given to the possible misconduct of the Board of Control, by the fears of a parliamentary inquiry. 6thly, Because the operation of this Bill, and of the Act, the meaning of which it is to declare, ought to have been limited to the duration of the existing Charter. Whatever may be the right of the Legislature to subject the trade and the general revenues of the Company to the inspection and control of the Board of Commissioners, nominated by the Crown, so long as the Company continue in the enjoyment of an exclusive trade, and in the management of great territorial revenues, we must, however, maintain, that to perpetuate such inspection, and to render the signatures of that Board necessary to all the Company's dispatches of every kind, when they may carry on their trade merely as a commercial corporation, without any monopoly, and when they may remain in the management only of their own proper estates, is a measure of injustice wholly unprecedented, and an example liable to much reasonable jealousy in a commercial country like Great Britain. On all these grounds of objection; to the style and form of the Bill, as a declaratory bill; to the incongruities, absurdities, and deficiencies of the Bill itself; to much of the principle, and to all the distinguishing characters of the system which it is meant to declare, as well as to the perpetual operation which it gives to that system, we think it incumbent upon us, here solemnly in the Journal of Parliament, to record our hearty dissent for the satisfaction of our consciences, and for our justification to our fellow-citizens, and to posterity. William Wentworth Fitzwilliam, Earl Fitzwilliam. George Augusta Lumley Sanderson, Earl of Scarborough. George Grenville Nugent Temple, Marquis of Buckingham. John Montagu, Earl of Sandwich. William Henry Cavendish Bentinck, Duke of Portland. Henry Herbert, Lord Porchester. Edward Smith Stanley, Earl of Derby. William Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire. George James Cholmondeley, Earl Cholmondeley. George Edward Henry Arthur Herbert, Earl of Powis. John Stuart, Lord Cardiff. Francis Russell, Duke of Bedford. Alexander Wedderburn, Lord Loughborough, For the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth reasons. Robert Hay Drummond, Lord Hay (Earl of Kinnoull). CCCCIV. DECEMBER 29, 1788. In the summer of 1788, the King was out of health. Gradually it was observed that his mind was affected, and in the autumn he was wholly incapable of attending to any business. On the 4th of December Parliament met, and the King's physicians, Dr. Richard Warren, Sir George Baker, Sir Lucas Pepys, Dr. Henry Revell Reynolds, and Dr. Anthony Addington were examined as to the nature and probable duration of the King's ailment. A Committee of the Lords was therefore appointed for the purpose of searching for and reporting on precedents in the case of the personal exercise of the Royal authority being prevented or interrupted by infancy, sickness, or infirmity, with a view to providing a remedy. This Committee on the 17th of December reported on cases of (1) infancy, (2) sickness or infirmity, (3) absence where provision had been made by the Sovereign, (4) absence where the remedy was provided by the great council of the nation, or by the two Houses of Parliament, and (5) miscellaneous cases. The report is printed in the Lords' Journals, vol. xxxviii, p. 276. When Pitt moved for a similar enquiry in the Commons on the 10th of December, Fox claimed that the regency belonged of right to the Prince of Wales, a position which Pitt declared to be wholly destitute of authority. The result was that three resolutions were agreed on by both Houses; to the effect that the King was disabled, that it is the right of the two Houses in such a case to supply the machinery of government, and that the two Houses should devise the means by which the Royal assent should be given to a Regency Bill. The debate is to be found in the Parliamentary History, vol. xxvii, pp. 658-1093. The resolutions were carried by 94 to 68. The following protest was entered. 1st, Because we adhere to the ancient principle recognized and declared by the Act of the 13th of Charles II, that no act or ordinance, with the force and virtue of a law, can be made by either or both Houses of Parliament, without the King's assent, a principle standing as a bulwark to the people against the two Houses, as the two Houses are their security against the Crown. 2ndly, Because this principle is tacitly admitted by the third resolution, while it overthrows the practice by a simulate appearance of the Royal assent under a commission to pass Bills, a commission which would be inconsistent with the provisions of an Act of 33 Henry VIII, requiring that every commission shall be signed by his Majesty's hand. In our present unhappy situation, that essential requisite being unattainable, we cannot condescend to give a sanction to a counterfeit representation of the Royal signature, and we dare not assume a power to dispense with the law which makes that signature essential to the validity of a commission to pass Bills. 3rdly, Because we conceive that the unquestionable rights of the people, so fallaciously represented as being upheld by these resolutions, are violently infringed by an unnecessary assumption on the part of the two Houses of powers beyond those which the nation. has assigned them. Invariable practice, in all good times, and positive laws established by complete Parliaments, truly and constitutionally representing the nation, have defined these powers. And we cannot but regard with the utmost apprehension any proposal to overstep those boundaries, when the consequence of such usurpation is so fatally marked in the history of our country. 4thly, Because it was confessed in the debate, that the powers of this commission were not to be confined solely to the act of appointing a Regent; to what other purposes they may extend were not explained. State necessity, the avowed ground of the measure, may serve as the pretext for any diminution of the just prerogative of the Crown, or of the liberties of the people, that best suits the designs of ambition. Fatal experience had shown to our ancestors the boundless mischiefs of powers thus usurped under plausible appearances; and it is particularly the duty of the House of Peers to check the renewal of a practice to assume the name, without the substance, of the Royal authority, by which this House was once annihilated, the monarchy overthrown, and the liberties of the people subdued. 5thly, Because these dangerous and alarming consequences of the measure adopted would have been obviated by the amendment rejected. It proposed to substitute a measure conformable to the practice of our ancestors at the glorious era of the Revolution. They seized not upon public necessity as a convenience for the usurpation of new powers, but proceeded in a plain and explicit form to the revival of the Royal authority with full efficacy, before they entered upon the exercise of their legislative functions. Pursuing a similar course, the amendment proposed the immediate nomination of the natural representative of the King, the heir apparent of the Crown, to whom alone it was universally admitted the eyes and hearts of all men were turned during the present unhappy conjuncture; that with a perfect and efficient Legislature, such future provisions might be enacted, as the preservation of the full and undiminished authority of the Crown and the liberties of the people may require. Frederic, Duke of York. Henry Frederic, Duke of Cumberland. Hugh Percy, Duke of Northumberland. William Ponsonby, Lord Ponsonby (Earl of Bessborough). John Howard, Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire. George John Spencer, Earl Spencer. Frederic Howard, Earl of Carlisle. Charles Maynard, Viscount Maynard. Charles Howard, Duke of Norfolk (Earl Marshal). David Kennedy, Earl of Cassilis. Francis Rawdon, Lord Rawdon. John Campbell, Earl of Breadalbane. John Stuart, Lord Cardiff. George Thicknesse Touchet, Lord Audley. James Harris, Lord Malmesbury. Robert Hay Drummond, Lord Hay (Earl of Kinnoull). John Bligh, Lord Clifton (Earl of Darnley) George Brydges Rodney, Lord Rodney. George Kinnaird, Lord Kinnaird. Dunbar Hamilton, Earl of Selkirk. John Howe, Lord Chedworth. William Wentworth Fitzwilliam, Earl Fitzwilliam. William Henry Cavendish Bentinck, Duke of Portland. Thomas Pelham, Lord Pelham. William Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire. Horatio Walpole, Lord Walpole. Edward Smith Stanley, Earl of Derby. George Devereux, Viscount Hereford. Christopher Wilson, Bishop of Bristol. George James Cholmondeley, Earl Cholmondeley. George Augusta Lumley Sanderson, Earl of Scarborough. William Craven, Lord Craven. Thomas Foley, Lord Foley. Henry Herbert, Lord Porchester. Francis Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon. Edmund Boyle, Lord Boyle (Earl of Cork and Orrery). Charles Fitzroy, Lord Southampton. John James Percival, Lord Lovel and Holland (Earl of Egmont). Francis Seymour Conway, Earl of Hertford. Thomas Trevor Hampden, Viscount Hampden. CCCCV. JANUARY 23, 1789. The Houses adjourned from the 1st of January to the 5th, and thence to the 12th. Meanwhile the Government had prepared certain other resolutions, to which both Houses agreed. These resolutions appointed the Prince of Wales Regent, under certain limitations. They debarred him from granting a peerage, except to members of the Royal Family, who shall reach twenty-one years, from granting any office, salary, or pension, except such as are by law for life or good behaviour, or from granting any of the King's real or personal estate, except the renewal of leases. The last resolution gave the care of the King to the Queen. The first resolution was carried by 94 to 68. The following protest was entered. 1st, Because we firmly adhere to the principles and arguments on which we disapproved the resolutions formerly passed by this House, especially when the legislative power of the two Houses of Parliament, unconstitutionally assumed by those resolutions, is meant to be employed to restrict or suspend many important and essential branches of the Royal power, at the moment of the declared incapacity of the King. 2ndly, Because we think the power of conferring the rank and privileges of the peerage, as a reward to merit, is necessary to the Royal authority, in order to afford an incitement to vigorous exertions in the service of the State, and is more peculiarly necessary, like all other parts of the prerogative, when the regal power is to be exercised by a substitute, with an authority uncertain and precarious in its duration; but especially on the present occasion, as it is the only branch of the prerogative sufficiently powerful to afford a remedy against such a combination in this House, as other parts of this system of restriction and mutilation have a natural and obvious tendency to produce. And because we conceive that this restriction may create an interest in the members of this House, to withhold their assent to restore the ancient power of the Crown in this respect. |