e ground
of this being a case unprovided for. If it is so in England, it is
unquestionably equally unprovided for in Ireland; and the right of
making such provision must of necessity rest in the same manner in
the Lords and Commons of England. There is this difference, that
here the Parliament could not be legally opened, unless the Lord
Chancellor had taken upon himself to put the Great Seal to a
commission for that purpose, whereas your commission enables you
(as I understand) generally to open and hold Parliament. But even
in your case, it seems to me to be a doubt whether you can
regularly do this without having received the King's pleasure for
it, and whether your opening the Parliament in such circumstances
is not an act very much of the same nature as the Chancellor's
would have been if he had sealed such a commission.

In the same view of the subject, I should most earnestly deprecate
your taking upon yourself to issue a further prorogation. Surely,
under such circumstances as the present, the two Houses should
themselves decide, and not any individual for them, whether it is
expedient or not to proceed to any business. My clear and decided
opinion on that subject is, that you should go down on the day of
meeting, and state the circumstances of the case, saying that you
have ordered the several examinations of the physicians before
Council and before the two Houses here, to be laid before the two
Houses. Your Ministers should then, upon that, propose to adjourn
to a further day, on the ground of its not being known (as it
cannot then be known) what form will be adopted here, and of its
being, at all events, desirable that they should be in possession
of that fact before they deliberate, especially as the Government
may go on in the interval without inconvenience.

If you see no objection to this, it is, I think, high time that you
should write an official letter, stating all the circumstances of
the situation, and that your intention is, unless you should be
informed that it appears to His Majesty's servants to be improper,
&c., to meet the Parliament on the 20th, for the purpose which I
have stated.

It is excessively important that you should, at the same time,
transmit, either publicly or privately, such a case as I have
men