have paffed an impotent act, conveying to king William the crown. But, knowing and feeling the diftinct powers poffeffed by the two houfes, and poffelfed by the legislature; knowing that the two houfes could act only by refolutions and addreffes, and that the legiflature could again act only by bill and flatule, the convention proceeded by that courfe which was confiftent with their functions, by addrefs.-Here was a precedent in the revolution applicable to the prefent cafe. He concluded with fome obfervations on the words of the refolution. He had, he faid, in the courie of this difcution, thrown out an opinion, that a right attached to the heir apparent to exercife the functions of royalty, during the incapacity of the king, and that the two houfes fhould recognize this right, and put him in poffeflion of it. In oppofition to this opinion, the two houfes came to a refolution, that they alone poffeffed the right of nominating to the regency; but at the fame time declaring they thought the prince the most proper perfon to be appointed. Bowing to their decifion, he now wifhed them to go on, and to appoint the prince regent. Inftead of this, what was the language and spirit of the next refolution? That they have no right, that they cannot appoint him. They must first do what never was done before in the hiftory of this country, they must first form themfelves into a legiflature. Thus they firft make a declaration of a right purely abftract; and having made it, they firink from the exercife of the right they have arrogated. He then warned the house against the adoption of fpecious pretexts, by which, under the colour of origi.al principles, they were to affame powers inconfiflent with the fpirit of the conftitution. There was no way fo certain of bringing the popular branch of the legislature into popular odium, as by deviating from the precife path marked out for it in the conftitution, and flraying within the limits of the other two, whom it was their duty to watch, but never to invade. Mr. Pitt replied to thefe arguments, and maintained that the grounds on which he had propofed and fupported the refolution, were fuch as would bear it out, whether reference was had to precedents and practice, or to the principles of the conftitution. The former, he faid, had been produced, in the first place, to fhew, that, in all cafes of interruption, or fufpenfion of the executive government, the right of providing a remedy was in the two remaining branches of the legiflature; and, in the fecond place, that, in infancy or infirmity of the fovereign, the will of the king had always, in form of law, been made the inftrument of fanctioning the acts of the executive power, by whomfoever advifed or directed. In this manner, by a commiffion, under the great feal, had parliaments in fuch cafes been called together in former times, as appeared by the precedents, and their acts were fanctioned by the royal authority, although the king was incapable of exercifing any judgment, difcretion, or will of his own. The prefent parliament was more regular, in point of form, in as much as it wanted no fuch power to call it together, being legally fummoned and aflembled without it. It had been argued, that this power of putting the great feal to a commiffion for calling a parliament, when there was none, was so much considered as the right of the first prince of the blood, in cafes of the minority of the king, that it had not even been thought neceffary to grant an indemnity for having done it, and confequently it muft have been confidered as a legal act. The prece dents of the firft part of the reign of Henry VI. fhewed that this was a mistake: for, a commiffion for calling a parliament at that time had been afterwards ratified by parliament; and, there were other isftances of such subsequent ratifica. tion, where the feal had been put to commiflions by the first prince of the blood. With refpect to the revolution, he admitted that the circumstances of that period had been fairly stated; but he differed from Mr. Fox in the application which he had made of them, and contended, that the principle refulting from the proceedings of parliament then was fuch as ought to govern the proceedings at prefent. He agreed, that what had been done from motives of policy to protect the nation from invafion, by a formidable rival, and to prevent the return of the abdicated monarch, ought |