pared to say whether this order was legal or not, but he was most anxious to see how the facts stood. The right honourable gentleman told them that they would not be satisfied even if they got the information moved for. It was impossible for him to speak with certainty to that point. Facts, which he thought unimportant, might turn out to be most material. Then the right honourable gentleman proclaimed his confidence in the Government of Ireland; but would he engage, when he received further communications from Ireland, to lay the papers before the House? No, he would have the House to judge upon his assertion. The temper in which Irish affairs were discussed, said the right honourable gentleman, had no tendency to allay discontents in Ireland. I earnestly wish, continued Mr. Ponsonby, that the British Parliament would take care seriously to consider in what situation the affairs of Ireland really are. Nothing, I am sure, would promote the British interest in Ireland, so much as an anxious attention on the part of the British members to the state of that country. Rely upon it that it is not by the Convention Act, or any such expedient as that, you can prevent disturbance in Ireland-rely upon it, that while the present system continues in force, Ireland will be to you, what you in your hearts know her to be-a perpetual source of suspicion, jealousy, and weakness.

The House then divided-Ayes 43-Noes 80-Majority against the production of the papers, 37.

Adjourned.

HOUSE OF LORDS.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25.

LORD CLONCURRY'S DIVORCE.

On Lord Cloncurry's Divorce Bill, Mr. Dampier tendered in evidence certain letters from Lady to Lord Cloncurry, confessing the adultery, which were objected to by Mr. Garrow and Mr. Park on behalf of Lady Cloncurry. After hearing the learned counsel on each side, the Lord Chancellor delivered his opinion, that the letters were not admis sible evidence; butin order that further time might be given for the consideration of the question, his Lordship moved that the letters be admitted in evidence (meaning himself, according to his present opinion, to negative that motion),

and then moved to adjourn the debate upon this question till Thursday next. The motion to adjourn the debate till Thursday was agreed to.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25.

LORD ELDON.

Mr. Whitbread rose, and spoke to the following effect. Mr. Speaker, in pursuance of the notice which I have previously given, I rise to submit a motion to this House, involving in its result considerations, in which, I conceive, the feelings and interests of the country are materially involved. For those feelings and interests it is of peculiar importance that this House should ever entertain a strict regard; in the question to which my motion shall advert, it is most peculiarly due. For I think it will be allowed, that whatever may have been the character of our political distinctions, history will at least admit, when the party heat of our day shall be consigned to the same silence and obscurity as the party contentions of preceding times-when he who shall write for the instruction of posterity, is removed from the influence of contemporary prejudices, and therefore best calculated to decide with impartialitysuch historian will be forced to acknowledge that, notwithstanding any unjust imputation, no people ever evinced, for a series of years, a more loyal feeling of affection and devotion towards the person or government of the present King, than the people of this country. If we look back to the last twenty-five years of his Majesty's reign, we shall find that this is a love and attachment not limited to the impressions of his earlier life, or arising from the prosperity of his councils, but acquiring additional force in proportion to his personal infirmities, and strengthening with his decay. (Hear! hear!) If then the people of this country have uniformly felt the highest interest in the health of their Sovereign-if in the days of his strength, they have rejoiced

and mourned with heartfelt sorrow during the visitation of his distress and sufferings-is it not a duty most imperative in its exercise, for this House to apply itself to the investi gation, whether such feelings have not been most shamefully deceived, whether the foulest play has not been carried on,

and the person of the King, as well as the attachment of his subjects, criminally abused, in order to accomplish the schemes of certain of his Ministers. (Hear! hear!) If I shall shew that such delusion has been practised, and that neither to the King or to the people has there been fair play extended, in such circumstances it is impossible but that the indignation of the country will be aroused, and that it, with me, will loudly call for a full inquiry into these facts, which the House, by agreeing to my preliminary motion, shall put me into a condition, in my judgment, perfectly to prove and to establish. In the year 1788, the period when his Majesty was first afflicted with that calamity, to which he has since been repeatedly subjected, though many rumours were afloat on the subject, the public mind continued for a long time deaf to the statement. Their affection for the King, their fears of the evils which might follow, made the people incredulous as to the existence of the fact; and even when announced by his confidential servants, the country could not give credit to the extent of the extraordinary affliction with which the Monarch was visited. But after it was proved in this House, and Parliament had proceeded to take the due measures to provide for the incapacity, the moment was announced to the two Houses of the Legislature by a noble personage (Lord Thurlow) then holding the same high situation which Lord Eldon now fills, that his Majesty was so far recovered from his malady as to be expected shortly to resume his functions, the interval required by Ministers was immediately ac quiesced in, by the unanimous assent of the Legislature, and the corresponding approval of the country. Whatever heat or dissention the discussions of the question for supplying the Royal incapacity might have produced, were immediately dissipated by the tidings of his recovery and restoration. In Parliament and in the country, the satisfaction was sincere and universal; there glistened in every eye, what was felt in every heart. Twelve years had thence elapsed, when the country learned from the statement of the physicians in attendance on the King, that his Majesty was indisposed. Had the people not been acquainted with the nature of the disease with which the King was before affected, it was utterly impossible to discover the true circumstances of his situation from the bulletins then daily published. It is, however, now notorious, that his Majesty's complaint then, was mental derangement.

Yet, on the 24th of February, 1801, when his Majesty was incapable of any act of sound discretion; when, to use the words of one of his physicians in their examination before Parliament, his judgment was in eclipse; did Lord Eldon, then, as he is now, the Lord Chancellor of this kingdom, come down to Parliament, and in his Majesty's name, under the pretext of the Royal command, give the assent of the King to a Legislative measure. At that periód also, it will be remembered, a very remarkable political transaction took place--Mr. Pitt, after having directed the affairs of this Empire, as Minister, for nearly seventeen years, from circumstances now unnecessary to mention, felt it due to his own honour, to resign his seals of office to the King; and was succeeded by a noble Viscount (Sidmouth), who was then placed in that chair, which you, Mr. Speaker, now so worthily fill. At what time precisely, Mr. Addington, after his second election, in consequence of his acceptance of office, took his place, I cannot precisely state. However, on the 11th of March, we know that his Majesty's Physicians ceased to issue bulletins of his health; and from the examination of the same physicians, in the month of December, 1810, we are informed that the bulletins were stopped, in order that the public should think that his Majesty was fully recovered. It is now, however, known, from the same unquestionable source, that, subsequent to the period when these bulletins were stopped, a very serious. relapse in his Majesty's malady had occurred; and that, during this period of the Royal incapacity, the Executive authority of the Crown was carried on in the same manner, and under the same sanctions, as if the King were in the full enjoyment of those faculties, which are inseparably connected with the full and complete exercise of his public functions. For though on the 15th of February of that year his illness was very generally announced, yet such was the delicacy of the public and of both Houses of Parliament, that no parliamentary notice was taken of the occurrence at that date. It was true, indeed, that an hon. gentleman, not now a member of this House, gave notice of a motion on that subject; but it having been deprecated by a right hon. friend of mine, it was withdrawn, Mr. Pitt having declared that Ministers would feel it their duty to make a communication to Parliament in the event of his Majesty's complaint assuming any serious aggravated tendency. In the year 1804, when his Majesty was again declared to be indis

posed, it will be found from the report of the examination. of the physicians before the Lords,-a report which it is my preliminary object to have laid on the table of this House, and to deny which can only be for the purpose of refusing all inquiry, that one of these Physicians has declared upon oath, that the period of the Royal incapacity lasted from the 12th of March, 1804, to the 23d of April of the same year, on which day his Majesty appeared in Council. It is extraordinary that the physicians should have ceased to issue bulletins of his Majesty's state on the 24th of March, although one of these physicians, Dr. Heberden, has positively declared, that the illness continued unabated until after a few days of the 23d of April following. With respect to the transactions attending his Majesty's incapaeity in the year 1801-As two of the persons then high in his Majesty's Councils are now lost to the country, and as from the peculiar situation of others, there can now exist little alarm in the nation of a recurrence by the same persons to similar proceedings, it is not my intention to extend the present inquiry to a retrospective consideration of the events. of that period. But as in the Act which, under restrictions, we have lately passed to supply the deficiency in the Royal Authority, amongst the advisers of the Queen in the care of the person of the King, and to facilitate his resumption of the Royal Authority, the name of the person is inserted who was Lord Chancellor of this kingdom in the years 1801 and 1804, during the periods of his Majesty's former derangement-as there are now living members of the other and that House of Parliament, Viscount Sidmouth, Lord Castlereagh, the present Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Yorke), and others who sat in the King's Cabinet in the year 1804; I should think that, either for the object of precaution, and with the hope of example, this House will put me in a situation of proving what I undertake to substantiate, while it will give to those whose conduct I have impeached the opportunity of disproving the charges I shall make. Whether any imputation will ultimately attach to Viscount Sidmouth, Lord Castlereagh, Mr. Yorke, or Lord St. Vincent, who were of the Cabinet of that period, I pretend not to anticipate. That question will be best established by a fair inquiry; and I, therefore, call upon them, by the duty they owe their own characters, to support me in my present proposition. But that blame rests upon my Lord Eldon, aud on him most particularly, is VOL. II.-1811. T