its adjustment,
you will carefully adhere to the acknowledged principles of the
constitution, by which the prerogatives of the Crown, the authority of
both Houses of Parliament, and the rights and liberties of the people,
are equally secured."

Now, my Lords, I ask, could it be believed, at the time his Majesty made
this speech, that the rights of this house--the power of deliberating
and deciding independently upon such a question as this--would be
destroyed by a creation of Peers, and by a creation to an extent which
could not be much less than one hundred? If any man at the time foretold
this, it would have been said he was dreaming of things that were
impossible. But to this state, my Lords, have we been brought by this
measure. When I first heard of this bill being proposed to be carried by
a creation of Peers, I said it was absolutely impossible. I could not
believe that any minister of England would be led by any considerations
whatsoever to recommend such a measure to his Majesty. The first time,
indeed, I heard the matter mentioned with any degree of authority, was
when a Right Rev. Prelate thought proper to write upon the subject to
some people in a town in the county of Sussex. I could appeal to those
sitting near me if this be not the fact--if I did not uniformly declare
that the thing was impossible--that the very idea of it ought not to be
mentioned. That it should never be imagined that any minister could be
found who would recommend such an unconstitutional--such a ruinous--such
an unjust exercise of the prerogative of the crown; for, my Lords, I do
maintain that the just exercise of the prerogative of the Crown does by
no means go to the extent of enabling his Majesty to create a body of
Peers with the view to carry any particular measure. Under the
circumstances, then, I think your Lordships will not think it unnatural,
when I consider his Majesty's situation, that I should endeavour to
assist his Majesty to avoid the adoption of such a recommendation. But,
my Lords, when I found that in consequence of the discussions on Monday
in another place,--which by the way proved so clearly what the
sentiments of the leading men then were, that Peers should not be
created for such a purpose:--when I found from these discussions that it
was impossible to form a government from that house, of such a nature as
would secure the confidence of the country, I felt it my duty to inform
his Majesty that I could not fulfi