isive authority ought to be produced; while the
silence of text-writers on the subject, so far from being favorable to
the notion that the King can give evidence, appeared to afford a
directly contrary inference." And they summed up their opinion in a few
words: "that his Royal Highness the Prince Regent, while in the personal
exercise of the royal authority, was in the situation of the King in
this respect, and that the King could not by any mode give evidence as a
witness in a civil suit."

It is very improbable that Colonel Berkeley should have made the
application without previously ascertaining the willingness of the
Prince to give evidence, could such a course be permitted. And as his
Royal Highness, on receiving this opinion of the law-officers of the
crown, did not come forward as a witness, that opinion may be held to
have settled the question. And, apart from the constitutional objections
relied on by those able lawyers, it is evident that there would be
serious practical objections to the sovereign being made a witness. It
would be derogatory to his royal character to put himself in a position
where comments could be made, either by the opposing barrister or by the
public outside, on his evidence. And, on the other hand, it would be
perilously unfair to one litigant for his adversary to be able to
produce a witness who was not subject to cross-examination, nor to
remarks upon his testimony.

The reign of George III. was now drawing to its close, and, if it
produced no legislation affecting the principles of the constitution (it
will presently be seen that it did produce one measure which its
opponents branded as a violation of these principles), yet in its last
years it witnessed the revival of an agitation which was kept up with
varying animation till it was temporarily quieted by the concession of
its demands. We have seen that one of Pitt's earliest efforts at
legislation had been directed to a reform in Parliament, an object which
to the end of his life he considered of great importance, though the
revolutionary spirit aroused by the troubles in France, and the open
sympathy with the French Jacobins and Republicans avowed by a party
among ourselves--which, if numerically weak, was sufficiently loud and
active to be dangerous--prevented him from ever re-opening the subject.
But, though the French Revolution in this way proved for the time an
insurmountable obstacle to the success of the reformers, in anot