The National Register. — London, England, 1811-01-06 00:00:00

THE NATIONAL REGISTER. IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT. . . son of the Kin should go together. The domestic establish ment of his l'.4ajesty was not merely for the display of a Regal dignity, but in 'a great measure fur the enjoyment of domestic comforts, and the seperation of that establishment from the Per• sonage, who had, by every consideration of propriety and nature the care of the Royal Person, would be adopting a new and inju rious system. He earnestly conjured their Lordships not to take a step, which in the event of his Majesty's recovery, would exhibit to his view a crowd of d:'mcstic strangers.—He 'At that he could not agree to the ;fifth Reselution, as sent up from the other House: the four first Reno'.; Lions ha,d his perfect concut rence, but it would he necessary to amend the filth. Notwith standing, for the sake of agreement, for unanimity sake, he was not altogether unwilling to put the power of removing the supe rior officers of the Househole ) respecting her Mojesty, for some limited portion of time; nor (lid he apprehend any imputation of jealousy on the part of the Royal Personage.--Telis Lordship concluded with moving the first Resolution, which was read accordingly by one of the Clerks of the le ouse. Lord CARLISLE decidedly objected to passing the Resolutions as they now stood. The Noble Earl (Liverpool), appeared to consider the precedent of 1783, as decisive, and triumphantly assumed the approbation with which that proces!ing, if a pro ceeding it was, was universally reeeived. Was this, however, the fact. Nut only had this latter precedent never been acted upon, but, as their Lordships must know, it had never been sanctioned by the ' °°use of Lards. Is was, therefore, no prece dent ; and he would rather select an , / precedent than that of 1788. He would entreat their Lords!ops rot by their resolutions to render the office of Regent irksome and impracticable. The Marquis of LAN SDOWNE declared it impossible for him to assent even to the first of the five Resolutions, without de taching from the including words. The very first Resolution would, if carried, lead to the most injurious consequences ; and would erect a power, unknown to the laws of this land, un known to the Constitution of the country, unknown to the usages of the Constitution Hear ! ).—Chicf Justice Fortescue, no mean authority in point, lore since contended, that the pre rogatives of the Crown were indispensable' to its constitutional operations; now, if these prerogatives were indispensible to the Crown, when worn by the King, they must be equally neces sary to the power of the Regent. But what were their Lord ships called upon to vote ?—Tleat those identical prerogatives amounted to nothing. By the Resolutions the pew( rof punish ing the most ungracious attribute of stem, was to be invested in the Regent : but the power of rewarding merit was to be sus pended ! Refusing to the Regent the power of creating Peers, they were weakening the power of controul over the Lower House, and deranging the balance of the Constitution. Stand ing, as it were, on the wreck of the Constitution, ah idst and billows, these tempests which had assailed and destroyed other States, would they refuse the only rudder by which they could hope to reach the desired harbour ? As to the superior Officers of the Household of the Sovereign, it was notorious that they were alike incapable of sc: ving or seeing the Kiiie; nor could he think, considering what had fallen from the Noble Earl (Liverpool), respecting his Majesty's willinge ss 3 to sacri fice his own converiencies subject to the wishes to his people; he could not think, that the King, upon his " complete re covery"—(Heor !)—would be displeased at any such sacrifice to the Constitution of the realm. With respect to precedents, un affected by all that had been said upon that of 1783-9, he still conceived it to be defective, inapplicable, and inexpedient for 1811. He therefore objected to the concluding'. art of the first Resolution, and wished the fifth to remain as amended. Pre paratory to this, he should now move to omit all that part of the first Resolution, connected with and following the words " sub ject to such limitations and restrictions as shad be provided," &c. Viscount Sinetourn declared that the Constitution had de vised and provided the means of supplying accidental deficiency in the Royal Authority, placing that duty in their Lordships and the House of Commons. Such being the fact, and from the report of the Physicians which gave hopes of speedy recovery, his Lordship contended at considerable length that they had to provide for a temporary deficiency, and consequently that they ought to limit and restrict the Regent in the exercise of the Royal Functions during such " tempura-1y deficit ncy" in the Kingly Office. A Regency without restrictions was that on which they could not legislate. On the subject of the household, how ever, there seemed to be a great contraticty of opinion; and there was a material difference between that Resolution as it originally stood, and the shape in which it now came before them. He should have been well :etisfied to have adopted the original Resolution, but thought that the material objections to it were obviated by the proposition of the Noble l. 4 ecretery•of State. The precedent of 1788, be contended, had received thp senction of the King, the approbation of both Houses of Parli ament, and the applauding voice of the whole country; and if individual authorities were of any weight upon this point, how ever better they might be capable oi judging £us themselves ~ HOUSE OF LORDS. MONDAY, DEC. 31, 1810. Their Lordships met, and appointed Commissioners to hold a conterence with the Commons, fur the purpose of conununi eating to them that their Lordships had concurred in their Resolutions sent up on the 22d instant. The conference being had accordingly, their Lordships adjourned. WEDNESDAY, JAN. 1811. Their Lordships met at the a:;ual hour, but no business v.-as transacted, in consequence of no nu•ssa , j;e coming fro;:i the Com mons, and after Earl Dartmouth had taken the oaths and his scat, their Lordships adjourned. THURSDAY, JAN. 3. A messr,e from the Commons requested a conference with their Lord hips, for the purpose of communicatiug to them their amended Resolutions on the Regency, and requesting their Lordships' concurrence.—A Committee was accordingly zip- • pointed, who returned with the said Resolutions, which were ordered to be taken into consideration to-inorrow. On the motion of Lord Liverpool, copi,:s of the correspon dence between the Lords of the Treasury and the great Officers of the Exchequer, relative to the issue of the public motley, were ordered to be laid before the house.—Adjourned. FRIDAY, JAN. 4. STATE OF THE NATION. The Order of the Day being moved, for entering on the State of the N. tion, I..c)RD LIVERPOOL, after the Resolutions brought up from the I ismtnons, had been read, disclaimed the slightest or most dis tant imputation of being actuated by any thing like personal dis respect towards the Personage to whom the Resolutions most materially referred. That Personage indeed stood high in the public estimation, and was eminently distinguished for his many shining and exalted qualities. But the present question rested upon public principles, and upon those principles it was that his Majesty's Ministers had carefully and scrupulously acted. High and exemplary as the virtues of that Personage were acknow ledged to be, it could not be denied that he was liable to the bias and impressions of wrong advice—( Hear, hear j—care should be taken that he should be made incapable of doing wrong. Having stated thus much, his lordship said, all who had at tended to the history of the Constitution, and of the Country, must be aware, that except aome cases of gross and flagrant usur - pation, there were but two instances of the regular establishment of a Regency. It must also he manifest on every occasion of providing for the interruption or suspension of the Royal autho rity, whether in case of infancy or otherwise, that there was a general principle pervading our whole history; that a clear dis tinction was made between powers assigned to the Regeut, Pro tector, or Deputy, and those which were inherent in t:ie Sove reign himself. The powers with which the latter was invested, were always less than those which belonged to the former ; and for that distinction there was a clear and obvious reason :—The ititerests of the former were always permanent ; those of the latter temporary. Temporary interest naturally held out a temptation to abuse, and was always more or less a subject of jealousy. Those considerations our ancestors were duly awake to, and took the lit precautions against the apnreheuded evil. In the early periods of our history, a Council was assigned to the Regent, by which his acts were regulated or checked. In the instance of the first of Philip and Mary, when the former Prince was invested with Regal paver, that power was carefully re stricted ; as it was also in the instance which afterwards occur red in the 24th of George the Second. With respect to the powers with which the Regent should be invested, the right of making peace or war should always be comprehended ; because Parliament was always ready to correct any abuse of that power.—The distribution of all the great offices should also be lsng to the Regent ; because at the return of restoration or ma turity of the King, whose authority was assumed, those offices were revocable. But the granting titles, which were nor revo cable, could not with propriety he invested with one whose power was only temporary. Having stated those general prin ciples, his Lordship proceeded to observe, that the precedent of 1788, formed the ground by which his Majesty's Ministers had regulated their conduct on the present occasion ; arid he pro nounced a warm and clequent eulogy on the great Minister who had furnished that precedent, glancing a censure on some oblo quies which had, of late, most strangely been uttered against the fame of that distinguished character. hi passing to the Fifth Resolution, his Lordship could not agree to it in the shape in which it had been sent up to that House. In all cases of that nature, the regelations of the Householo, and the care of the per- Their Lor conterence N C4Litig to th Resolutions held ac c unlit Their Lot transacted, it mons, and scat, their 1. , A messre their Lordqi amended It( Lordships' c pointed, wit( ordered to bi On the nu dence bctwt of the Exalt. , were ordered The Order of the N tint Lnam Liv t iitrunons, h tart imputati respect towai materially rel public estima shining and e upon public p Majesty's Mi and exemplar lodged to be, and impressio be taken that • ,;- _~~, /, M