Mr. Mar tin. Mr. Chriftic. fuch tumults and confufion, as those that distinguished the period from the appointment of the Duke of York, to the Regency in the latter part of the reign of Henry the Sixth. The fatal confequences which followed, was, in his opinion, a sufficient condemnation of the precedent. Mr. Martin obferved, that as the honourable gentleman had accused him of not having spoken to the question, he appealed to the Houfe, whether had not spoken to it in a general way, both at the beginning and end of his fpeech. The reason why he alluded to a change of administration, was the having heard the right honourable gentleman over the way, introduce the fubject in his speech in the Committee, and he had always understood, that a debate on a Report of a Committee, was confidered as a continuation of a former date. He was willing to impute the personal rude treatment of him, rather to the heat of the moment, than to any intentional departure from that good breeding, which made so essential a part of the honourable gentleman's character. Mr. Chriftian profeffed, that he was forry the question was brought forward at all, but as it had been, he thought it was the duty of that Houfe, to affert its rights, and decide upon them, *for the benefit of pofterity. He was not, however, prepared to go the length of the third resolution, and begged not to be confidered as precluded, by his vote of Wednelday, from diffenting with the right honourable gentleman at the head of the Exchequer, on that question. After the glorious effects of the Revolution, he conceived that we ought to act in the fame way, to declare the Prince of Wales Regent, as our ancestors had declared the Prince of Orange King, and to addrefs his Royal Highness to accept the Regency. He did not think it right to place any restrictions whatever on the Prince, while acting as Regent. Mr. Har- Mr. Hardinge having premised, that so important a quesdinge. tion as that under difcuffion, had not engaged their attention, fince that fame memorable Revolution, which gave us a free Constitution, and fecured our liberties, added, that during an unfortunate crisis, like the present, when there was a fufpen fion of the exercise of the Royal Authority, the people of the land ought to repair the defect. He agreed with many gentlemen on the other fide, in their premises, but not in their application. No man had a greater diflike to make parliamentary declarations of conftitutional rights than he had, nor would he ever confent to any fuch declaration, but where the neceffity abfolutely required it; because, his opinion was, that the House of Commons ought to speak by its actions, and not in words. In the prefent cafe, he thought an unavoidable neceffity did require a declaration of the rights of the House, and he would tell the Houfe why. The queftion of right had been challenged. The right honourable gentleman over against against him, at the very firft moment when the Royal incapa city was established in a manner fatisfactory to that House, had rifen, and afferted the Prince's right. Let him re nind the Houfe of what the right honourable gentleman had himself faid; for, the manner of the declaration was material. With a franknefs that did him honour, the right bonourable gentleman afferted the Prince's right; and he had fince told them, that he had long lived in confidential habits with the Heir Apparent. The affertion ftruck every man with its novelty, and it went forth, and made as much impreffion on the minds of the public, as it had done on the minds of that House. It afterwards appeared, that the right honourable gentleman's words had been mifconceived, but according to his own explanation, it turned out, that his argument was not mistaken. A noble relation of his, who had long ftood diftinguished, as a tried and faithful watchman of the land-marks of the confttution, ftated, in an another place, (the House of Peers) the doctrine that the right honourable gentleman had broached in that House, as it had been conveyed to him; and it was no wonder that he caught at it with avidity, and took the opportunity of declaring, in the firft public affembly he could address, that so novel a claim had been made; and, indeed, to have done lefs would have funk his character. Happy had that indifcredition, in fuch a character, and at fuch a mo ment, proved, fince it had obtained the House the favour of hearing a full explanation of the meaning of the right honourable, gentleman. Mr. Hardinge declared that he admired the wonderful abilities of the right honourable gentleman,; but, with those abilities, he did not think he would be able to fupport his own argument, and he would prefently explain why he thought fo. The claim from the Heir Apparent had been for borne, but, let it be remembered, the right never had been fpecifically disclaimed. The challenge of right, therefore, remained undecided, and ought a queftion of that nature to be fhrunk from, and fuffered to go down to pofterity unresolved? What was the pretence for not agitating it? Civil tumults and a variance might poffibly take place between the two Houses. He denied the chance of either; but, suppose that civil tumults had enfued, was a British House of Commons, to be deferred from doing its duty by a dread of popular mis construction of their proceedings. By the right honourable gentleman's declaration, he would ftate what he took to be the right honourable gentleman's meaning, that, on the inca. pacity of the King to exercife the Royal Authority, there attaches a right to the Heir Apparent to exercife the Royal Authority the fame as if His Majefty had undergone a natural demife. Mr. Hardinge faid, he would flop a little to examine the fences and outworks of fuch a pofition, before he entered on the substance of it. He then defired the House το hands. By their command and influence, the Committee of Lords was fent on the 23d of March to the King, who lay fick at Windfor, to take his pleafure upon certain queftions stated in their commiffion. On the 25th of March, the Bishop of Carlisle, one of the deputed Lords, reported to the House, that they found the King in a state of perfect lethargy and infenfibility. Then followed, on the 27th of March, the famous tranfaction of the nomination and election of the Duke of York to his firft Protectorate, by the Peers fpiritual and temporal in Parliament affembled without any participation or even confent of the Commons. Sir Grey Cooper obferved, that he did not confider their appointment of the Duke of York to the firft Protectorate, as in any refpect proceeding from the free deliberation or choice of the House of Lords; but, that it was dictated and compelled by the controuling and overbearing power of the Duke and his adherents. This conclufion was not founded on conjecture, or the mere authority of any hiftorian or annalift; but, on the evidence of a record in the fifth vo lume of the Rolls of Parliainent, p. 349. In March 1454, Courtney, Earl of Devonshire, had been tried for treafon in levying war against the King in. 1452. He had been acquitted by the Peers. On the 15th of April following the Protector came to the House of Lords, and complained, that by this indictment the truth of his allegiance was emblemished and difteigned; and in the prefence of all the Lords, he made a folemn declaration, that the matter which touched his honour in the faid indictment, was falfe and untrue; for, that he was, and all the days of his life had been, and to the end thereof fhould be, a tree and humble liegeman to the King; and that he never privily nor openly thought or meant to the contrary, as he called to witnefs God and all the Saints; and that the fame. to prove he hath been always, and now is ready, as a Knight, against any perfon of proper rank, who fhall prefume to fay to the contrary. He appealed to all the Lords prefent, and demanded that his declaration fhould be recorded. This certainly was the boldeft falfehood that ever was declared to a Houfe of Parliament; but the Protector knew the perfons to whom he spoke. 66 "Poft cujus quidem declarationem factum & auditum, præ•› fati Domini tam Spirituales quam Temporales una voce "axierunt." "We knew never, nor at any time could conceive but "that ye be, and have been, true and faithful liegeman to the King, as it belongeth to your eftate to be-and fo we now take, accept, repute, hold, and declare you." This Record will ferve to prove to demonftration, without any comment or obfervation, in what a wretched ftate of fubmiffion and proftration the whole Houfe of Peers lay at the feet of the Protector. For, the man whom they, with one voice, declared to be, and to have been, a faithful and loyal fubject to the King, had, not two years before they made this difhonourable declaration, levied open war against the King, and marched with an army to the gates of his capital, and was, at the very moment, known to be contefting the King's title to the Crown. Str Grey faid, he would next fhew, by a record of unqueflionable authority, that the Houfe of Commons was, at the very fame time, in an humble, helplefs, and difgraceful flate of dependence on the fame power. He faid, that he had cited the Roll of Parliament, touching the Lords, with fome regret; but the cafe he was now about to lay before the House, Animus meminiffe horret, luctuque refugit. This is, the famous cafe of Thorpe, the Speaker, which, by a fingular coincidence of circumftances, happened just at the time of the Duke of York's being appointed Lieutenant of the King to hold the Parliament, and foon afterwards Protector of the kingdom, and when the Houfe of Lords had made their unanimous declaration of the Duke's loyalty and fidelity to the King. The Parliament which had been fummoned to fit at Reading, was prorogued on the 2d of July, 1453, to the 7th of November following, and on that day it was adjourned to the 11th of February, 1454. and then prorogued to meet at Weftminster on the 14th of that month. When the House of Commons met, their Speaker was in prifon. It appeared that the Duke of York, immediately after the first adjournment, fued Thorpe in the Exchequer by bill, and profecuted him fo clofe, though Speaker, and a Baron of the Exchequer, in his own Court, that between the 23d of October and the 11th of February, he got a verdict against him by a jury of Middlefex for one thousand pounds damages, and ten pounds coft of fuit, and likewife a judgement, and took and detained him in the Fleet thereon, between this adjournment and the Parlia ment's meeting fome few days before their reaffembling. He faid, he had in his hands a book of the highest authority, which, together with all the other writings of his learned and refpectable friend Mr. Hatfell, he begged leave, as an old Member, earnestly to recommend to the diligent study of the rifing generation. His remarks on this cafe of privilege, are made with his ufual knowledge, precifion, and temper. "Indeed the method of proceeding, as well as the expedition that was used throughout the whole of this cafe, ap "pear at first fight very extraordinary, Firft, That the Com mans to take notice, that the right was not to attach till after the King's incapacity had been declared by the two Houses of Parliament, and the two Houfes had adjudged the right to belong to the Heir Apparent. This circumftance he laid a ftrefs on, and afked how it was poffible for any man to conceive that fuch a right could fo attach? What, was the Heir Apparent to wait not only for the declaration of the two Houses, but for their adjudication? On the actual demife of the Crown, did the new King wait for a declaration of Parliament of his father's death, or for their adjudication of his right? Certainly not, it would be absurd in itself, and highly expedient that he fhould. The right honourable gentleman had compared it to the cafe of an election of a Member of Parliament; but furely there was no analogy between the two cafes; the proof that a candidate is eligible, a majority of good votes, a free election, and a return, conftitutes the one cafe, and makes a Member of Parliament. He would fay a very few words to the right honourable gentleman, becaufe a very few words would fhew that the Conftitution itfelf decided the point. Different degrees of incapacity certainly exifted. The child on the knee, the second child (the dotage of old age) the perpetual child (the ideot) the delirium of a fever, the delirium with data, absence, and a variety of others, all cafes in point. The infant on the mother's knee was provided for by the precedent in the infancy of Henry Vl. when the Duke of Gloucefter was the Regent. Not a fingle cafe appeared of a Regent who had not been fet-. tered one way or another, nor one that had been felf-appointed, nor one that had pretended a right to affume it. Having ftated thefe propofitions, he added that he would pursue an idea ftarted by his honourable and learned friend with regard to the two Regency Bills, one agitated in the reign of George the Second, the other in the reign of the prefent King. He held a copy of the preamble to the two Bills in his hand. He then proceeded to flate the tendency of each, and argued that they both recommended the difinherifon of the right heir, who was the Duke of Cumberland in one cafe, and the late Duke of York in the other, and yet nobody thought it a hardfhip although the Duke of Cumberland was at that time. in the plenitude of his popularity, and the Adminiftration was peculiarly a Whig Administration under Mr. Pelham, who though not a very brilliant, was an able Minifter, and an honeft man. But, no perfon had complained of the measure, as a measure of injuftice, nor did it fuggeft itfelf to the mind of any one person that the reftraints imposed on the Princess of Wales (who was named as the Regent, and not the Duke of Cumberland) was unconstitutional. The fecond Bill was chiefly copied from the firft, and created great debates in that Houfe, the walls of which almoft rung, yet as it were with the |