CHAPTER VI. THE KING'S ILLNESS-PROCEEDINGS IN PARLIA. MENT ON THE OCCASION-MR. FOX'S ASSERTION OF THE PRINCE'S RIGHT TO THE REGENCY -DEBATES ON THE SUBJECT-DEBATES IN THE HOUSE OF PEERS-PROPRIETY OF CONDUCT OF THE PRINCE OF WALES IN THIS DELICATE DECLARATIONS OF MR. FOX AND THE DUKE OF YORK-PROCEEDINGS IN THE TWO HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT OBSERVATIONS ON THE SITUATION OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS AT THIS PERIOD. EMERGENCY THE next occasion on which the Prince of Wales came more particularly before the public, was on the alarming indisposition of the King towards the close of the year 1788. The King's malady, it need scarcely here be mentioned, was of a melancholy nature, which utterly precluded him from exercising the functions of royalty, and therefore no time was to be lost in appointing some one to exercise the supreme authority during the continuance of his majesty's incapacity. Parliament met on the 20th of November, 1788; and after the ministers had briefly explained his majesty's melancholy situation, both houses adjourned for a fortnight. At their next meeting a committee of twenty-one persons in each house was appointed to examine and report the sentiments of the royal physicians; and a further adjournment to the 10th of December took place. On that day the report of the committee was laid upon the table of the House of Commons; and after commenting upon it some time, Mr. Pitt moved, "That a committee be appointed to examine and report precedents of such proceedings as may have been had, in cases of the personal exercise of the royal authority being prevented or interrupted by infancy, sickness, infirmity, or otherwise, with a view to provide for the same." This motion, which evidently went to cause a waste of time, was strenuously deprecated by Mr. Fox, who being on an excursion to the continent when the King's illness was first known, had been sent express for by the Prince of Wales, to assist him in this emergency with his counsels. Mr. Fox contended that it was the duty of parliament to lose no time in proceeding to provide some measure for the exigency of the present moment, and he thought that exigency so pressing in point of time, that he for one would oppose the motion then made. What, he asked, were they going to search for? Not precedents upon their journals, not parliamentary precedents, but precedents in the history of England. He would be bold to say, nay they all knew, that the doing so would be a loss of time, for there existed no precedents whatever, that could bear upon the present case. There might have been an incompetency, there might have been an inability in former monarchs, to direct the reins of government; but if such a misfortune had happened to the country, it had happened at a time when there was not the alleviation of a natural substitute. The circumstance to be provided for did not depend upon their deliberation, it rested elsewhere. There was then a person in the kingdom, differing from any other person that any existing precedents could refer to, an heir apparent of full age and capacity to exercise the regal power. It behoved them, therefore, not to waste a moment unnecessarily, but to proceed with all-becoming speed and being prevented or interrupted by infancy, sickness, infirmity, or otherwise, with a view to provide for the This motion, which evidently went to cause a waste of time, was strenuously deprecated by Mr. Fox, who being on an excursion to the continent when the King's illness was first known, had been sent express for by the Prince of Wales, to assist him in this emergency with his counsels. Mr. Fox contended that it was the duty of parliament to lose no time in proceeding to provide some measure for the exigency of the present moment, and he thought that exigency so pressing in point of time, that he for one would oppose the motion then made. What, he asked, were they going to search for? Not precedents upon their journals, not parliamentary precedents, but precedents in the history of |