16th.—The House went into the Committee on the Regency Bill, when Mr. Pelham, who had apprehended no considerable opposition, was in the Chair. T. Pitt moved to refer the King’s Message to the Committee; Vyner to adjourn till the Bill could be printed; but as the House generally suffered him to be singular in his opinion, nobody seconded him now. Prowse, who affected to be in Opposition, what Mr. Pelham affected to be in power, candid, and who was, like Mr. Pelham, a man of some sense without parts, said, “That when this Bill should be passed, he supposed the King would not remove any of the great Officers who were to compose the Regency, as they would tacitly have had the approbation of Parliament; indeed, of what must they be guilty to justify turning them out after this approbation?” That it would be quoted hereafter by ambitious subjects, who should want to engraft themselves upon the Regal Authority, that even this Parliament had strictly tied up the hands of a Princess, whom they affected so much to commend; that the Royal Power can’t be divided into many hands; and that if this Bill passed, the nation ought indeed to pray for the King’s life.
Lord Strange and Sir Roger Newdigate both spoke against the Bill; and Charles Yorke, second son to the Chancellor, a young lawyer of good parts, but precise and affected, for it. He said, “That there were but two instances of a Parliamentary Regency, those of Richard the Second and Henry the Sixth, and in both those, Councils had been established by Parliament; that the confusions of those minorities flowed from the advice of Parliament not being followed: that the Duke of Gloucester, on his brother’s going to France, applied to Parliament for directions how to act, and was told by them, that his power was limited, and accordingly had only the title of Protector conferred on him: that this clause puts the Princess under a happy inability of doing wrong; and that it would quiet jealousies, if there be a subject among us who could create suspicion.”
Fazakerley made remarks upon the Bill, without directly opposing it; and then Mr. Onslow (the Speaker) with a solemnity never more properly assumed, made a noble and affecting speech against it. “He professed that he would not have begun an opposition to the Bill, but could not avoid, when once it was opened, to declare that he thought the regulations dangerous; and that having so much studied the constitution, as it was his duty to do, he was obliged to speak his opinion. It was, that the Regal Power must not be divided; that control is dividing it; that it never ought to be controlled, except when abused; that instead of one King, we should have nine; that the Council might put a negative on what the Regent should propose; that to control, is to give the power to those who control; that if the Council refuse to make peace or war, the Regent must submit; that this control is placed in the hands of those she will not be able to control; that the best Regent we ever had, the Earl of Pembroke, in Harry the Third’s time, was a single Regent; a good man, but his virtue was assisted by his undivided power. That he foresaw there would be dissensions among themselves; though he had a high opinion of those designed, yet will they not be men? Power corrupts the best understandings; factions in the Regency may derive themselves into both Houses, and those who should correct, may become parties in the grievance. In Edward the Sixth’s time, though the reformation of religion was then in question, did it check the animosities in the Council? Even then, letters-patent were obtained in contradiction to an Act of Parliament, which had limited the Protector’s authority. That though any members of the future Council will be removeable by address to Parliament, how will such address be obtained against the most turbulent? Nay, Parliament may be under a long prorogation, and the Regent, all helpless, will see nothing but factions in the Council that should assist her. How distressed will be her condition, how distressed the condition of her children, of the nation! I wish well,” continued he, “to those who will have the power, a power that nobody will envy them! Though it has the appearance of establishing that power of which I am the most apprehensive! I must—I will speak my duty! It may be for the service of those who procure this Bill. Why, if the power of peace and war is to be delegated, why is it not entrusted to the Parliament? I hope we are not to address the Council for either! Nay, if we should submit to that humiliation, what, if they should slight, as they may, our application? What a solecism in this constitution to have Parliament contradicted by nine persons!”
He then made a solemn prayer for the King’s life, as the only preservative against this plan of power, which, he said, if it ever took effect, would exceed all the evils that could be foreseen from a single Regent. For himself, he had nothing to ask, nothing to fear, and whenever he should cease to serve the House, he knew whither only he would go. He then entered upon that monstrous clause, which subjects to the penalties of a præmunire whoever shall attempt any alteration of this system after it be enacted. He argued with great weight on the prodigious danger of it, and mentioned a test proposed in 1675 to oblige members to take an oath not to attempt any alteration in the State. It held a Debate of seventeen days, and at last the House of Lords resolved, that such a test would not affect Debates in Parliament, or restrain them. He said, that if members should meet privately to concert measures for the repeal of this law, it might be construed into a præmunire; and many lives had been taken away by construction. He concluded with an earnest asseveration of the uprightness of his intention, and a serious protest against the mischiefs of the Bill.
Mr. Pelham was inexpressibly shocked at this speech, though he had no reason not to have apprehended it. The Speaker had been at the private meetings on the Bill, where he disputed warmly with the Chancellor. Their cabal said that he acquiesced; that when he had given his reasons and found they had no weight, he had said no more—was that acquiescing? They even said that he agreed to the general plan on their softening some points, which at last they did not soften. On sketching out some correction of the most flagrant strokes of power, the Duke of Newcastle had said, “Now they had reduced the Bill to nothing!” The Speaker replied, “I wish it was! it would be better for you. If it is nothing, it is a reason for not doing it.” This argument probably struck them, and so they did all they first intended. He told Mr. Fox, that they might have softened it with regard to the Duke, by declaring it was the tenour of the English constitution. Mr. Fox assured him, that the Duke had said, “My Lord Chancellor told me, no such declaration could be made, because circumstances might happen to make it inconvenient. That crisis,” continued the Duke, “must be when I am out of the question.”
The Speaker was master of an honesty, which though it would bend very much upon most occasions, especially when its warping would prop its reputation, was tough and steady when pushed to an extremity: and he would sometimes see that extremity as soon in trifles as in materials. His disinterestedness[116] was remarkable, and he was fond of exerting it. Popularity was his great aim, impartiality his professed means, universal adulation and partiality to whatever was popular, his real means of acquiring it. He was bigoted to the power of the House of Commons; and, like all zealots, ardent for his own authority, as intimately connected with the interests of his idol. He had much devotion from the House, few friends in it, for he was too pompous to be loved, though too ridiculous to be hated; had too much knowledge not to be regarded; too much dignity in his appearance not to be admired; and was too fond of applause not to miss it.
The Speaker was answered in a long deduction by the Attorney-General, and by Charles Yorke, who said, that on the first Regency Bill after the Revolution, ten Judges had given their opinions that the regal power may be both delegated and divided. Lord Strange asked shrewdly, “If it was probable that there would be no dissensions in the Council of Regency, which was to be composed of the present Ministry? Survey them; with what cordiality have they concurred in all measures for some years! May not it happen, that if the Regent should refuse[117] to employ some person recommended by them, the junto may threaten to resign? an insult, such as within my own time I have almost seen offered to a crowned head! We shall see all that repeated scramble for power, that I have two or three times seen acted over. Can the Duke be removed by address of Parliament? I won’t say that he is most likely to do mischief, but certainly he is most capable of doing it. As to the præmunire clause, the person who drew it deserves to incur it.”
Murray, the Solicitor-General, said, “He did not wonder there were but few precedents to direct them of a Prince thinking thus greatly of his own death, and providing for emergencies to arise after it: that the Law of England knows no minority: if the person of the minor King should be seized by force, his power would accompany the possession of his person: that this Bill creates a minority, and provides against the evils of it: that in private cases, no guardian has the whole power over an estate, that his ward will have when he comes of age; that no Prince, even in absolute governments, ever appointed a Regency without control; that all the members of the future Regency must be thought proper persons by the King; that the great officers specified must be named by him; and the four others whom he is to appoint by his will must be entirely of his own choice; that there are but three acts of legislation which the Regent and the two Houses cannot perform—altering the established succession, the established religion in England, and the Presbyterian church government in Scotland; that members of Parliament are not restrained from taking measures to get this law repealed; that the prohibition is levelled against altering what shall be done by the Regency, not against altering the Bill, and clause of præmunire. He asked whether it was wished that the Regent should be made too powerful for the Council and both Houses of Parliament; and whether even a King ever made a Judge without the approbation of at least three of his Council? and he added, that it would be a solecism to say that the Council should be a check upon the Regent, and yet be removeable by her as easily as she pleased. That she would have a strong control upon them, as they would not have power even to make a Judge without her; nor be able to move anything without her concurrence. With regard to what the Speaker had urged on the delegation of the power of making peace and war, he asked, if there was no difference between entrusting it to a Council of seven hundred men, who take all the inhabitants of this country to their assistance, and a Council of twelve persons?”
Mr. Fox then declared himself for the Bill though he spoke against almost every part of it; and being afterwards told by Mr. Pelham peevishly, that Pitt’s was the finest speech he ever heard, but that he (Fox) had not spoke like himself; he replied, “I know it; if I had, I should have said ten times more against the Bill;” but he objected that the præmunire clause was a little ambiguously worded, and that if the person who penned it was aware how wrong it was, he indeed deserved to incur all the weight of it. “Can fourteen persons[118],” said he, “have power, and not want more than their share? and if the Regent and her Council should proclaim the young King major a year before the time specified, would not a man in the street who hallooed at such proclamation be liable to a præmunire?” “The crime,” he added, “was too uncertainly described for such heavy punishment, and of all times a minority is the worst to subject the people to penal laws.” He would have had the whole clause omitted, because every man, without being a lawyer, ought to know what the Regent can or cannot do. He asserted, that as the Chancellor is named in the Bill to be necessarily of the Regency, the putting the Great Seal in Commission would violate the Act. If they would not erase the whole clause, he proposed that the punishment annexed should be impeachment, as it could only be meant to come at great persons who should attempt to disturb the Settlement. Mr. Pelham, from the chair, told him angrily that this was not the clause then in debate, but the first clause, which passed without a division about seven o’clock.