port that he has expressed a determination not to accept of the
Regency under any restrictions or in any manner at all short of
regal power; and that the Duke of York was commissioned by him to
have declared this on Thursday, if anything had been said that
could at all have led to it. The story of to-day is, that the three
Royal Dukes have assured him of their resolution to refuse it if
tendered to them on similar terms, and that they have authorized
Fox to say this in the House of Commons. There is no knowing what
sort of effect this may produce with respect to the measures of the
present moment: that must depend entirely on the sort of turn that
the people in general may take upon it at first. But it is very
evident that by such a step the Prince will do himself a permanent
mischief which he will never be able to repair, and which we shall
probably all of us have much reason to regret. It is quite clear
that, having once proposed these restrictions, as thinking them
necessary for the interest of the King (and on that ground only
could we propose them), no other motive whatever can be a
justification for abandoning them, as long as there can be found
one individual or set of individuals who will undertake to carry on
the Government, and as long as Parliament continues to think the
proposal right and equitable. What all this may produce, God only
knows. Our reliance can only be on the discharge of what we owe to
the King in gratitude and duty, and in the decided manner in which
we have put all considerations out of the question which can
personally affect our own interests.

In the midst of all this confusion, and while his sons and brothers
are struggling to gain entire possession of his authority, the King
may recover his reason. What a scene will present itself to him!
and how devoutly must he pray, if he is wise, to lose again all
power of recollection or reflection.

The struggle was now beginning in earnest between the Ministers and the
Prince of Wales. The point at issue apparently narrowed itself to the
restrictions; but there lay beneath this question of royal expediency a
great constitutional principle, which was gradually developed in the
progress of the subsequent debates. It was not alone that Mr. Fox and
his party demanded the Regency without any limitations whate