was then on duty, he went up to him and gagged him by forcing a large piece of iron into his mouth, and fastening it by a bandage round his head, his hands at the same time being tied behind his back. In this state the man was left without any sentinel placed over him, and the officer went on shore: some hours after he was found dead, having apparently been suffocated. The officer had been tried by a court martial, and dismissed the service. The honourable gentleman then stated another instance of barbarity in a naval captain, who having flogged many of his crew with great severity, one man declared that sooner than be flogged again he would leap over-board. The captain, hearing this, said he would try him; and, having ordered him to undergo a castigation, the man leaped over-board. The vessel was at that time under an easy press of sail, and there was a general cry to lower a boat; but the captain would not suffer it, saying, "If he prefer that ship to my ship, he is welcome to sail in it." Accordingly no attempt was made to save the unfortunate man, and he was drowned.

Mr. Yorke said that lieutenant Richards had been tried for the murder of the seaman belonging to the Dart, who was drunken and distonest, and who had blasphemed both God and his king; but it ap

peared that he died of intoxication. Notwithstanding, lieut. Richards had been dismissed the service.

On the motion of Mr. Perceval, the charge and sentence of the court martial, instead of the minutes, were then ordered.

House of lords, July 24.—The lord chancellor read a letter from lord Wellington, stating the communication of the thanks of the house to marshal Beresford, &c. for the victory at Albuera; and also read one from sir W. Beresford, expressing his high sense of the honour thus conferred.

The lord chancellor then stated that two commissions had been issued under the great seal; the one for giving the royal assent to certain bills, and the other for the prorogation of parliament by commission, it not being convenient for the prince regent to be personally present. The royal assent was then gi ven to the bank-notes and the militia interchange amendment bills; after which the archbishop of Canterbury, the lord chancellor, earl Camden, earl Westmoreland, and the earl of Aylesford, having taken their seats as lords commissioners, and the speaker and several members of the house of commons being at the bar, the lord chancellor delivered the speech which will be found among the Public Papers in another part of this volume.

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N the preceding volume of the New Annual Register, we entered pretty much in detail into those events and transactions respecting the regency which fell within the year 1810, and gave a rapid and brief sketch of such as entered on the beginning of the year 1811. We shall now carry on, more minutely and fully, the history of this most interesting and important event, in so far as it belongs to the latter year, in order that our history of it may in all its parts bear a due proportion, and that a circumstance certainly unprecedented, whether we regard it in its origin, nature, or consequences, may be transmitted to posterity with all that regularity and minuteness of narrative which its importance deserves and demands.

Before, however, we enter on the more inmediate object of this volume, it may not be improper or without its use, for the better recollection and understanding of the subject in all its parts and relations, to state shortly the principles on which those who brought forward and carried the restrictions on the regent, and those who opposed them, severally founded and supported their doctrines and opinions. The minister and his adherents set out with this short and simple maxim, that a regent is not a king:

that in every respect and point of view, whether considered relatively to common sense, to justice, or to the fundamental and essential doc. trines of the British constitution, they were and ought to be radically distinct that whereas the powers of a king were full, complete, and his own, so far as by the exercise of them he sought after and secured the good of the people over whom he reigned;-a regent was merely a person appointed to act for another, to whom ought to be granted all those authorities, powers, and prerogatives which were necessary to enable him to supply the place and perform the duty of his principal; but from whom ought carefully and sacredly to be kept every kind of authority, power or prerogative, which could possibly be exercised in such a manner by the regent, as might endanger the easy and full resumption by his principal of his legitimate rights, or tend in the smallest degree to embarrass or weaken the exercise of them, when actually resumed. Besides this grand and leading principle, on the strength and justice of which they contended that the royal prerogative of creating peers more especially should be cut off from the powers vested in the regent; ministers and their adherents maintained, that not a little was due to the personal feelings and

comfort

comfort of the king:-that how ever abstract reasoning might ridicule or hold in contempt such an idea, yet it was neither possible, nor, if possible, would it have been consonant to common justice or humanity, to throw entirely aside, in the consideration of this ques tion, and in the arrangement of the particular authorities to be vested in the regent, all regard to what the king might be supposed to have wished, could he have expressed his wishes, and what it was highly probable he would feel when restored to the exercise of his reason. Upon this subordinate principle, which certainly carried along with it every feeling man and loyal subject, and which was well calculated to create a favourable impression in the public mind towards those who promulgated and supported it; while, on the contrary, it was dangerous to oppose it, lest the imputation of want of feeling or loyalty should create a prejudice against the constitutional doctrines on which it might have been successfully combated;-upon this principle, ministers contended that the household of his majesty should be left untouched by the powers of the regent. The appointment of the person to whom the care of the king was to be committed, arose from a mixture of both the principles which we have just stated: on the first and grand principle, it was contended, with certainly very great cogency and strength of argument, that it would be highly improper to commit the custody and care of the king's person to the regent to one, whose interest so evidently and strongly lay in the continued illness of the king; while on the subordinate principle it was maintained, that the king's recovery would most probably be

retarded, if in his lucid intervals he was informed that the regent had the care of his person; and that, on his perfect recovery, his satisfaction and comfort would be much more complete, if he found that his consort, and not the heir apparent, had watched over his malady.

Such may be regarded as a ra pid and brief outline of the principles on which ministers and their adherents grounded their resolutions that certain restrictions should be imposed on the regent, and on which they proceeded in their selection and defence of the restrictions, which they proposed and carried. Some objections may certainly be made to the principles themselves; and others of greater weight, or at least of greater plausi bility, to the application of them to the particular restrictions imposed on the regent:-but these objections will assume a less formidable appearance, when the difficulties attending an opposite line of conduct are considered. It was, indeed, a choice of difficulties; a very embarrassing and critical situation in which the country was placed; and, unfortunately, out of this labyrinth precedent afforded no clue which could conduct parliament with certainty and safety.

The principles on which the opposition grounded their doctrines and arguments bore very much. the appearance, and possessed in a great degree indeed the reality, of genuine British principles. They contended in the first place,-and upon this point they laid very great stress, and insisted loudly and repeatedly, that the good of the nation, and not the comfort or feelings of the king, was alone to be regarded, and ought alone to be suffered to enter into the considera

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tion of the question; that the prerogatives and powers, of which it was proposed to deprive the regent, were either beneficial to the community, or they were not. Powers vested in a sovereign, they insisted, could not be without some effect: if they were not beneficial to the people over whom he reigned, they could not be harmless: but in either case, whether these prerogatives and powers, which ministers proposed to cut off from the authority of the regent, were beneficial or hurtful, their principles and arguments must fail to the ground. If they were calculated and could only be exercised to produce the good of the nation, then parliament had no right, under any plea, to strip the person exercising the supreme authority, for ever so short a time, of them; or even to curtail or weaken them in the slightest manner. If they were prejudicial, then they ought not to be granted or continued either to the sovereign or the regent. This dilemma certainly was very embarrassing; nor did ministers meet it directly and fairly indeed this important question can hardly be said to have been argued in a complete and full manner, either by ministers or by the opposition. When the former dwelt with great force of argument, and with much appearance of triumph, on the necessity of guarding the easy and full resumption of the royal authority; the opposition, instead of meeting this branch of the argument directly face to face, turned aside and declaimed eloquently, and in their turn with great triumph, on the necessity, for the good of the nation, of vesting in the regent all the royal prerogatives, as the British constitution could suppose none given, but what were absolutely

necessary for the grand object of all legitimate government, the li berty and well-being of the people, Ministers perceiving that this was not only a popular way of treating the subject,but that it rested on specious if not solid arguments, turned aside from it, and again brought into play the necessity of guarding the power and prerogatives of the sovereign, the permanent and real magistrate, against the encroach. ments of a temporary and dele, gated regent.

In one respect, the opposition pushed their argument against the ministerial party with considerable vigour, acuteness, and success; and this point, thus successfully brought forward, had considerable weight with the mass of the people. They contended, that the very principle on which ministers rested their leading doctrine, that the power of a regent ought to be restricted,— namely, that otherwise he might and would have the means of ren dering the resumption of the royal authority difficult, and the subsequent exercise of it cramped, ought to lead ministers to take away from the regent all control over the army, and the prerogative of dissolving parliament, since it was easy to conceive how these, in the hands of a person disposed to abuse his delegated and tempo rary authority, might be turned more dangerously and successfully against the sovereign, than the prerogative of creating peers, or removing any or all of the royal household. The opposition put this argument in all possible shapes, and dwelt upon it at great length, and with much triumph; and it must be confessed, that by thus pushing the fundamental principle of the ministry to its complete and le gitimate consequences, they effected

one

one of two objects; they made out either that the principle was erroneous and unfounded, or that ministers were inconsistent in their application and use of it.

Such is a brief sketch of the leading doctrines broached by the two great parties in parliament, on the great and difficult question respect ing the powers which, consistently with the spirit of the British constitution, ought to be vested in a regent. But there was a third party in parliament, more formidable for the boldness with which they promulgated and defended their opinions, and for the weight and influence which they possessed with a great portion of the people, than for their numerical strength, who, though they in general coin cided with the opposition in their main view of the question, yet placed it in other points of light in which the regular opponents of ministry either durst not or were not disposed to consider it, The party alluded to is that of which sir Francis Burdett may be regarded as the head and the leader :-this party did not hesitate or scruple to maintain in the most open and undisguised manner, that ministers, by suffering government to go on to long stripped of the royal anthority, and virtually of the person of the sovereign, had given a practical proof of the truth of the assertions made by the most violent republicans, and particularly by their champion Thomas Paine, that the royal authority was not necessary either to the well-being or existence of government; and they added, that if the regent actually did as sume and carry on the executive power without all the prerogatives which the constitution had given to the sovereign, that would be a glaring and practical proof that

more prerogatives than were necessary to the well-being of the state had been lodged with the sovereign, and a sufficient reason to deprive him of the future possession of them. So far the doctrines and opinions held by this party were such as might have been expected from them, and in perfect consistence with their fundamental principles, and with their former professions and conduct. But when they proceeded to intermix high expectations of the prince regent, and to declare, that from him they expected a line of conduct that would, to use their own language, restore the constitution to its original purity and force, it was scarcely possible not to entertain a suspicion that they hoped, by expressing expectations they did not entertain, to draw the prince over to their party, and to extract that by flattery from him which they did not look for from principle or inclination.

The doctrines held by this party respecting the powers of a regent, were not only broached in the house of commons, but delivered with more connexion, and with equal force and boldness, in the resolutions of the court of commoncouncil on the 8.h of January 1811. Those resolutions began by expressing the deep sorrow which the common-council felt at the declared incapacity of his majesty to discharge the duties of the royal office; and the fears and alaim with which they beheld the means resorted to to provide for the temporary exercise of the functions of the sovereignty. They then preceeded to lay down the grand and fundamental maxims recognised, they maintained, not only by the spirit of the British constitution, but also by the practice of our an

cestors