B R I T A I N. 



727 



Brit .in. :i]inl -iblo to the othor modi*. The house, it had 

 !(!, could net pass a real bill, be- 

 cause it could not legislate without the concur- 

 i the king, as well as of the upper house, 

 umciitt To proceed by address, he maintained, would still 

 ap- be to legislate. Suppose the house should address 

 '"fnt '" s '^> a ' Highness the Prince of Wales to assume 



j,,i^ ' authority, What was that authority ? It Was not the 

 authority of a king, which was clear and distinct 

 it was that of a regent, which was undefined, and 

 must depend upon circumstances for its limits or ex- 

 tension. But supposing that the office of regent 

 was intelligible, and was defined by law in its rights 

 and duties, What would be the regent's first act af- 

 ter his appointment ? The calling together of his 

 majesty's parliament. How could he call them ? 

 Would it not be by authorising the individual who 

 happened to be in possession of the great seal, to 

 put that seal to some commission, either authorising 

 the regent himself, in the name of his majesty, to 

 open the parliament, or authorising commissioners 

 appointed by the regent, for that purpose. Not a 

 single legislative act could be accomplished by the 

 regent without the use of the great seal. The houses, 

 it is true, would not directly command the great seal 

 to be used, but they would, even in the procedure 

 by address, authorise an individual to command it to 

 be put. Therefore, the houses would legislate in 

 the one mode of procedure as well as in the other. 

 The gentlemen on the opposite side (Mr Perceval 

 continued) propose to transfer the whole regal au- 

 thority by a single vote. Bnt provision is to be 

 made for the eventual restoration of his majesty to 

 the exercise of his power when his health shall re- 

 turn ; and in no way can the provisions for that re- 

 sumption, and the restrictions necessary to be laid 

 on the regent, be so well made as in proceeding by 



jtiments bill. The leaders of opposition contended, that the 



a P- procedure by address excluded no limitation or pro- 

 vision for the king's resumption of authority, which 

 parliament might choose to embody in such an ad- 

 dress. " What reason, they asked, * is there for 

 supposing that his Royal Highness will refuse the li- 

 mitations that shall be judged necessary, because 

 they are stated in an address instead of a bill. Lord 

 Somers, and the most distinguished constitutional 

 patriots, did not think there was any danger in pro- 

 posing the necessary limitations in an address to the 

 Prince of Orange to fill the throne, instead of a 

 bill ; and there is no more danger of the Prince 

 of Wales refusing the present offer, than of the Prince 

 of Orange at a former period. The precedent of the 

 proposed regency in 1788, they deprecated as un- 

 constitutional, and distinguishing between restrictions 

 which should fetter the executive in times so full of 

 pwil, and the necessary regulations for enabling his 

 majes.y to reassume his power at a proper period, 

 they proposed, as an amendment, that his Royal 

 Highness should be immediately addressed to take 

 upon himself the powers of regent." The present 

 question, we think, might be reduced to two capi- 

 tal points, substantial expediency, and legal or con- 

 ttitutional form. With respect to the first, it was 



Dtmg 

 recent 

 address 



strongly urged, in the present case, ai it had b -en F 



urgi-,.1 twenty year; before, that the powers which . </ ' 



it is salutary to attach to monarchy, shou' .'.. ( '' 



ly allowed to the regent as to the actual monarch. 

 The regulations with respect to time, the provisions 

 which shall enable the absent sovereign to rrtur 

 power, are essentially to be distinguished from limi- 

 tations of the regal power. If this argument of 

 upholding the executive in equal prerogative during 

 a regency as at other times, had any force in 1 788, 

 it had certainly additional force at a crisis of war, 

 danger, and difficulty a time, too, at which the 

 heir apparent, if ever fit for the exercise of pou 

 was at an unexceptionable age. With respect to the 

 objection of informality being equally appl'u 

 procedure by address as by bill, the arguments of 

 the Chancellor of the Exchequer appear to be so- 

 phistical. Parliament, in proceeding by bill, cleat ly 

 legislates without the third estate ; in the procedure 

 by addrcsi, they do not. They authorise, indeed, a 

 person to authorise the great seal to be used but 

 that is not using it themselves. 



The moment a regent is appointed, a king to all 

 intents and purposes is appointed, and the order of 

 that regent, in the king's name, to use the seal, is D 

 a fiction. It is an exercise of royal authority. The 

 regent is protempore king. He uses the king's 

 name not as a fiction, but as a reality. He is, in the 

 eye of the law, the king, from the time he has ac- 

 cepted the address. He has a discretionary veto 

 upon the proceedings of parliament. But when par- 

 liament proceed by bill, they make themselves pro- 

 tempore both to the first, and second, and third es- 

 tate. It is said that the first act of the regent, after be- 

 ing appointed by address, would be signing the king's 

 consent to his own appointment, by desiring the chan- 

 cellor to affix the great seal to a commission. To 

 this it should be answered, that the substance of roy- 

 alty has already passed to him, and he signs that con- 

 sent in the name of the king : but he is already king 

 himself for the time ; he is the executive ; he puts the 

 executive seal to the consent ot'the royal power which 

 he himself represents, not to the consent of the afflict- 

 ed individual, who ceases to be king during the period 

 of his malady. Let us examine the difference between 

 the regent giving assent to the act of parliament 

 which calls him by address, and the act which ap- 

 points him by bill. In the latter instance, the bill is 

 passed without any executive power. In the former 

 instance, an executive power, not a dead seal, but an 

 active and real will, a will essentially royal, is created 

 to complete the act of parliament.. In defence of 

 the restrictions of the regency, it has been said, that 

 a temporary regent should not have the power of ex- 

 tending his influence beyond the period of his regen- 

 cy, t. e. by creating peers. By the same argument 

 it should be admitted, that a king should not have 

 the power of creating honours or emoluments which 

 can survive himself. Having carried the point of ap- Restric- 

 pointing the regency by bill, the minister proceeded, t' 005 upon 

 on the 31st of December, to propose the restrictions '**' re S ent - 

 to be imposed on the power of the regent. Four 

 resolutions to this effect were carried, by majorities so 



Mr Ponsonby's speech on th 20lh of December 1810. 



