could not consent to grant him one shilling on the present occasion. Mr Denman followed a similar course of observation, and went at considerable length into those views of the question which had been adopted by the gentlemen on his side of the house; resting chiefly upon the communication made to the house by his Royal Highness, which he (Mr D.) considered tantamount to a refusal to accept the proposed grant on the part of the Royal Duke, and upon the principle that the L.10,000 were to be given to the Duke for performing duties which as a son he was bound to perform; and for no better reason but because the same sum had in 1812, been granted to the late Queen. The honourable and learned gentleman then went over the usual topics of economy, and the distressed state of the country, making various suppositions as to what would have been the feelings of the monarch, had he actually been in a condition to think and feel on that or any other subject, and as to what actually were the feelings of the Duke himself, and the Royal person at the head of the Government; and concluded by declaring his opinion that the grant would be disgraceful to the house, and a reproach to his Royal Highness.

In reply to these observations Mr F. Robinson remarked, that the question was, whether, when an of fice of new duties was imposed of necessity upon the Duke of York, he ought to have no emolument for performing that office, because he had emoluments for performing other duties? It seemed to him to be no reason for refusing the present grant that the Royal Duke had other emoluments from other offices. No man was more ready than the Duke of York to make any proper sacrifices; as a proof of which he might

state the fact, that the Royal Duke was now discharging the duties of custos without any knowledge of the course to be taken by the house.

It

An amendment that L. 5000 per annum be granted instead of L.10,000 per annum having been moved by Mr Williams, called up Mr Long Wellesley, Lord Ebrington, Lord Carhampton, Mr Tierney, and Mr Canning, who made a most able, eloquent, and ingenious speech in defence of the proposed grant, and in reply to all the speakers who had preceded him in the debate. The gentlemen on the other side of the house had not, he said, treated the present question fairly. They had argued, as if the custos were a new office, with L. 10,000 a-year about to be added to it; but the case was very different. It was a question of reducing an old establishment, not of making a new one. was their present business not to build, but to pull down; at the same time it was their duty not to make unseemly rents in the edifice, nor to let in the unhallowed gaze of vulgar curiosity on the naked wretchedness of unsheltered majesty. It had been seen too, he believed, for the first time by several persons, that the repairs of Windsor Castle alone amounted to L. 20,000 a-year, leaving only L. 30,000 for the other expenses of the establishment. one could grudge that sum of L. 20,000, whether it were for the purpose of maintaining so fit a shrine for the sacred relic that was enclosed within it, or for the sake of preserving so venerable a monument of ancient magnificence and taste. The whole question was, whether in comparison with the general reduction, such a reduction had also taken place in the charge for the custos, as was consistent with the office, and with the just expectations of the

No

country; or whether it was the duty of Parliament to cut off the L.10,000 also; for as to offering any smaller sum, he supposed no one would persist in such an offensive suggestion. And here he must say, in answer to the remark that this sum would be a burden to the country, that although what was not saved when it might be saved was worthy of the name of extravagance, yet it could not in fairness be called a burden. He would say but a few words on the question of the responsibility of the custos, on which the right honourable gentleman had placed so much reliance. As a legal question, he was not prepared to argue it, nor did he suppose that many precedents existed on the subject; but looking at the question with the eye of reasonable analogy, he should certainly say that a custos, though a Queen consort, was a responsible person. He could not forget that Queens had been appointed Regent, and surely that was an office of responsibility. He would not discuss the question, therefore, whether L. 10,000, as proposed in the original resolution, or L. 5,000, as recommended in the amendment, or L. 1,500, as suggested by the right honourable gentleman, was the most fit and proper sum. If, as had been urged by an honourable gentleman (Mr W. Long Wellesley,) there existed any incompatibility between the office of commander-in-chief and that of custos, and that it must be difficult for any one person to discharge the duties of both, this was an argument against the appointment of his Royal Highness to the latter office. It should have been advanced when the bill was first brought down to them from the other house; and the objection plainly stated, that his Royal Highness's time was sufficiently engaged in the exercise of his military func

VOL. XII. PART I.

tions. He trusted that the right honourable gentleman (Mr Tierney,) with all his laudable zeal for economy, would not turn round upon them, and say that he had approved of the appointment of his Royal Highness to this office, because in him he expected to get a cheap custos. Had any bargain or compromise been in contemplation, a different course would have been pursued. But the fact was, that the office had been accepted without hope or assurance; it being left unconditionally to the House of Commons, to determine whether they would vote to his Royal Highness the same provision which had been granted to his royal mother for the discharge of the same trust. Let them pay him, therefore, or pay him not, the country was already sure of his services. With respect to the argument of the right honourable gentleman, (Mr Tierney,) if he understood it aright, the privy purse, not by any inherent virtue belonging to it, but from the manner in which it had been dealt with by successive parliaments, had become the peculiar and private property of the crown. It was originally a part of the civil list, without any character of sanctity attached to it. But at the beginning of the present reign, as parliament interfered to regulate the civil list, they recognised private property in the King. The first of these distinct acknowledgments was in 1780, in a proceeding of which Mr Burke was the mover; and the second in the act of 1782, which he introduced. In 1786 a further acknowledgment was made, and followed up by the Regency Act of 1788. All these various recognitions of the same principle were sanction, ed and adopted by the act of 1811; and the existence of private property was specifically declared by the act

passed in 1799, to enable the King to dispose of, and devise it by will. By the final arrangement made by Parliament in 1812, the different disposals already made out of this fund were confirmed, and the residue set apart as the indubitable property of the crown. He would detain the House no further than to refer shortly to what had fallen in the former debate from an honourable and learned gentleman (Mr Scarlett.) He had been in fact astonished at hearing it asserted that the language of the preamble to the act of the 1st of Geo. III., an act providing for the surrender of the hereditary revenues of the Crown, was verbatim the language of the 1st Geo. I., and of the 1st of Geo. II. The honourable and learned gentleman appeared, however, to speak from book, and he had therefore abstained from expressing his surprise. He had since examined the latter acts, and could not find in either of them a single word of the language employed on the former, with reference to the civil list. The reason was obvious; neither George the First nor George the Second had made any surrender of their hereditary revenues, but had receiv. ed a sum of L.120,000 a-year in addition to them. All that had been granted to him arose out of an express bargain, and Parliament was therefore bound to respect the more sacredly whatever bore even the semblance of his private property. All, however, that was now asked for was, that the same sanctity should be observed respecting it, as would be shown to the meanest subject, whose rights were secured by an act of Parliament. It was nothing to him to be told that the King was in firm, and incapable of enjoyment; that he was deaf and could not hear; or that he was blind, and could not write. Such topics furnished to his

mind no justification for doing him a wrong. It was not possible for him to forget what that King had been, in the contemplation of what he now was. One half of that period during which the House of Brunswick had governed these realms-a period which had been emphatically described as the reign of liberty-had been passed under his Majesty's happy rule. For nearly thirty years it had been passed amidst perils and storms which threatened the stability of his throne, and the independence of his kingdom, without the reproach or suspicion of a fault attaching to his character. In his present melancholy condition,

"All nature left a blank,

"And knowledge at one entrance quite shut out:"

a ruin, it was true, but a venerable ruin: his infirmities were any thing but an argument against his rights. He had been "scathed by Heaven's lightning;" but the blow which blasted had likewise consecrated him. He should conclude by repeating, that the only fund out of which those who resisted this proposition were willing that the money should be taken, was a fund rendered sacred by more than one express act of the Legislature.

After some further discussion a division took place, when the original resolution was carried by a majority of 110; the number for it being 247, and against it 137.

On the 16th of March, Sir Alexander Hope brought forward a motion, of which he had given intimation on the 23d ult., to continue the six equerries of the Windsor establishment, instead of reducing the number to four, as had been recommended in the report of the Select Committee; but, on a division, the motion was lost by a majority of one hundred and ninety-three.

In the House of Lords the Earl of Liverpool moved the second reading of the bill for regulating the Windsor establishment on the 26th, and on the 30th the bill was committed. At this stage of the business a long discussion took place, in which the principal speakers were Earls Grey, Liverpool, and Lauderdale, the Marquis of Lansdown, and the Lord Chancellor. The topics, ur

ged on both sides, were in substance and character so similar to those expatiated upon in the lower House, that we forbear from giving an analysis of the debate. On putting the clause for allowing the Duke of York L. 10,000 per annum, as custos persona, the non-contents were pretty numerous, but the bill went through the Committee without a division, and finally passed into a law.