Star.
London, England, 1810-12-28 00:00:00

PARLIAMENTARr PROCEEDINGS.

HOUSE OF LORDS, THURSDAY, DEC. 27.
STATE OF SUS MAJESTY'S HEALTH.
Previous to the Order of the Day beiug regularly
entered upon, and on the occasion of their Lordships'
Order for referring the Report of the Committee ap-
pointed to examine the • Royal Physicians, to the
Committee of the whole House, on the State of the
Nation, being read,
The Earl of CARLISLE rose, for the purpose of
tailing their Lordships' attention to this particular
part of the subject, which he conceived of considera-
ble importance. He briefly noticed the steps_which
had been taken from the earlier period that the me-
lancholy situation of his Wear had been pubiisly
known, to the present moment, the whole course of
which, and the ptlneiple on which the conduct of Mi-
nisters proceeded, had his decided disapprobation.
Zn coasequente of their repeated omissions to do that
which the line of their duty prescribed to them, they
wile now, after a lapse of five weeks, proceeding to
do that which they should have done at the very ear-
lest opportunity, after that great national calatni:!.
which they all deplored had Dairen place : they- were
but now beginning to lay the foundation of that
building, which, if they had done their real duty, not
br.ly to their country but to themselves, it would be
Considerably above. the ground—perhaps so far ad-
vanced, as merely to want the finishing hand to be
put to it. This would now have been the case did
Parliament perforns its duty upon this important
crisis. Instead of it, the work was left to a govern-
ment, which, under the circumstances, had no parti-
cular description in the constitution ; it was in fact a
species of usurpation.—( Some cheering from the Opteci-
iim Banque). The Noble Earl then reverted more
particulaily to the state of his Majesty's health, the
truth of which seemed to have been long concealed.
.He gave full credit to the Noble Lords in Admini-
stration for their relevant conduct ; they must have
been equally deceived with the rest of his Majesty's
snbjects. When he looked over the document which
tad just been regularly referred to the consideration
of their Lordships, and compared what appearedl
therein with some of the bulletins issued about the
time to which he alluded, he must think it scarcely
possible then that even Ministers themselves could be
acquainted with these facts, or they never could have
tome down, the middle of last month, and held the
lauguage they did to Parliament, respecting the state
/if his Majesty's health. But representations from
;such a quarter should not have been made the
;round of parliamentary proceeding ; they should
then have themselves inquired into the real state of the
ease and they should not have suffered the executive
power of the Government to remain in the hands it has,
+against the plainest principles and dictates of the consti-
tution. He repeated his idea, that Noble Lords in
the Administration could not have been acquainted
'with the real state of the health of their Sovereign at
the time, or they never would have so acted. He
'oe;zgeti their Lordships to consider what. the state-
%lents made by Doctors Willis and Heberden, re-
specting the state of his MA -sty, were at the tflue to,
wl:ich he alluded. The Noble Lord here .quoted
terrain parts of the report of the evidence of those
tft:dical Crentlemen, which lay upon the table, par-
ticularly where the former describes the Royal Pa-
tent to have been, from tae severity of the fever, in
n state of great !mil. This was about the 6th of No-
vember ; and when the latter stated that one of the
paroxyrns appeased so severe as to give the Physi-1
clans great apprehensions for the safety of his life, he.;
could not suppose that Ministers could have been so
acquainted with the real state of the case, and of the
dangerous state of his Majesty, or they could never
have raised hopes-of his recovering so timely as to
render it unnecessary, in ail probability, for Parliament
to take those steps which. were vex/ resently adopteid.