The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1803-02-24 00:00:00

the year 17917, his Royal Piglintels could not
contra& legal debts; but when you prevented him
from doing so, and left him with so perfea-
ly inadequate an income you put him in a
situation in which some persons must have, not
dills, if you will have it so, but certainly claim: as
binding upon his bonder as if they were called by
another name. By the present proposition, if
agreed to, you put him in possession of a large in-
come ; but when he shall have it, the question must
remain to be decided by himself, between the debt
he owes to state and magnificence to the public, and
what he may owe to others in honour and in justice.
With that income, which it seems to be the disposi-
tion to confer upon him, you must not expel him ,
immediately to set out with large establishments,
and Lords of the bed-chamber, with all the other
appendages of magnificence, or else at the most
mature age of forty, you place him in the same
situation in which he found himself at twenty, be-
ginning with great establishments without the means
of supporting them four or five years afterwards,
which will ultimately lead him into embarrass-
ments and difficulties. If you are exceedingly anxious
that he should resume his state immediately, you
must be very unreasonable if you do net enable him
to do it : I am sure, I for one, would not have the
smallest obje‘ction. If you desire me to see him in
_grandeur, if you would be liberal—in God's name
put an end to all his embarrassments at once ; for
never since he came to man's estate, had he an in-
. crease proportionate to the expences of his establish-
ments. If he has been imprudent in his youth,
he has amply redeemed it, if redemption is wanted,
in the prudence of his latter years, and added that
one to the catalogue of the many other virtues
.which are so generally allowed, even by these who
are least partial to him."
Mr. FULLER gave a very warm suppoft to the
Motion, observing very forcibly, that it was a very
scandalous speflacle to behold a personage so great
and exulted as the Prince of Wales living in this
country in the situation of a bankrupt.
Mr. BANKS thought a matter of surpize to find
any thing so novel as the present proposition, after
what had passed in the last Session cf Parliament.
A claim was then made in behalf of his ,Royal
1-Ugliness as a public creditor, and averred as a mat-
ter of right, not as a matter of favour. The I louse
very properly on that occasion did not deem itself
the competent tribunal, and refuied to mix itself in
the decision of questions of right. The business,
however, was not now in the same situation as it
would have been if no such claim had been brought
forward. In the present procedure, the House, in
his opinion was not aging fairly to the Prince by
debarring him from pressing his claim to a sum of
such magnitude as the arrears were represented to
amount to, and not for its constituents if he had no
rightatall. He depreciited going on acompromise,in-
stead of that liberality which should subsist between
the House of Commons and the Royal Family.
'The claim should be ascertained, even with a view
to any future Prince of Wales; for if he had a right
to these Revenues from the moment of his birth,
some Parliamentary provision should be made to
*sectire them to him. He saw in this no greater
ground for animosity than in private families, and
thought the present measure, instead of being a re-
medy, was only making the matter worse. He
should not, however vote against the matter.
The question was then put, carried MM. eon. and
the Report ordered to be received o-morrow, to
'which the Housei—Adjourned.

THE BRITISH PRESS.

LONDON,
THURSDAY, FEE. 24e.

Yeaerday we received Paris Papers up to the
19th instant. They contain an order by the Pre-
fat of Paris for enforcing the execution of a law
passed in the year 4, relative to the declarations to
be made by housekeepers of the names of their
lodgers, and by innkeepers of those who put up at
their houses. Housekeepers are to carry the pass-
ports of their lodgers to the Commissary of Police,
who is to give an acknowledgment in writing,
which the lodgers must present in person within
three days after, in order to receive a passport for
their departure, or a permission of residence. They
are to keep a register of the names, age, ordinary
residence, profession, and description of all foreign
or French travellers who put up with them, with
the time of their arrival and departure, should they
remain only a single night. This register they
are bound to produce to the Commissary of Po-
lice, or any peace officer, as often as it may be
demanded ; and they arc expressly prohibited
from harbouring all vagrants, beggars,, and such
as refuse to state their profession or calling.—
This law, which was enaaed in the heat and fury
of the revolution, when all Paris was engaged in
niot and counterplot, one might suppose would be
now considered obsolete and useless. The particu-
lar reason assigned for its rigid enforcement at the
present day is, that housekeepers have, in many
instances, evaded it, by representing their lodgers
as friends or relatives. Such misrepresentation, if it
arose from inadvertence or neglea, would, we
presume, be matter of triumph, as furnishing a
proof of the stability the of Government. It might
be said the people do not attend to these rigid rules,
because they see no necessity for them ; they are
careless, because they think all is secure. When,
therefore, the Government complains of their non-
observance, when it considers it a culpable omis-
sion, it betrays suspicion and distrust, to an
excess teurcely prudent to admit in the face of
foreigultations, and which but ill accord with
the idea the French writers would impress,
of the security of the Government. Macbeth
boasted that he had a spy in the House of every
Thane ; but what are we to think of a city in
whizia the master of every house is to be a spy upon