INSTABILITY OF THE CABINET.
Ministers seemed to have carried matters with a high hand in parliament during the previous debates, but there were nevertheless causes at work which tended to weaken and dissolve their administration. The Americans had already put their threats into execution concerning their abstinence from the use of British goods, and this created great alarm among shipowners, merchants, manufacturers, artizans, and labourers. The complaints of the two latter classes of the community were increased by a scarcity of bread, and the high price of provisions, which were ascribed to the maladministration of the ministers. These popular discontents, however, might have been disregarded, had not Grenville given offence to a royal personage, whose resentment would have ensured the downfall of even a much greater and more popular man than the prime minister.
About a week after he had given his assent to the American Stamp Act, it was reported that his majesty was seriously ill, and it would appear that his illness was a slight attack of that fearful malady which thrice afflicted him during his long reign, and incapacitated him for his kingly duties. This time his malady was transient; but, taking warning by it, he acquainted his ministers that he was anxious for a Regency Bill, and told them the particulars of his intention. The sketch of such a bill was drawn up by Fox, now Lord Holland, which left the regent to be named by the king, and which, among other members of the royal family, omitted the name of the queen. The queen’s name was subsequently added, but no mention was made of the Princess-dowager of Wales. The king himself proposed that he should be invested with power, from time to time, by instruments under his sign manual, to appoint either the queen or any other person of the royal family, usually residing in Great Britain, to be guardian of his succession and regent of the kingdom, until his successor should have attained his eighteenth year. A bill to this effect was carried in the upper house, but in the commons a motion was made requiring the king to name those persons whom he would intrust with so important a charge. This motion was negatived, and a question was then raised as to the construction of the words “any other member of the royal family,” and the answer given was, that they meant “the descendants of George the Second.” This interpretation would have excluded the princess-dowager from all share in the public councils, and therefore an amendment was moved at the next reading to insert her name next to that of the queen. This amendment was carried by a large majority; but it was foreseen that the king would resent the insult put upon his mother in both houses, and would attempt to rid himself of Mr. Grenville and Lord Halifax, who had omitted to insert her name in the bill at the very outset of the proceedings.
On the 15th of May, the king went in person to give his assent to this bill. On that occasion a mob of silk-weavers and others, from Spitalfields, went to St. James’s Palace with black flags and other symptoms of mourning and distress, to present a petition, complaining that they were reduced to a state of starvation by the importation of French silks. Both houses of parliament were surrounded by them, where they insulted various members, and even terrified the lords into an adjournment. In the evening they attacked Bedford-house, and began to pull down the walls, declaring that the duke had been bribed to make the treaty of Fontainbleau, and that it had brought poverty and all other curses into England. The riot act was read, and the mob dispersed, but the streets were crowded with soldiers for some days for fear of an outbreak. Reports were also spread of mutinies among the sailors at Portsmouth, insurrections among the Norwich weavers, and riots in Essex and Lancashire. The cabinet and country alike seemed to be fast going to pieces; whence his majesty, combined with the insult offered to his mother, resolved to make some attempt to form a new administration, hoping thereby to effect a change in the aspect of public affairs.