Geo. Fludyer Lord Apsley Richard Master Sir Wm. Lemon, bt. John Dawes Penn A. Curzon George Rose Major-gen. Rooke Charles Brett Hon. Rich. Howard Against the E. L. Loveden Samuel Estwicke Question. Sir Peter Burrell Sir Charles Gould Charles Gould Thomas Whitmore Thomas Scott Charles Sturt James Macpherson Sir Sam. Hannay, bt. Sir Herb. Mackworth Earl of Lisburne John Campbell Rowland Stephenson John G. Phillips John Crewe Sir John Frederick, bt. Hans Sloane James Dawkins Thomas Lister John Lee Jas. C. Satterthwaite Humphry Sanhouse Sir Robt. Smyth, bt. SirW. Molesworth, bt. Hon. W. S. Conway Hon. Gen. Norton LEE Wm. Weddell Rt. hon. F. Montagu John Cotes George Skeene John Shaw Stuart Tellers for the Question, Thomas Steele : Against it, William Adam. Dec. 18. Mr. Pitt having moved the order of the day for receiving the Report of the Committee on the State of the Nation, Colonel Fitzpatrick asked the right hon. gentleman, whether there would be any inconvenience in adjourning the consideration of the report till the next day? He added, that his right hon. friend Mr. Fox was obliged, by illness, to be absent; and he should imagine it would be the general Sir John St. Aubyn, bt wish, that no part of the important proRich. Benyon Hon. Lionel Damer Wharton Amcotts Wm. Lawrence Hon. Wm. Norton Hon. Thos. Pelham ceeding which they were engaged in, should be agitated in the absence of so considerable a member of that House, unless such delay was likely to create real loss of time, and serious inconvenience, neither of which, he presumed, would be the case if his request could be complied with, because there was every reason to believe that his right hon. friend could be present in his place upon the ensuing day, and the report might then be taken into consideration and voted, if the House thought proper, so as to be carried up to the House of Lords on Saturday. Mr. Pitt said, it certainly was his wish to show every mark of personal respect to the right hon. gentleman, consistently with the urgency of public business; but where it was not consistent with the conducting of the public business, however he might regret the circumstance, he should think Sir John Thorold, bt. Rt.hon. R. Fitzpatrick it his duty to refuse; but, as the only dif Chas. A. Pelham Hon. R. L. Saville George Anson Lord Penrhyn Nath. Newnham John Sawbridge Lord Clive Richard P. Knight Clement Taylor Visc. Melbourne Sir Peter Parker, bt. Visc. Maitland Lord John Russell Robert Vyner Sir H. Bridgman, bt. Rt. hon. C. J. Fox Lord Jn. Townshend ference which adjourning the considera- Rt. Hon. Edm. Burke Sir M. Le Fleming, bt. though he was sorry the House had been given the trouble of assembling unnecessarily, he would cheerfully acquiesce upon that ground. The question of adjournment was then put, and carried. Dec. 19. Mr. Alderman Watson appeared at the bar with the Report of the Committee on the State of the Nation. The question being put, "That the Report be brought up,' Sir John Sinclair said, that he could most sincerely affirm, that, with regard to the first resolution, there was no individual in that House who felt more the calamity which had befallen the King and the country, than himself. In respect to the rights of the two Houses to provide the means for supplying the deficiency in the exercise of the royal authority, he must still be of opinion, that it was not necessary for that House to make a declaration of its rights, on the slight ground of the expression of a doubt of the right of the Prince of Wales, stated in the speech of one of its members. If the right hon. gentleman who first expressed his doubts of the right of that House, instead of doing so, had brought forward a motion, declaring the Prince of Wales's right, no man would have more firmly resisted such a motion than himself. In the third resolution, there was something dark and mysterious; and whatever ideas he had of the character and abilities of the right hon. gentleman, who had called upon the House to declare their right, by the second resolution, which appeared to him to be unnecessary, the mystery in the third resolution demanded explanation. He gave the right hon. gentleman credit for too much manliness of mind, to suppose that he would endeavour to entrap that House, and fetter its future conduct, by any equivocal resolution, but, previously to bringing up of the report, he must beg to know what his reasons were for the wording of the third resolution, and also desire an explanation of what was meant by the Bill to be passed by the Houses of Parliament. He was afraid the two Houses were intended to be called upon to exceed their constitutional powers, and this was a time of too critical a nature, for any part of so very important a proceeding to be suffered to remain in the dark, or be subject to any kind of doubt. Every step in such a proceeding should be clearly understood, and maturely considered. Mr. Pilt answered, that he wished not to bring forward any point in that House which was not clearly understood; and, therefore, the hon. baronet did him no more than justice, when he gave him credit for not having any intention, by any equivocal resolution, to entrap that House and fetter its future proceedings. In respect to the information which the hon. baronet wished to receive, it would be recollected, that he had, in his general opening of the resolutions, explained the whole of their object. With regard to the means of providing for the defect in the exercise of the royal authority, in consequence of his Majesty's unhappy incapacity, he had stated that, as in consideration of law, his Majesty's political capacity was entire, their first proceeding must be by the royal authority, which was by a bill, sanctioned by the concurrence of the King and the two Houses of Parlia ment. Now, though the necessity of the case did not oblige them to act without the royal authority, it did oblige them to provide the means of supplying the defect arising from his Majesty's indisposition, by issuing a commission under the great seal, appointing commissioners to open the. parliament, in the name of his Majesty, in the usual form, and state the reasons for calling them together. This he conceived to be the only mode of proceeding that could be adopted consistently with the principles of the constitution. Sir John Sinclair could not avoid expressing his utmost astonishment, that the right hon. gentleman should call the system of measures which he had explained to the House, a system consistent with the principles of the constitution, when it was contrary to law. Every gentleman conversant with the statute law, knew that it was, by the 13th Charles 2, declared illegal for the two Houses to legislate for themselves, or make laws without the King; and, by the same statute, the declaration that they had any such power, was pronounced thigh treason in the person making it, and he was liable to all the pains and penalties of a premunire. Sir John added, that the mode to be adopted appeared to him to be highly objectionable. The proper and simple mode of procedure was, for the two Houses to address the only individual that all mens eyes were fixed on, as the fit person to undertake the administration of government, in like manner as our ancestors had addressed the Prince of Orange, at the memorable æra of the revolution. Mr. Powys said, that his anxiety on the present alarming occasion was equal to that of the hon. baronet; although he believed the stating on what that anxiety turned, was premature in that stage of the business, he would venture to intimate, that when the report should be brought up, he believed he might undertake to prove that the right hon. gentleman's system was not founded either in precedent or law. The report having been brought up, and the first resolution read and agreed to, the second was read, when Sir Grey Cooper rose, and desired to be permitted to state, with great submission, a doubt which had occurred to him, whether the House, in its present limited and imperfect capacity, could, with propriety, and consistent with the order and regularity of their proceedings, agree to the resolution now under deliberation. He requested the members to consider and advert to the very peculiar and unprecedented circumstances under which they were assembled, and now sitting. They were one of the estates of the kingdom, assembled at Westminster, but not assembled in parliament; they were maimed and mutilated in their legislative functions by the present unfortunate incapacity of the King to exercise the royal authority. They had met on the 20th of November last, at the expiration of a period to which they had been duly prorogued by the commission from the King. On that day, no commission came to prorogue them to a farther time. The Speaker had arranged the proceeding on that occasion in the best possible manner. When he had taken the chair, by the desire of the members present, the minister opened to the House the deplorable cause which prevented his Majesty's servants from taking his pleasure with respect to a farther prorogation. The House paused, and hesitated in what they ought to do in such an exigency. By the ancient rules and principles parliamentary proceedings, it was, as he conceived, irregular for them, in the situation in which they then stood, to do any business, or to make any order, other than for adjourning from day to day. But, upon reading a precedent of the 9th of September 1690, which bore considerable analogy to their proceeding in their present situation, the House assumed energy enough to adjourn for fourteen days, and to order a call of the House; and upon the ground of this precedent, [VOL. XXVII.] and the very special circumstances of the case, they perhaps might be justified in making such order. They met again on the 4th of December, and were informed by the minister, that the same cause unhappily continued to prevent the servants of the crown from taking the King's pleasure, touching any act to be done, either for the farther proroguing parliament, or for issuing the summons for its meeting for the dispatch of business; and they were then informed, that there was a necessity for their immediately proceeding to supply the defect in the exercise of the functions of the royal authority. Since that measure had been recommended by the minister, and adopted by the House, they had, in all the steps which they have hitherto taken, acted under the authority, and moved by the mere impulse of that necessity; and if any part of their proceedings transgressed the clear limits of that necessity, and the direct course which it points out to us, it was, in his humble opinion, an act of self-constituted power, and of very dangerous tendency and consequence The point in question therefore was, whether the second Resolution now reported was, or was not, an act of neces sity, for the purpose of supplying the defect in the legislature, by the King's incapacity. He contended, that the resolution declaring the right and duty of the House, was not necessary, because there appeared to him no real impediment or obstacle to their progress, which it was requisite to remove and clear away before they could act in their deliberative capacity. That there was no claim of right, no denial of their authority, no matter of which the House could, consistently with the gravity and order of its proceedings, take parliamentary notice or cognizance. At the Revolution, the Convention Parliament did not, in the famous Committee on the State of the Nation, declare what it was their right or their duty to do. It appears that Finch and sir Edward Seymour, and some other leading men at that time, delivered and maintained opinions, directly contrary to the principles on which the first resolution of the 28th of January, 1689, was grounded. But the grand committee proposed no resolution, to vindicate or establish their right against such assertions. They exercised their right, and did the noble work they were about; and they thought, that the doing the deed, comprehended in it, and incons [3 E] testibly proved both their right and their duty to do it. Having submitted to the House these observations on the order of their proceedings, he requested the indulgence of their attention to some remarks upon the precedents on which the right hon. gentleman had laid the foundation of his resolutions, and particularly on the precedent of the 32nd and 33rd of Henry the 6th, which, being the only one touching the supply of the defect in the royal authority from sickness, bore with the most force on the present state of things and persons. The precedent had been much relied on; it had been proposed as a pattern for their proceeding in the great and arduous affair which a most deplorable necessity imposed upon them. They had been called upon by the great law authorities in that House to follow the example of their ancestors, and not to leave them in the lurch, by departing from the principles on which they acted. But, before they determined to follow the example of their ancestors, it seemed to him that they should consider what sort of persons those same ancestors were. He would venture to undertake to prove, by the irrefragable evidence of records, and the authentic history of the times, that, during the course of all the proceedings which collectively form that precedent, both Houses of Parliament were in the most abject and humiliated state of dependence on the power and will of Richard Duke of York, and the potent and formidable faction of the noble families who adhered to him and followed the projects of his ambition: and that every step they took every declaration they made, and every act they did or passed, were taken and done under the impression of immediate force, and irresistible influence. He desired to be permitted to state facts anterior to the year 1454, in which that precedent principally arose, in order to introduce, with more regularity and clearness, the documents and evidence by which he intended to support his proposition. After the assassination of the virtuous Duke of Gloucester, the King's uncle, Richard Duke of York, became first Prince of the Blood, and presumptive heir to the crown. The impeachment of the great minister and favourite, the Duke of Suffolk, and his banishment and death, soon followed. Edmund Beaufort, duke of Somerset, succeeded to the favour of the Queen, the powers of administration, some and the unpopularity of his predecessor. The Duke of York, trusting to the advantage which that unpopularity and the weakness of the government gave him, raised an army in the year 1452, and marched with 10,000 men from Wales to the gates of the city of London, for the purpose, as he gave out, of a reformation in the government, and the removal of the Duke of Somerset from all his power and authority. The manner in which he was foiled in this bold enterprise, of his being the dupe of his confidence in the promises of the court, and of his escape from the power of his enemies, are facts well known to all those who have ever looked into the history of this eventful period. He lived in retirement at his castle on the borders of Wales till the latter end of the year 1453. The Prince of Wales was born in October 1453: and, about this time, the king fell into a disorder in his mind, which rendered him unfit even to maintain the appearance of royalty. The queen and Somerset found themselves obliged by this exigency to yield, for a time, to the high power and connexions of the Duke of York. Somerset was actually sent to the Tower on the 13th of February, 1454. Richard was appointed, or, more properly speaking, appointed himself Lieutenant to the King, for holding the parliament, which having been first assembled at Reading, was, after several prorogations and adjournments, assembled at Westminster on the 14th of February. About this time, the famous earl of Warwick, the earls of Salisbury and Westmoreland, and many others of the Duke's followers, were admitted into the council, in the place of the former administration, and had the whole government in their hands. By their command and influence the Committee of Lords was sent on the 23rd of March to the King, who lay sick at Windsor, to take his pleasure upon certain questions stated in their commission. On the 25th of March, the Bishop of Carlisle, one of the deputed Lords, reported to the House, that they found the King in a state of perfect lethargy and insensibility. Then followed, on the 27th of March, the famous transaction of the nomination and election of the Duke of York to his first Protectorate, by the Peers spiritual and temporal in Parliament assembled without any participation or even consent of the Commons. Sir Grey observed, that he did not consider |