The House resolved by common acclamation to present the Address “as a House,” and not by Privy Councillors.
All other business was put off for distant or nominal days.
13th.—House of Commons. Unanimous votes in Committee upon the Regent’s Message, to grant 50,000l. among the children, and 2,000l. a year to Mrs. Perceval for her life. A debate and division by which a further resolution was carried for 2,000l. a year to Mr. Perceval’s eldest son; but great ill-will towards this third proposition, which was moved by Mr. Sumner, and at first resisted by Ministers.
SHERIDAN’S LAST UTTERANCES IN THE HOUSE (1812).
Source.—Moore’s Life of Sheridan, 1825. P. 677.
My objection to the present Ministry is, that they are avowedly arrayed and embodied against a principle,—that of concession to the Catholics of Ireland,—which I think, and must always think, essential to the safety of this empire. I will never give my vote to any administration that opposes the question of Catholic Emancipation. I will not consent to receive a furlough upon that particular question, even though a Ministry were carrying every other that I wished. In fine, I think the situation of Ireland a paramount consideration. If they were to be the last words I should ever utter in this House, I should say, “Be just to Ireland, as you value your own honour;—be just to Ireland, as you value your own peace.”
His very last words in Parliament, on his own motion relative to the Overtures of Peace from France, were as follows:
“Yet, after the general subjugation and ruin of Europe, should there ever exist an independent historian to record the awful events that produced this universal calamity, let that historian have to say,—‘Great Britain fell, and with her fell all the best securities for the charities of human life, for the power and honour, the fame, the glory, and the liberties, not only of herself, but of the whole civilized world.’ ”
SIR STAPLETON COTTON’S MILITARY SERVICES (1813).
Source.—Diary of Lord Colchester, 1861. Vol. ii., p. 440.
[March] 9th.—Sir Stapleton Cotton,[13] having on the 5th announced to me his arrival in London, I delivered to him the thanks of the House, in the following speech:
Lieutenant-General Sir Stapleton Cotton, in this interval between the active seasons of war, your proper sphere of duty is within these walls; and we hail with pride and pleasure your return among us, bringing with you fresh marks of royal[14] favour, the just reward of fresh services and triumphs.