"Ever most truly yours, &c.
"EDMUND BURKE."
Gerard Street, Thursday Morning.]
It was immediately upon this motion that Mr. Fox advanced that inconsiderate claim of Right for the Prince of Wales, of which his rival availed himself so dexterously and triumphantly. Having asserted that there existed no precedent whatever that could bear upon the present case, Mr. Fox proceeded to say, that "the circumstance to be provided for did not depend upon their deliberations as a House of Parliament,—it rested elsewhere. There was then a person in the kingdom, different from any other person that any existing precedents could refer to,—an Heir Apparent, of full age and capacity to exercise the royal power. It behoved them, therefore, to waste not a moment unnecessarily, but to proceed with all becoming speed and diligence to restore the Sovereign power and the exercise of the Royal Authority. From what he had read of history, from the ideas he had formed of the law, and, what was still more precious, of the spirit of the Constitution, from every reasoning and analogy drawn from those sources, he declared that he had not in his mind a doubt, and he should think himself culpable if he did not take the first opportunity of declaring it, that, in the present condition of His Majesty, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales had as clear, as express a Right to exercise the power of Sovereignty, during the continuance of the illness and incapacity, with which it had pleased God to afflict His Majesty, as in the case of His Majesty's having undergone a natural demise."
It is said that, during the delivery of this adventurous opinion, the countenance of Mr. Pitt was seen to brighten with exultation at the mistake into which he perceived his adversary was hurrying; and scarcely had the sentence, just quoted, been concluded, when, slapping his thigh triumphantly, he turned to the person who sat next to him, and said, "I'll un-Whig the gentleman for the rest of his life!"
Even without this anecdote, which may be depended upon as authentic, we have sufficient evidence that such were his feelings in the burst of animation and confidence with which he instantly replied to Mr. Fox,—taking his ground, with an almost equal temerity, upon the directly opposite doctrine, and asserting, not only that "in the case of the interruption of the personal exercise of the Royal Authority, it devolved upon the other branches of the Legislature to provide a substitute for that authority," but that "the Prince of Wales had no more right to exercise the powers of government than any other person in the realm."
The truth is, the assertion of a Right was equally erroneous, on both sides of the question. The Constitution having provided no legal remedy for such an exigence as had now occurred, the two Houses of Parliament had as little right (in the strict sense of the word) to supply the deficiency of the Royal power, as the Prince had to be the person elected or adjudged for that purpose. Constitutional analogy and expediency were the only authorities by which the measures necessary in such a conjuncture could be either guided or sanctioned; and if the disputants on each side had softened down their tone to this true and practical view of the case, there would have been no material difference, in the first stage of the proceedings between them,—Mr. Pitt being ready to allow that the Heir Apparent was the obvious person to whom expediency pointed as the depository of the Royal power, and Mr. Fox having granted, in a subsequent explanation of his doctrine, that, strong as was the right upon which the claim of the Prince was founded, His Royal Highness could not assume that right till it had been formally adjudicated to him by Parliament. The principle, however, having been imprudently broached, Mr. Pitt was too expert a tactician not to avail himself of the advantage it gave him. He was thus, indeed, furnished with an opportunity, not only of gaining time by an artful protraction of the discussions, but of occupying victoriously the ground of Whiggism, which Mr. Fox had, in his impatience or precipitancy, deserted, and of thus adding to the character, which he had recently acquired, of a defender of the prerogatives of the Crown, the more brilliant reputation of an assertor of the rights of the people.
In the popular view which Mr. Pitt found it convenient to take of this question, he was led, or fell voluntarily into some glaring errors, which pervaded the whole of his reasonings on the subject. In his anxiety to prove the omnipotence of Parliament, he evidently confounded the Estates of the realm with the Legislature, [Footnote: Mr. Grattan and the Irish Parliament carried this error still farther, and founded all their proceedings on the necessity of "providing for the deficiency of the Third Estate.">[ and attributed to two branches of the latter such powers as are only legally possessed by the whole three in Parliament assembled. For the purpose, too, of flattering the people with the notion that to them had now reverted the right of choosing their temporary Sovereign, he applied a principle, which ought to be reserved for extreme cases, to an exigence by no means requiring this ultimate appeal,—the defect in the government being such as the still existing Estates of the realm, appointed to speak the will of the people, but superseding any direct exercise of their power, were fully competent, as in the instance of the Revolution, to remedy. [Footnote: The most luminous view that has been taken of this Question is to be found in an Article of the Edinburgh Review, on the Regency of 1811,—written by one of the most learned and able men of our day, Mr. John Allen.]
Indeed, the solemn use of such language as Mr. Pitt, in his over-acted Whiggism, employed upon this occasion,—namely, that the "right" of appointing a substitute for the Royal power was "to be found in the voice and the sense of the people,"—is applicable only to those conjunctures, brought on by misrule and oppression, when all forms are lost in the necessity of relief, and when the right of the people to change and choose their rulers is among the most sacred and inalienable that either nature or social polity has ordained. But, to apply the language of that last resource to the present emergency was to brandish the sword of Goliath [Footnote: A simile applied by Lord Somers to the power of Impeachment, which, he said, "should be like Goliath's sword, kept in the temple, and not used but upon great occasions.">[ on an occasion that by no means called for it.
The question of the Prince's claim,—in spite of the efforts of the Prince himself and of his Royal relatives to avert the agitation of it,—was, for evident reasons, forced into discussion by the Minister, and decided by a majority, not only of the two Houses but of the nation, in his favor. During one of the long debates to which the question gave rise, Mr. Sheridan allowed himself to be betrayed into some expressions, which, considering the delicate predicament in which the Prince was placed by the controversy, were not marked with his usual tact and sagacity. In alluding to the claim of Right advanced for His Royal Highness, and deprecating any further agitation of it, he "reminded the Right Honorable Gentleman (Mr. Pitt) of the danger of provoking that claim to be asserted Impartial Report of all the Proceedings on the Subject of the Regency]