reme authority of Parliament, which Fox had by implication denied. He
instantly replied that to assert an inherent indefeasible right in the
Prince of Wales, or any one else, independently of the decision of the
two Houses, fell little short of treason to the constitution; but, at
the same time, to prevent any one pretending to misconceive his
intentions, he allowed it to be seen with sufficient plainness that,
when once the right of Parliament to appoint the Regent had been
established, he should agree in the propriety of conferring that office
on the Prince of Wales. The committee was appointed; but, even before it
could report the result of its investigations, the doctrine advanced by
Fox had been the subject of discussion in the House of Lords, where Lord
Camden, who had presided over the meeting of the Privy Council a few
days before, on moving for the appointment of a similar committee of
peers, had taken occasion to declare that, if Fox had made such an
assertion as rumor imputed to him, it was one which had no foundation in
"the common law of the kingdom." He had never read nor heard of such a
doctrine. Its assertors might raise expectations not easily laid, and
might involve the country in confusion. And he contended, as Pitt had
done in the Commons, that its assertion was a strong argument in favor
of the appointment of a committee, that it might be at once seen whether
it were warranted by any precedent whatever. The reports of the two
committees bore out Fox's statement, that no precedent entirely
applicable to the case before them had ever occurred. But by this time
Fox had learned that the argument which he had founded on it was in the
highest degree unpalatable both to Parliament and to the nation; and for
a moment he sought to modify it by an explanation that, though he had
claimed for the Prince "the naked right, he had not by that expression
intended to maintain that that right could be reduced into possession
without the consent of Parliament;" an explanation not very reconcilable
to common sense, since, if a right were inherent and indefeasible,
Parliament could not, without absolute tyranny, refuse to sanction its
exercise; and, in fact, his coadjutor, Sheridan, on the very same
evening, re-asserted his original doctrine in, if possible, still more
explicit terms, warning the minister "of the danger of provoking the
Prince to assert his right," while a still greater man (Burke) declared
that "the mini