similar occasion, the facts relative to his Majesty's indisposition were laid before the house, as ascertained by an examination of the physicians by the privy council; after which, a committee of their own body ascertained the facts. He thought this precedent unnecessarily departed from, though, for the sake of unanimity, he would not oppose the motion. As to the question, whether inconvenience would arise from the adjournment during the suspension of the royal functions, ministers must be the best judges, and upon them the heavy responsibility rested. He trusted there would be no necessity for further proceedings, and prayed to God for the restoration of his Majesty's health.

Earl Stanhope thought that the necessity under which they met should have been proved; but he should vote for the adjournment, in order to give time for the attendance of the members from Ireland and Scotland.

The Lord Chancellor agreed with the noble baron (Grenville) that if any further proceeding should unhappily become necessary, it would be requisite to establish the facts, in consequence of which they acted, by evidence.

Lord Grenville, in reply, observed, that he could not imagine a precedent more fatal to every principle of the constitution than that of any ministers daring to dispense with the royal authority, except when urged by the most pressing necessity. Beyond this, not a day, not an hour, should be lost, in supplying the natural defect in the exercise of the royal functions, and in constituting a legitimate parliament. He repeated his most a dent wishes for the recovery of his Majesty; but if that should not be among the blessings destined for the country, it was the solemn duty of government, without delay to take such measures as might lead to the renovation of the kingly office.

Lord Liverpool said, that if any deviation bad taken place from the course followed on former occasions, it could only be ascribed to the different circum stances of the case. On the former occasion, the houses had met in consequence of a proclamation to that effect, for the dispatch of business: but here, his Majesty's pleasure had been already declared in council, that parliament should be further prorogued.

Earl Grey said, that his noble friend (Lord Moira) had stated as a reason for his acceding to the motion, that no inconvenience to public affairs could arise from the suspension of the royal authority at present. In that sentiment he

could by no means coincide. The func tions of the monarchy could not be suspended a week, nay, even an hour, without material inconvenience. The adjournment, therefore, should not be protracted an hour beyond the necessity of the case. There was no analogy be tween the circumstances in which the country was in 1788, the period of the former indisposition of his Majesty, and of the present times. We were then in the full enjoyment of the advantages of profound peace; now we had war raging on all sides of us. Let noble lords, too, consider the nature of that war, the rancour and activity of our principal enemy, the deep interests that were at stake, the momentous events that might be expected to occur, the necessity of providing for any defects or misfortunes that might arise, and he was persuaded they would agree with him that the adjournment should be as short as possible. Their lordships were now net as one of the states of the realm, and it was incumbent on them to proceed with the utmost caution in ascertaining the facts both of his Majesty's indisposition and recovery, if the latter, according to the hopes held out by the noble lord, should fortunately take place. Although he could not accede to the motion for so long an adjournment, he should offer no amendment to it. Whatever course their lordships may adopt, he trusted they would suffer no proceeding to take place that might by any possibility im pair the kingly office.

Lord Sidmouth spoke in favour of what was done in 1788; and he said, that, with respect to what farther pro ceedings it might be necessary to adopt, the case was different. They could not, he said, proceed without evidence, fully establishing the fact of the necessity, and the extent to which ulterior mea sures, if necessary, should be carried must be controlled by the nature of the evidence.

The motion was carried without a division, and the house adjourned, ace cordingly, to the 29th instant.

no man could doubt but it then became the duty of the two houses to determine what measure to adopt in such a lamentable situation. Those members who had attended might perhaps have been justified in adjourning the house to the 29th, as his Majesty's intention was known, as well as that no public business required earlier dispatch; however, he did not then think proper to advise it, from the possibility that their earlier attendance might be requisite. If, how~ ever, it would have then been proper to adjourn the house to the 29th, there could now, from what he should have to state, be no doubt of it. He had the satisfaction to inform the house, that he had that day been at Windsor, where he consulted with the Physicians who attended his Majesty, and he had the happiness to find them unanimous in the opinion, "That his Majesty's indis"position is in a state of progressive "amendment, and that considerable a"mendment has already taken place." From this information, which the house heard with such extraordinary satisfac tion, and which could not be heard with less joy by all classes of his Majesty's subjects, joined with the circumstance that there was no particular pressure of business at the present moment, he trusted that the motion he had to make would meet with no objection. He then concluded with moving, "that the house at its rising, should adjourn to the 29th instant."

Mr. Whitbread stated, that in rising to make a few observations on what he had just heard, no man could feel more joy than himself from the information of his Majesty's amendment, and he was confident it would be equally grateful to the people of these realms, distressed as they were from a multiplicity of can

ses.

With respect to the motion, however, with which the right hon. gentleman concluded, and which he said he had in contemplation to make when the house last so unexpectedly met, he had to say, that in his opinion, had he then proposed it, it would have been assuredly rejected. He himself was not then present, because he could not surmise such an occurrence; and it was not in his power to know whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer had time to write letters to any of the members, apprising them of what should happen; but he knew that if he wrote to any, he should have written to all. Had he been

present, he certainly should have concurred in the adjournment which then took place, but not in the projected adjournment of the right hon. gentleman. The two houses were now assembled fully, and not before; for he should contend that this was the first day of the session. Members had now been sworn in, and the Speaker was ordered to issue his writ for the election of a new member, and the house could not adjourn without an order from his Majesty, who was unfortunately not in a condition to attend to any public business, or some physical necessity, which, if any existed, ought to be recorded as a precedent; for the conduct proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was founded upon no precedent. In the melancholy situation in which his Majesty was ad mitted to have been, was it becoming in the house of Commons to adjourn far a fortnight, without ascertaining with accuracy what amendment he had, or the prospect there was of his speedily being able to resume the functions of his high and important situation? Ought the house to rest satisfied with the bare word of the minister, when the report of his Majesty's Physicians itself at least could be obtained? In his opinion all the privy counsellors ought to be exami ned, before the house came to such a decision. In giving such an opinion, however, he wished it to be clearly uns derstood that it was not by any means his wish to entrench on that delicacy which ought always to be observed to wards the Sovereign. He felt very much surprised that the right hon. gentleman should urge it as an argument for adjournment of fourteen days, that it was his Majesty's intention to have prorogued the parliament for that period. He would ask the right hon. gentleman, whether, when his Majesty expressed that intention, he had it in contemplation that he himself should be disabled from discharging the bigh duties wherewith he was invested by the constitution? Could we have known this, he (Mr. W.) was persuaded his Majesty's first wish would be to assemble his parliament immediately, to adopt such measures as would be conducive to the protection of the country and the constitution. He wished the house to recollect, that it was not now to adjourn under such happy circumstances as in 1788. Instead of the country being in a state of pro found peace, we were now engaged in

protracted war, which had already cost much blood and treasure, and in daily expectation of receiving intelligence of the utmost importance from a numerous army abroad. It ought also to be recollected, that in 1788 Mr. Pitt was prime minister, and every body knew who now occupied his situation, men who had been too long suffered to remain in it, and who were now unavoidably deprived of the controul of the King. If the house should adjourn, it would be with their eyes open, unable to foresee the consequences, and precluded from the possibility of preventing them perhaps of ever retrieving them. Was it their duty, under such circumstances to adjourn for fourteen days longer? No; the two houses ought to sit from day to day, and provide against a similar evil, if God Almighty should again afflict us with such a calamity. He could not conceal from himself the glaring manner in which the present minister was departing from the precedent of 1788 in every circumstance. Before an adjournment was then proposed, Lord Thurlow, who was then Lord Chancellor, declared in the house of Peers that he saw his Majesty himself, and that he found him recovered: but the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had gone to Windsor, did not say that he saw his Majesty, nor did he seem to think it necessary. Why was not parliament respected, as it ought to be, and as the nation had a right to demand? The right hon. gentleman stated only that he saw the Physicians. He should not doubt the veracity of the Physicians, nor even the veracity of the right hon. gentleman himself, but he thought it due from ministers, to the high character of the Sovereign, to produce some authentic information of the state of his malady, in order that par'liament should know how to act, and not propose an adjournment of fourteen days in a time of unparalleled peril, merely upon an unsupported assertion of his own.

Sir Francis Burdett said, that, agreeing, as he did, in the greater part of the observations which had fallen from the hon. gentleman who had just sat down, he was determined not to let the question go to a decision without dividing the house upon it. The motion now submitted to them he conceived to be one of the most irrational and unconstitutional propositions ever made in that

house. He would never consent to compromise the constitution. Had he been present on the last day of meeting, he would have opposed every motion for adjournment. The constitution was suspended, and he would not have agreed to a moment's delay, till that constitution was restored; but now, after that delay, after deferring so long their duty to the people, were they now still further to postpone it for another fortnight? But the time was not of such importance as the principle. What principle was this mode of proceeding calculated to establish? Could the public business go on without the executive government? If it could not, why, at such a period, is it to be deferred? and if it could, were ministers anxious to convince the people that the executive branch of the constitution was a mere nothing? Was there any proceeding more likely to bring that part of the constitution into contempt? Was it not holding it forth to the country as a mere farce? Were the people to be told, that in the votes of both houses only consisted the constitution; that the crown might be placed on a cushion, or elsewhere, while the two houses had in themselves all the virtual government and constitution of the country? If the present predicament was an awkward one, it was so because the house had not, in the first instance, done its duty, and not because the line of their duty was doubtful or difficult to discover. As to the mode of proceeding which they ought now to adopt, there could be no doubt or difficulty about it. He felt for the personal sufferings of the King, as every man must feel, but they need not, nor ought they to interfere with the discharge of their duty both to the King and to the people. He felt for the King, but he felt more for the perils of the country. Was it treating the house of Commons with common decency to call on them to postpone their duty to the people at a period of such emergency, upon the mere ipse dirit of the Chancellor of the Exche quer? As to the distinction of seeing the King's physicians, and not the King himself, it did not weigh with him, be cause in either case it would have been but the mere assertion of an individual, and therefore no ground for parliamen tary proceedings. Let the individual assertion have been what it might, he would have voted the same way. He

would never agree to compromise the duties of that house to the constitution, nor willingly submit to any power extended beyond it. The act passed by a very prevalent and powerful faction against his royal highness the Prince of Wales, never should have had his sanction; an act that put him into leading strings, that threw him back into the stage of infancy, and inade him a sort of constructive lunatic, enacting him incapable of acting or of judging without the co-operation and controul of certain of the legislators; as it were stultifying him this moment, when the next, by the laws of the land, might have raised him to the crown of these kingdoms, and lifted him out of a cradle to have placed him on a throne. The same course was now about to be adopted, as far as in them lay. He would resist it, and if he stood alone he was determined to divide the house. If the mi

nisters were resolved, at the risk of the country's safety, at all hazards to prolong to the utmost limit, the tenure by which they held their places and their power, they and others might do so; but he would not go back to the people to tell them that after the constitution had been suspended for a fortnight, he had voted that it should be suspended for a fortnight longer. A state of anarchy had existed sufficiently long. He would do what he could to restore to the people the government of the constitution.

Mr. Tierney thought the Chancellor of the Exchequer ought to have laid a better foundation for the proceeding which he had submitted to the house. He could not understand what the right hon. gentleman himself could gain from the course which he was pursuing. He had exposed the house to divisions on a subject, with respect to which it was perfectly desirable that there should be no difference. He did not doubt, however, but the right hon. gentleman had acted in conformity to what the mature reflection of his own mind had pointed out as his duty. But he (Mr, Tierney,) could not take the bare word of any man, as a proper ground for a parlia mentary proceeding. If the right hon. gentleman himself had submitted to be examined-if he had stated the questions which he had put to the physicians, and the answers which had been returned to his inquiries, this though hardly sufficient, would have been something;

VOL. VIII.

the house would have some authentic ground for whatever steps it might be disposed to adopt. But now when Providence had deprived them of a King, they were by their own act, to deprive themselves of a parliament. This, he contended, was monstrous; and he could not agree to place the country in such a situation.

Lord A. Hamilton could not allow this occasion to pass, without stating his opinion; but in doing that, he would exercise every possible delicacy. The question now was, whether, in the absence of the executive government, they were to suspend the remaining branches of the legislature for a fortnight. He could not hesitate to give it as his decided opinion, that the house should only adjourn from day to day. At a moment when they had the misfortune to be deprived of the executive power, why should they themselves place the country in a situation of greater danger, than the circumstances rendered necessary? Unless he had misunderstood the right hon. gentleman, he had urged, as a reason for adjourning now, that such had been the original intention of his Majesty, as appeared from the proclamation. That proclamation, however, was 110thing, without a commission to prorogue; but, at any rate, he could not believe that such could have been the intention of his Majesty, if the calamity had been foreseen. He was fully aware of the delicacy of the subject; but, under all the circumstances, he was compelled to vote against the adjourn

ment.

Mr. Fuller stated, that under the melancholy circumstances in which they were placed, he was strongly disposed to assent to the adjournment.

Mr. Ponsonby observed, that not having been in the house when the Commons met a fortnight ago, he had uot till now an opportunity of giving an opi nion on this most momentous subject. The right hon. gentleman knew well that they were now sitting, not as a parliament, but as a convention. He knew well that there could be no parliament, properly speaking, without the third estate. He must be aware that it was a constitutional principle, that the two houses of parliament could only act when called together by the King; and that no exceptions could be admitted, unless in cases of paramout necessity. The right hon. gentleman proposed an