mmons,
moved as an amendment, that the consideration of the address should
be postponed to the following day. They objected, generally, to the
dissolution of parliament, when so many important bills were pending;
and insisted more specifically on the necessity of providing for a
possible demise of the crown during the interval which must elapse
before a new parliament could assemble. They argued that the only
inconvenience that could occur was that of sitting a month longer, and
they asked why they should not sit, when so imperative a duty required
it. The matter, at all events, was so important as to make it reasonable
that parliament should have twenty-four hours more deliberation how
to address the crown. Ministers replied, that the importance of the
question, the difficulties which would arise in the course of it, and
the caution with which every part of it must be considered, were the
strongest possible reasons for not hurrying it through at the end of a
session, when members of the lower house would be thinking much more of
the elections for the next parliament than the business of the present.
There was, moreover, no present necessity, they said, for this weighty
arrangement, as there was no prospect of danger from the king's health.
Earl Grey had himself said, it was urged, that his majesty's strong
constitution and temperate habits gave promise of a long reign. While
the inconvenience, then, was positive and present, the danger was
imaginary and remote. It was in vain to say that the object was to gain
twenty-four hours' deliberation. "If the motion is agreed to," said
the Duke of Wellington, "it will be viewed as a complete defeat of
ministers." Lord Grey declared that the _bona fide_ intention of his
motion was to obtain a day's delay, in the hope that the crown might
thereby be induced to come forward itself with a recommendation to
parliament to consider the question of the regency; and the Duke of
Wellington remarked that he believed him. But his grace was right in
suspecting that, whatever the mover's object might be, the result was to
end in a trial of strength. The discussion, in truth, opened his eyes
to the fact that all parties but his own were determined to oppose him:
Lords Harrowby, Winchelsea, and Eldon, the Duke of Richmond, the Marquis
of Londonderry, Earl Mansfield, and Lord Wharncliffe, one after another,
stated their determination to vote for the amendment; even Lord Goderich
himself expresse