The Prince of Wales[12] considers the moment to be arrived which calls for his decision with respect to the persons to be employed by him in the administration of the executive government of the country, according to the powers vested in him by the Bill passed by the two Houses of Parliament, and now on the point of receiving the sanction of the Great Seal.
The Prince feels it incumbent upon him at this precise juncture to communicate to Mr. Perceval his intention not to remove from their situations those whom he finds there as His Majesty’s official servants. At the same time the Prince owes it to the truth and sincerity of character, which, he trusts, will appear in every action of his life, in whatever situation he may be placed, explicitly to declare that the irresistible impulse of filial duty and affection to his beloved and afflicted father, leads him to dread that any act of the Regent might, in the smallest degree, have the effect of interfering with the progress of his sovereign’s recovery.
This consideration alone dictates the decision now communicated to Mr. Perceval.
Having thus performed an act of indispensable duty, from a just sense of what is due to his own consistency and honour, the Prince has only to add that, among the many blessings to be derived from His Majesty’s restoration to health, and to the personal exercise of his royal functions, it will not, in the Prince’s estimation, be the least, that that most fortunate event will at once rescue him from a situation of unexampled embarrassment, and put an end to a state of affairs, ill calculated, he fears, to sustain the interests of the United Kingdom in this awful and perilous crisis; and most difficult to be reconciled to the general principles of the British Constitution.
Mr. Perceval’s Answer.
Downing Street,
Feb. 5th, 1811.
Mr. Perceval presents his humble duty to Your Royal Highness, and has the honour to acknowledge the receipt of Your Royal Highness’s letter of last night, which reached him this morning.
Mr. Perceval feels it his duty to express his humble thanks to Your Royal Highness for the frankness with which Your Royal Highness has condescended explicitly to communicate the motives which have induced Your Royal Highness to honour his colleagues and him with your commands for the continuance of their services in the stations entrusted to them by the King. And Mr. Perceval begs leave to assure Your Royal Highness that in the expression of Your Royal Highness’s sentiments of filial and loyal attachment to the King, and of anxiety for the restoration of His Majesty’s health, Mr. Perceval can see nothing but additional motives for their most anxious exertions to give satisfaction to Your Royal Highness, in the only manner in which it can be given, by endeavouring to promote Your Royal Highness’s views for the security and happiness of the country.
Mr. Perceval has never failed to regret the impression of Your Royal Highness with regard to the provisions of the Regency Bill which His Majesty’s servants felt it to be their duty to recommend to Parliament. But he ventures to submit to Your Royal Highness that, whatever difficulties the present awful crisis of the country and the world may create in the administration of the executive government, Your Royal Highness will not find them in any degree increased by the temporary suspension of the exercise of those branches of the Royal prerogative which has been introduced by Parliament, in conformity to what was intended on a former similar occasion. And that whatever Ministers Your Royal Highness might think proper to employ, would find in that full support and countenance which, as long as they were honoured with Your Royal Highness’s commands, they would feel confident that they would continue to enjoy, ample and sufficient means to enable Your Royal Highness effectually to maintain the great and important interests of the United Kingdom.
And Mr. Perceval humbly trusts that, whatever doubts Your Royal Highness may entertain with respect to the constitutional propriety of the measures which have been adopted, Your Royal Highness will feel assured that they could not have been recommended by His Majesty’s servants, nor sanctioned by Parliament, but upon the sincere, though possibly erroneous conviction, that they in no degree trenched upon the true principles and spirit of the Constitution.