The National Register.
London, England, 1811-02-10 00:00:00

THE NATIONAL REGISTER.

HOUSE. OF COMMONS.

MONDAY, FEE. 4.

The Speaker took the Chair at four o'clock, and after the
routine business had been gone through, a message from the
Lords was received, desiring a present conference on a mat-
ter of high importance to his Majesty and the Nation.'
Mr. Du NDAS soon after appeared at the bar with a Resolution
of the Lords, in which they desired the concurrence of the Com-
mons. The Resolution was to this purport, " That it is expe-
dient and necessary that Letters Patent under the Great Seal be
issued for the purposet of giving an assent in the King's name to
the Regency Bill.''
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCIIF2UER (Mr. SPEAKER having
desired the Resolution to be delivered in,) said, he had now
only to move that the House resolve itself into a Committee on
the State of the Nation.
The See Ale Sot left the Chair, and the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer moved that the Resolution of the Lords be agreed
to.
Mr. ELLIOTT observed, that he could not suffer the present
occasion to pass without declaring his solemn protest against the
course proposed to them. It was his clear and decided opinion,
!het if calamities similar to those which now afflicted the coun-
try were again to occur, a plan to the present could not
again be resorted to, without subverting all the barriers and se-
curities of the Constitution.
Mr. Po NSONav said he rose not for the purpose of prolonging
or exciting any fresh debate. He wished only to add his protest
to those of the Honourable Members who had spoken against
the consummation of a feaudulant fiction. It was one entire and
unqualified fiction, defying and trampling upon the Constitution,
and offending the first principle of reason, by asserting the ex-
istence of a power to give the Royal Assent in an act designed
solely to supply the Royal incapacity.
The SPEAKER rose. He declared, that after the protests to
which the present proceedings had given rise, and the language
uttered by some Honourable Members of the House, so dispa-
raging to their capacity, and so derogatory to their proceedings
—( Hear, hear !)—he could not consent to pass a silent vote.—
Apprised of the display of talent and knowledge with which
the House had, years since, been favoured, respecting similar
proceedings ; knowing the conflicting sentiments of mankind,
and not conceiving it desirable for him to mix often in Parlia-
mentary discussions, he had forborne stating his views of the
procetseing, but, seeing the stage at which it was at length arri-
ved, he whiled to state the grounds of the opinion which he
finally was induced to deliver. Many strange doctrines were
afloat ; some had doubted whether the House of Commons
properly represented the people of this country : now, whatever
diversity of sentiment there might happen to exist upon that
head, he trusted that doubts as to the competency of Parliament
t o provide for the exioencies of the Executive would not be re-
p.eated unless with reprobation ; since they were false in ori-
gin, and most pernicious in their consequences—(Hear I)—Par-
liament was, without question, legally assembled, met under
the King's writ ; and had adjourned from time to time its legis-
lative capacity. I lad they eo clew to go by, no path to walk in ?
The Restoration aad the Revolution afforded them examples.—
Before the Restoration, the Houses bad wielded the sceptre to
restore the absent ?Monarch, during the period of the Revolu-
tion, besides the great and glorious act of electing a new Mo-
hairch !--(hear, hear, hear !) The two Houses proceeded to
al the subordinate acts of legislation, and even to the act of
punishing„Had any case come before the House at that period,
resembling the case now leg Hating, there could be no doubt but
they would have acted, and provided for it. Although he could
have no personal interests in the principal question now before
the House ; yet he viewed the proceeding as just end right, and
thought that the other would have been effectual. All had
agreed it to be the duty and in the power of the two Houses to
supply the vacant Throne, as in the cases of the Restoration and
Revolution ; or to provide for deficiencies in the exercise of the
Royal Authority. 'The 'llirone,however not being at this thee
empty, they were called upon to define die power of the person
who was to be Regent, and to restrict the Regent so as that he
should not be a King. The case was simple, it was to model an
office, which was best done by a Bill. Perhaps they might ap-
ply in this case to the Regent, and ascertain his mind ; still, es
the King could he nu patty in this case, they were obliged to pro-
vide for two great ends—the preservation of the Monarch, and
the installation of the Regent, which could only be done by then
giving life to the G: eat Seal, openly, on behalf of the nation.—
Formerly it was the Great Seel of huglend, now become that of
the United Kingdom ; it had occasionally, always whenwanted,
been at the discretional disposal of the House of Commons, for
the high purposes of the bt:tt e., and rendered, indeed, an obedi-
ent in trument.—(Hcar, hear 1) —After the effecting of the glo-
rious resolution of 1688, by their joint vote, the Great Seal was
•iclued uroier Lord Manchester, ter the use of the two House=.

85

An Honourable Member (Elliot,) and an Honourable Baronet
(Turton,) had dwelt much on an Act (the 18th of Charles the
lid.) enacted for very: difitOrent state of things- to that in which
the House now stood; it was an Act which supposes the Mo-
narch capable of judging and acting, and as such, was evidently
inapplicable at the present epoch. l'he pending proceeding had
been strangely characterised as a fiction, or fraud : if he thought
thus of it, he, for one, would lay the whole aside. Fiction could
not properly describe any transaction where one party acted in
the name of another. It was in this way, that commis ions pro-
ceed; d as badges and proofs of the Royal Will, where Parlia-
ment wrote its own name. Unquestionebly, this was the case ;
they were now called upon to use the King's name by the hand
of parliament.—(Hear hear;!)—Members who had contended
for proceeding by an Address were nut, perhaps, aware that, if
the House had dune so, the Regent must have come down to
Parliament before six weeks bad gone over, for a confirmatory
statute. Were the Regent to head the Commission, still it roust
he in the name of the King ; and to ask why he could nut do all
this in his own name, as some asked, was really begging of the
question(Hear 1) If, then, they proceed by an Address to the
Regent, he must afterwards assume the King's name witbot,t
possessing the legislative authority of the King. Multitudi-
nous as were the acts of State requiring the King's Sign Ma-
nual (and he balisved there was an Hon. and Learned Gentle-
man opposite who knew this,) supposing but a temporary deftct
in this important point, which the mode of Adds eis must go
to cause—how many difficuities might it occasion, ea ctiug, as
the Sign Nlanual did, the ollices of Government, army and navy,
ecclesiastical promotions, and personal preeerty of various de-
scriptions ? How many law-suits might such an error, or tle-
feet, occasion : and to what perplexities might it give rise ?
Suppose the Regent were to come to us for aid, all that see
could then give him would be as nothing ; we could only give
him our mace----for a sceptre ! What is it, however, the pill
does ? We give him, by this Bill, ARMOUR THAA' IS IM-
PENFTR ABLF, and POWER THAT IS IRRESISTA BLE.
—(Hear, hear !)--Therefore the Resolution had his Most
hearty coneurrietees - It was, in fine, REV.ERENTIAL TO
THE SOVEREIGN, EFFICIENT FOR THE RF.GENT,
AND WOULD W OVE BENEFICIAL TO THF. COUN-
TRY.—(Hente hear 1)
Lord Poitenes eit asked, what was the nature of the Ad-
dress by which they were to constitute a Prince Regent; but.
calling upon him to exercise the Regal functions during the in-
capacity of the Sovereign ? In this view of the subject, What
they ought to do before they proceeded to legislate, was to con-
stitute some authority which should have the volition.bot by
the present measure they made him merely instrumental ;
by
this first act of complete legislation which they had assumed,
there was no mode of ascertaining how far the principle might
be carried ; if they proceeded to enact limitations in the first
instance, that principle might at last go to the subversion of the
very Monarchy itself—that the precedent in the Rebellion in
the Reign of Charles 11. was relied on. Here, however, the
principle was quite conttarylto the present modtl; the Parliament
had the possession of the Great Seal, yet there was not one in-
stance of their making use of that symbol of the Royal Autho-
rity ; they did not even give their acts the Appellation of Acts
of Parliament, but called them ordinances; nor had they, in
any one instance, the presumption to use the great Seal. Fur
these reasons, he entered his protest against this mode of pro-
ceeding.
Mr. ADAM wished to state the leading distinction which he
conceived to exist between the twolmeasurts under discussion.
In the one case, it was the two Houses of Parliament which
were giving the Royal Assent to their own act! and in the other
else the person called to exercise the Royal Authority, was to
do so under responsible advisers, he himself nut being respon-
sible.
Sir 'l'. To aToat moved, as an Amendment, that all the words
of the Resolution should be left out after •• That, and. that
other words should be substituted in their place, expressive of
the House's high disapprobation of the measure. lint on ,the
question being put, the Resolution was oaraied,and.the Amend-
ment negatived.
The House then adjourned.

J

+ld !'

, 10,y_us

)1

•
'TUESDAY, FEB. 5. -,,i; PI!
After the Speaker had taken the Chair, several private Ella
were respectiveiy forwarded.
Mr. LusniNGTON informed the House, that he had been in
the House of Peers ; and that their Lordships had agreed to an
immediate conference in the Painted Chamber.
it was then moved, that the afore nOininined Merrpers,' ad-
ding the Lord Advocate of Scotland, be appointed to maliagc the
present conterelice—Agreed to.
Mr. DUN DA s, returning from the conference.—" I am to in-
form the Hull" that this House has beets w the lio‘t4e 4

rI .IYff V:

•itkk