SETTLEMENT OF A REGENCY IN CASE OF A MINOR SOVEREIGN.

His majesty, foreseeing all the inconveniencies which might arise from a minority, deliberated with his council on this subject, and resolved to obtain a parliamentary sanction for the measures judged necessary to secure the succession. With this view he sent a message to both houses on the twenty-sixth day of April, importing, that nothing could conduce so much to the preservation of the protestant succession in his royal family, as proper provisions for the tuition of the person of his successor, and for the regular administration of the government, in case the successor should be of tender years; his majesty therefore earnestly recommended this weighty affair to the deliberation of parliament; and proposed, that when the imperial crown of these realms should descend to any of the late prince’s sons, being under the age of eighteen years, his mother, the princess dowager of Wales, should be guardian of his person, and regent of these kingdoms, until he should attain the age of majority, with such powers and limitations as should appear necessary and expedient for these purposes. This message produced a very affectionate address, promising to take the affair into their serious consideration; and in the beginning of May the duke of Newcastle presented to the house of peers a bill to provide for the administration of government, in case the crown should descend to a minor. The bill was read a second time, and committed, when a second message arrived from his majesty, recommending to their consideration the settlement of such a council of regency as the bill proposed, consisting of his royal highness the duke of Cumberland, who at that time commanded the army, the archbishop of Canterbury, the lord chancellor, the lord high treasurer, or first lord commissioner of the treasury, the president of the council, the lord privy-seal, the lord high-admiral of Great Britain, or first commissioner of the admiralty, the two principal secretaries of state, and the lord chief justice of the king’s-bench; all these great officers, except his royal highness the duke, for the time being. This bill did not pass through the lower house without violent debate and bitter sarcasms. The council of regency, though espoused by all the ministry, including the paymaster-general, met with fierce opposition, as an unnecessary and fatal restriction that would impede the machine of government, and, as the council was constituted, might be productive of the most pernicious consequence. Some of the members ventured even to insinuate the danger of leaving at the head of a large standing army, a prince of the blood vested with a share of the regency, possessed of great personal influence, the darling of the soldiery, brave, popular, and enterprising; supposed not devoid of ambition, and not at all remarkable for any symptoms of extraordinary affection towards the person of the heir-apparent. The history of England was ransacked for invidious instances of royal uncles and regents who had injured the sovereigns, and distressed the government, by their pride, cruelty, and ambition. The characters of John Lackland, and John of Gaunt, Humphrey and Richard dukes of Gloucester, were called in review, canvassed, compared, and quoted, with some odious applications; but the majority being convinced of the loyalty, virtue, integrity, and great abilities of his royal highness, to whom the nation owed obligations of the most important nature, passed the bill with a few amendments, in which the lords acquiesced; and in a little time it received the royal sanction.