I
A new Administration brought Lord Wellesley to the Foreign Office, and Mr. Perceval to the head of affairs.
In 1810 the state of the King’s health came once more before the public. Parliament met in November; the Sovereign was this time admitted by his courtiers to be unmistakedly insane. A commission had been appointed, but there was no speech with which to address the Houses; no authority to prorogue them. Mr. Perceval moved certain resolutions. These resolutions were important, for they furnished a text for debate, and settled the question so much disputed in 1788-9, deciding (for no one was found to take up the old and unpopular arguments of Mr. Fox) that Parliament had the disposal of the Regency; and that the Heir-apparent, without the sanction of the Legislature, had no more right to it than any other individual. These first resolutions were followed by others, expressive of a determination to confer the powers of the Crown on the Prince of Wales, but not without restrictions. Here arose a new question, and of this question Mr. Canning availed himself. Interest and consistency alike demanded that he should stand fast to the traditions of Mr. Pitt, whose name was still the watchword of a considerable party. But Mr. Pitt had alike contended for the right of Parliament to name the Regent, and for the wisdom of fettering the Regency by limitations. Whereas Mr. Canning, though advocating the powers of Parliament to name the Regent, was not in favour of limiting the Regent’s authority. Through these confronting rocks the wary statesman steered with the skill of a veteran pilot:116
“The rights of the two Houses,” said he, “were proclaimed and maintained by Mr. Pitt; that is the point on which his authority is truly valuable. The principles upon which this right was affirmed and exercised are true for all times and all occasions. If they were the principles of the Constitution in 1788, they are equally so in 1811; the lapse of twenty-two years had not impaired, the lapse of centuries could not impair them. But the mode in which the right so asserted should be exercised, the precise provisions to be framed for the temporary substitution of the executive power—these were necessarily then, as they must be now, matters not of eternal and invariable principle, but of prudence and expediency. In regard to these, therefore, the authority of the opinion of any individual, however great and wise and venerable, can be taken only with reference to the circumstances of the time in which he has to act, and are not to be applied without change or modification to other times and circumstances.”117