ONE:Another topic of the speech was the mental derangement of the king, which was now asserted, on the authority of the physicians, to be more hopeless; Mr. Perceval argued, therefore, the necessity of arranging the Royal Household so as to meet the necessarily increased expenditure. Resolutions were passed granting an addition of seventy thousand pounds per annum to the queen towards such augmented expenditure, and to provide further income for the Prince Regent. Two Courts were to be maintained, and the Regent was to retain his revenue as Prince of Wales. The Civil List chargeable with the additional seventy thousand pounds to the queen was vested in the Regent; and no sooner were these particulars agreed to than he sent letters to both Houses, recommending separate provision for his sisters; so that the Civil List was at once to be relieved of their maintenance and yet increased, simply on account of the charge of a poor blind and insane old man, who could only require a trusty keeper or two. The separate income agreed to for the princesses was nine thousand pounds a-year each, exclusive of the four thousand pounds a-year each already derived from the Civil Listso that there was needed an annual additional sum of thirty-six thousand pounds for the four princesses, besides the sixteen thousand pounds a-year now being received by them. Some members observed that the grant to the Regent, being retrospective, removed altogether the merit of his declaration during the last Session of Parliament that, "considering the unexampled contest in which the[23] kingdom was now engaged, he would receive no addition to his income." In fact, little consideration was shown by any part of the royal family for the country under its enormous demands. It was understood that there was once more a deficiency in the Civil List, which would have to be made up.
TWO:
ONE:Mother says death is best!IRISH TRAMPS.
TWO:These occurrences in Ireland led to hostile demonstrations against the Government in Parliament. On the 7th of March Mr. Shaw, the Recorder of Dublin, as the representative of the Irish Protestants, commenced the campaign by moving for returns of the number of committals, convictions, inquests, rewards, and advertisements for the discovery of offenders in Ireland from 1835 to 1839, in order to enable the House to form a judgment with regard to the actual amount and increase of crime in that country. The debate was adjourned till the following Monday, when it was resumed by Mr. Lefroy, after which the House was counted out, and the question dropped; but it was taken up in the Lords on the 21st of March, when Lord Roden moved for a select Committee of inquiry on the state of Ireland since 1835, with respect to the commission of crime. His speech was a repetition of the usual charges, and the debate is chiefly worthy of notice on account of the elaborate defence by Lord Normanby of his Irish administration. "I am fully aware," said the noble marquis, "of the awful responsibility that would lie upon my head if these charges rested upon evidence at all commensurate with the vehemence of language and earnestness of manner with which they have been brought forward; but they rest upon no such foundation. I am ready, with natural indignation, to prove now, on the floor of this House, that I have grappled with crime wherever I have found it, firmly and unremittingly, and have yielded to none of my predecessors in the successful vindication of the laws." Among the mass of proofs adduced by Lord Normanby, he quoted a vast number of judges' charges, delivered from time to time between 1816 and 1835, which presented only one continuously gloomy picture of the prevailing practice of violence and atrocious outrage. Passing from this melancholy record, he proceeded to refer to numerous addresses of judges delivered on similar occasions since 1835. All of these contained one common topic of congratulationthe comparative lightness of the calendara circumstance, the noble marquis argued, which went far to establish his position, however it might fail to prove the extinction of exceptional cases of heinous crime. With regard to the wholesale liberation of prisoners, Lord Normanby distinctly denied that he had set free any persons detained for serious offences without due inquiry; or that any persons were liberated, merely because he happened to pass through the town, who would not have met with the same indulgence upon facts stated in memorials. "No; this measure," he insisted, "had been adopted upon the conviction that, in the peculiar case of Ireland, after severity had been so often tried, mercy was well worth the experiment. It was one which was not lightly to be repeated; but while he had received satisfactory evidence of the success of the measure, it was in his power to produce the testimony of judges with whom he had no political relations, to the pains taken in the examination of each case, and the deference shown to their reports."
ONE:The first symptom of the breaking up was the[287] necessity felt for the dismissal of Lord George Germaine, who had contributed so essentially to the defeats in America. But even then the king would not consent that he should resign without conferring a peerage on him, observing, "No one can then say he is disgraced." No quiet was now allowed to the declining Ministers. Fox, on the 20th of February, strongly seconded by William Pitt, made another attack on Lord Sandwich, this time including the whole Board of Admiralty; and the motion was only lost by nineteen. Another, and perhaps more formidable, enemy now stood forward. This was General Conway, who enjoyed the highest esteem of the House, and had been the first to propose the abolition of the fatal Stamp Act. He moved, on the 22nd of February, that the House should address his Majesty, entreating that he would "listen to the advice of his Commons, that the war on the continent of North America might no longer be pursued for the impracticable purpose of reducing the inhabitants of that country to obedience by force." After a great debate, the House divided two hours after midnight, and Ministers were reduced to a majority of one, the votes being one hundred and ninety-four against one hundred and ninety-three. Five days after, General Conway again moved that any further attempts against America would weaken the efforts of England against her European enemies, and, by further irritating the colonies, render the desired peace more difficult. The resolution was carried against Government by two hundred and thirty-four against two hundred and fifteen. Finally, on the 15th of March Sir John Rous moved a vote of want of confidence, which was again lost by a minority of only nine. It was instantly determined to renew this motion through Lord Surrey; and Lord North saw so clearly that nothing could now avert his fall, that he implored the king most earnestly to accept his resignation. George sent for Lord North on the 20th, and addressed him in these words:"Considering the temper of the House, I thought the Administration at an end." Lord North instantly seized on the words, saying:"Then, sire, had I not better state the fact at once?" The king consented, and North hurried down to the House of Commons in his court-dress, as he was.
TWO:The officers who had served under Prevost had too long withheld their remonstrances, expecting that the British Government would see plainly enough the wretched incompetence of the man. But now Sir James Yeo made a formal and plain-spoken charge against him, and especially for his wicked abandonment of Captain Downie and his squadron to destruction. He was recalled; but it was too late: a natural death had, in the meantime, rescued him from that punishment which he so richly deserved. It could not, however, rescue him from the disgrace which must hang on his memory so long as the history of these transactions remains.
