erting various other important prerogatives. To talk therefore of the feelings of the King as Mr. Pitt did, was to suppose that he would be less shocked to learn that the constitution of the government was changed, part of his dominions ceded to foreign potentates, and a thousand calamities and disgraces entailed upon his country, than be informed of the most trivial alteration in his domestic arrangements. Mr. Sheridan concluded a brilliant speech, with describing the ex-minister, as coming down to the house in state, with the cap of liberty upon the end of a white staff, a retinue of black and white sticks attending him, and an army of beefcaters to clear his way through the lobby.

In the House of Peers, the ministerial resolutions were destined to experience an opposition equally resolute, and equally ineffectual. A speech

intended to have been spoken by the Duke of York on the occasion, but which for some reason or other was not delivered, is in itself so beautiful a composition, and according to our ideas comes SO near up to what were the sentiments of the Prince of Wales, and the other branches of his illustrious family in this melancholy dilemma of the royal house, that we feel no hesitation in laying it before our readers. It appeared in the newspapers of the day under the title of a speech, intended to have been delivered by his Royal Highness the Duke of York, in the debate on the regency bill.

"MY LORDS,

My wishes would lead me to take no part at all in the debates on this bill, but to submit myself implicitly to your lordships' discretion. But the point to which matters have been.

brought, does not leave it in my own choice whether I shall speak, or whether I shall be silent.

"I see the children of the king separated from their father-the mother alienated from her offspring-the whole royal family degraded and excluded, not from their rank and situation only, but from the first and dearest privileges of nature. The children. and brothers of his majesty are excluded from any share as principals, or even by participation and advice, in the care of the King. We have been rejected one by one, and name by name. This, my lords, I own sinks deep into my mind.

"From the very beginning of these transactions I thought that the intention of those who have taken the lead in them could not be mistaken. They began by a formal declaration of right,

could not (as I then conceived) have any other purpose than that of conveying to the world an opinion that the Prince of Wales had questioned the just powers of parliament, or had maintained a claim to the regency independent of the recognition of the

two houses.

"Whatever the views might be of those who brought it forward, it was impossible that I should consider it in any other light than as a scheme to throw unmerited suspicion on the Prince of Wales, and to prejudice him in the opinions and hearts of the people. These I am sure my brother thinks his best inheritance; and that the regency, and even the throne, or a greater throne, if such there were, are nothing without them.

"I was authorized by the Prince of Wales to disavow'any such claim on his part, and faithfully executed

my commission.

I did it with the

greater cheerfulness, because the opinion of the Prince of Wales was exactly my own. But your lordships well remember in what manner, and on what principles, that measure was persevered in. The gratitude of his majesty's servants, with I know not what appeal to heaven, was set in opposition to the gratitude, the duty, and natural affection of all his children and both his majesty's brothers, in order to justify a declaration which struck obliquely at the honour of all his majesty's family*.

* In this part of his speech his royal highness evidently meant to allude to what had fallen from Lord Thurlow on a former day. In answer to the speech delivered by the royal duke in an early stage of the discussion, and which we have already had occasion to refer to, the chancellor observed, "that his feelings were rendered more poignant, from having been in the habits of personally receiving various marks of indulgence and kindness from the suffering monarch. His debt of gratitude to his majesty