MOTION IN BOTH HOUSES FOR A SETTLEMENT ON THE PRINCE OF WALES.

The chief subject of contention that presented itself in the course of this session, was a motion which Mr. Pulteney made for an address to his majesty, that he would be pleased to settle one hundred thousand pounds a year upon the prince of Wales. He represented that such provision was conformable to the practice of ancient times; that what he proposed had been enjoyed by his present majesty in the life-time of his father; and that a settlement of this nature was reasonable and necessary to ascertain the independency of the apparent heir to the crown. The motion was vigorously opposed by sir Robert Walpole, as an encroachment on the prerogative; as an officious intermeddling in the king’s family affairs; and as an effort to set his majesty and the prince at variance. But a misunderstanding, it seems, had already happened in the royal family. The minister, in the midst of his harangue, told the house by his majesty’s command, that on the preceding day the king had sent a message to the prince by several noblemen of the first quality, importing, that his majesty had given orders for settling a jointure upon the princess of Wales, suitable to her high rank and dignity, which he would in a proper time lay before parliament, in order to be rendered more certain and effectual; that, although his royal highness had not thought fit, by any application to his majesty, to desire that his allowance of fifty thousand pounds might be rendered less precarious, the king, to prevent the bad consequences which he apprehended might follow from the undutiful measures which his majesty was informed the prince had been advised to pursue, would grant to his royal highness, for his majesty’s life, the said fifty thousand pounds per annum, to be issued out of the civil list revenues, over and above the prince’s revenues arising from the duchy of Cornwall, which his majesty thought a very competent allowance, considering his own numerous issue, and the great expense which did and must necessarily attend an honourable provision for the whole royal family; that the prince, by a verbal answer, desired their lordships to lay him with all humility at his majesty’s feet; to assure him that he did, and ever should, retain the utmost duty for his royal person; that he was very thankful for any instance of his majesty’s goodness to him or to the princess, and particularly for his majesty’s gracious intention of settling a jointure upon her royal highness; but that, as to the message, the affair was now out of his hands, and therefore he could give no answer to it; that his royal highness afterwards used many dutiful expressions towards his majesty; adding, “Indeed, my lords, it is in other hands, and I am sorry for it;” or words to that effect. Sir Robert Walpole then endeavoured to demonstrate, that the annual sum of fifty thousand pounds was as much as the king could afford to allow for the prince’s maintenance; and he expatiated upon the bad consequences that might ensue, if the son should be rendered altogether independent of the father.

These suggestions did not pass unanswered. Sir Robert Walpole had asserted, that the parliament had no right to interfere in the creation or maintenance of a prince of Wales; and that in the case of Richard II., who, upon the death of his father, the Black Prince, was created prince of Wales, in consequence of an address or petition from parliament, that measure was in all probability directed by the king himself. In answer to this assertion, it was observed, that probably the king would not have been so forward in creating his grandson prince of Wales, if he had not been forced into this step by his parliament; for Edward in his old age fell into a sort of love dotage, and gave himself entirely up to the management of his mistress, Alice Pierce, and his second son, the duke of Lancaster; a circumstance that raised a most reasonable jealousy in the Black Prince, at that time on his death-bed, who could not but be anxious about the safety and right of his only son, whom he found he was soon to leave a child in the hands of a doating grandfather and an ambitious aspiring uncle. The supporters of the motion observed, that the allowance of fifty thousand pounds was not sufficient to defray the prince’s yearly expense, without alloting one shilling for acts of charity and munificence; and that the several deductions for land taxes and fees reduced it to forty-three thousand pounds. They affirmed, that his whole income, including the revenues of the duchy of Cornwall, did not exceed fifty-two thousand pounds a-year, though, by his majesty’s own regulation, the expense of the prince’s household amounted to sixty-three thousand. They proved that the produce of the civil list exceeded nine hundred thousand pounds, a sum above one hundred thousand pounds a-year more than was enjoyed by his late majesty; and that, in the first year of the late king, the whole expense of his household and civil government did not much exceed four hundred and fifty thousand pounds a-year. They observed, that the parliament added one hundred and forty thousand pounds annually for acts of charity and bounty, together with the article of secret-service money; and allowed one hundred thousand pounds for the maintenance of the prince of Wales; that the article of secret-service money had prodigiously increased in the late reign; by an account which happened to be laid before the parliament, it appeared that vast sums of money had been given for purposes which nobody understood, and to persons whom nobody knew. In the beginning of the following session several members proposed that this extraordinary account should be taken into consideration; but the inquiry was warded off by the other party, who declared that the parliament could not examine any account which had been presented to a former session. The debate was fierce and long; and ended in a division, by which the motion was rejected. A motion of the same nature was made by lord Carteret in the house of peers, and gave rise to a very keen dispute, maintained by the same arguments, and issuing in the same termination.