The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1803-03-16 00:00:00

MOR.NING LITER.A

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DVS lITI 8 E

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

HOUSE OF LORDS..
TUESDAYI *ARCH 15.
The various Bills oil the table passed a stage
each.
Mr. ALE:clim:a and others brought up from the
Commons one Public Bill arid three Private Bills,
which were presented, and read a first time.

PRINCE OF WALES'S ANNUITY BILL.
The Order of the Day for going into a Commit-
tee on this Bill having been movel, and read, Lord
W A LSINGI4 ASI took his seat at the table.

The Eatl of CARLISLE rose, and said, that
with tegard to the purposes which he had stated to
the House a few days since relative to the pmpriety
of settling the right of his Royal Highness the
Prince of Wales to a claim on the balance of the

revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall, from the year
1762 to 1783, previous to the proceeding with any
measure to enable him to keep up his state and dig.
nity, he still retained his opinion as firmly as ever,
although, for the reasons he had stattai on ,the pre-
ceding day, he had forborne to pursue it further for
the present, imagining that it would be more agree-
able to the Illustrious Personage, so immediately
concerned in the Bill, to let it pass over without
much observation. For the same reason, it was not
his intention to take any part in the Committee, or
to propose any amendment. The Bill appeared to
him to be a- very incompetent Bill, perfectly
ill-
fitted to the occasion; but it was incurable, and no
amendment that could be suggested in the Commit.
tee could render it efficient, and such as would en-
able the Prince of Wales to set up his state and
dignity, which was what the Royal Message recom-
mended to them, and what Parliament had taught
itself fondly to imagine would be the result of the
present Bill. It was well known, that the Prince of
Wales must, in consequence of certain debts and
incumbrances, still remain for a year and a half
longer in the same ignominious state of obscurity,
in which he had remained from the year 1795,
shorn of the beams of his splendour and his lustre,
• a mere private Gentleman, Speaking as an, indi-
vidual, unconnected with the Illustrious Person:!ge
in question, as a Member of Parliament, whose
duty, as well as whose right it was to deliver his
sentiments, he thought his Royal Highness the
Prince of \Vales extremely ill-treated by the pre-
sent Bill. It was like all the measures of the pre-
sent miserable, indecisive Administration—a half
measure only—a weak, inefficient, and fruitless pro=
vision—a provision professing one thing, and going
in effed• to something very different—a measure
loud in exciting hope, and following it up with the
certainty of disappointing the hope so excited. In
short, it was every thing but what it professed to
be. it called itself a Bill providing the means of
enabling his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales
to set up his state and dignity ; whereas every iadi-
vidual, who had taken any part in discussing it, or
who had given a vote upon it in either Howe
of Parliament, well knew, long before he pro-
ceeded to the second reading of the Bill, that it
could not possibly answer the end proposed ; that
the Prince, in consequence, could not set up his State
and Dignity, but must on account of the Debts and
Incumbrances, which as an honest man he must be
anxious to discharge, wait for a year and a half
longer before he could emerge from the cloud that
overspread the lustre that ought to shine about a
Prince of such illustrious birth and elevated rank.
Ile should have imagined, the Earl said, that there
were two different courses that would have presented
themselves, each of them more dired, more short,
and more tit to be pursued. The one, either to have
followed the-line that he had stated a few days since,
and obtained a decision as to the right of the Prince
of Wales to the claim set up by him upon the Re-
venues of the Duchy of Cornwall during his mi.
nority ; and if that question had been decided in
his Royal Highness's favour, to have done him im-
mediate justice, and paid him the balance forth-
with, which would have superseded the necessity cf
resorting to any such measure as the present Bill.
The other course would have been, as the Prince
must wait a year and a half before he can find him-
self able to set up his state and dignity, to have let
that year and a half silently pass over, and then
have furnished him with the means of maintaining
himself in the state and splendour that ought to
surround so illustrious a Prince. 'fir: present Bill,
his' Lordship repeated, was like all :he measures of
the present incapable Administratiora from the mi-
serable Treaty of Amiens down to th e present hour
-7-
a mete half measure, inefficient, in, table, devoid of
firmness and energy, and incapable of securing its
proposed object.
Another circumstance, the Earl said, had induced
him to rise to trouble their Lord hips in the Com-
mittee ; and that was, to explain Isis meaning, in a
particular expression, which he h nd let fall the pre-
ceding day; an expression that had been imme-
diately noticed by a Noble Ear's not then present.
(Earl Darnley), and he found I rad been understood
without doors in a stronger rpaaner than he had
meant its application to go. I had said, that the
country stood in a state of" • ?mil." He certainly
thought so ; and he would ex plain what he meant.
The country, they had learnt, from the highest au-
thority, was to consider itself on the eve of an inva-
sion. How could it then, in such a crisis, be stated
to be in any other than a sit patio; of " peril" and
of danger, when the multi gement of affairs, the
conduit of an impending ar, and the defence of
the empire and its interests, were entrusted in the
hands of a weak, incapal rte Administration, not
possessing the confidence o t the people ? Let Mi-
nisters resign their situatic es to men of higher ta-
lents, greater experience, more knowledge, and
more wisdom, and he was Ready to admit, that the
peril was at an end. Le t the people see men in
office, in whom they con Id safely place an entire
confidence, and all doubt %multi vanish, ; every man
would feel assured that t he country was in safety,
while the Executive Cove fitment was hold by capa-
ble men. At such a u,un sent as the present, he said

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