Illness of the king-Interruption to the proceedings in Parliament-The Regency Bill passed-The king's ministers continued in office-State of Europe at the commencement of the Regency-Wellington and the Ministry-Massena evacuates Portugal-The British army pursues Battle of Fuentes de Onoro-Battle of Albuera-Restrictions on the Prince Regent about to expire-His letter as to his choice of a Ministry-The Administration not altered-Resignation of the Marquis Wellesley-Character of the Regent-Assassination of Mr. Perceval-Attempts to form a Cabinet of which lord Grey and lord Grenville should be the heads-The earl of Liverpool Prime Minister-Luddism-Repeal of the Orders in Council-The United States declare war against Great Britain. THE Parliament, which had been prorogued to the 1st of November, was, by an order made in a council at which the king presided on the 17th of October, to have been further prorogued by Commission to the 29th of November, and a proclamation to that effect appeared in the Gazette. On the 29th of October Mr. Perceval wrote to the Speaker that the calamitous situation of the princess Amelia had so worked upon the king's mind that he was incapable of signing the Commission, and that, according to all usage, such instrument never passes the Great Seal without the king's signature. Mr. Perceval had seen the king on that day. "His conversation was prodigiously hurried, and, though perfectly coherent, yet so extremely diffuse, explicit, and indiscreet upon all the most interesting subjects upon which he could have to open his mind; and, at the same time, so entirely regardless of the presence of all who were about him, that he was evidently labouring under a malady."* From that malady the king never recovered. Lord Colchester's "Diary," vol. ii. p. 262. 534 THE KING'S ILLNESS-REGENCY BILL. [1810. The "interesting subjects upon which he had to open his mind” had, doubtless, more relation to domestic affairs than to public events. His favourite daughter was dying; and upon her deathbed she is said to have revealed to her father the circumstances of an attachment which, as was believed, had involved a violation of the Royal Marriage Act. The princess Amelia died on the 2nd of November. The king was then under restraint. When told of his daughter's death, he "did not seem to feel or take much notice of it." He had been heard to count over the several times and occasions of his former attacks; and he ascribed this last to the illness of the princess.* The meeting of Parliament on the 1st of November could not be postponed. The Chancellor met the Lords; informed them that there was no Commission to open the Session, and explained the circumstances which had prevented him affixing the Great Seal to such a Commission. Mr. Perceval addressed the Commons; the Speaker having stated that he had thought it his duty to take the chair, in order that the House might adjourn itself. The adjournment was to the 15th. When that day arrived, the House again adjourned for another fortnight, the physicians having expressed a strong opinion as to the probability of the king's recovery. Another adjournment took place to the 13th of December. On that day a Committee was appointed in both Houses to examine the physicians. On the 20th, the ministers proposed three Resolutions, following the precedent of those of 1788. They affirmed the king's incapacity; they declared the right and duty of the two Houses to provide for this exigency; and proposed to proceed by Bills determining the powers to be exercised in the king's name and behalf, to which the Royal Assent should be given in some mode upon which the Houses should determine. The mode which the ministers desired to adopt was a fictitious use of the king's name, the "Phantom," as it was called. The Opposition contended, as in 1788, for addressing the prince of Wales to assume the royal authority as Regent. The seven dukes of the blood-royal supported the measure of proceeding by Address, when the subject came to be debated in the House of Lords. But the ministerial Resolutions were adopted. They contained restrictions on the power of the Regent, which were offensive to the prince of Wales, and to the party who were considered to be his friends. The limitations upon his authority were to continue only for twelve months; but they were sufficiently stringent to produce great debate and many divisions, in which the ministers had small majorities. The Resolution which was considered most obnoxious was that which gave the queen very extensive powers over the king's person and the royal household. It was finally determined that the queen should have "such direction of the housebold as may be suitable for the care of his majesty's person, and the maintenance of the royal dignity." The Parliament having been opened on he 15th of January, by a Commission under the Great Seal, the Regency Bill was passed on the 5th of February. During these proceedings the prince of Wales had been negotiating with lord Grenville and lord Grey as to the arrangement of a new Administration. On the 1st of February, he sent to acquaint these peers that "it was not his royal highness's intention * Lord Colchester's "Diary," vol. ii. p. 287. 1811.] THE KING'S MINISTERS CONTINUED IN OFFICE. 535 to make any change at present." It had begun to be confidently expected that the king would recover. He had become "much alive to what was passing, and was quite sure," as he told Mr. Perceval, "that it could never enter into the prince's mind to change the ministry." * On the 4th the prince announced to Mr. Perceval his intention not to remove from their situations those whom he finds there as his majesty's official servants, lest "any act of the Regent might, in the smallest degree, have the effect of interfering with the progress of his sovereign's recovery." The letter added, "This consideration alone dictates the decision now communicated to Mr. Perceval." On the 6th, the Prince Regent took the oaths before a Privy Council assembled at Carlton House. During several months the king appeared to be occasionally convalescent. His bodily health was good, and he talked more naturally. But it soon became sufficiently clear, whatever might be the expectations that his life might be prolonged, that he was not likely to be able ever to resume the royal functions. The reign of George III. had been virtually closed on the 5th of February, 1811. At the commencement of the Regency, it would have appeared the most extravagant expectation to have believed that within three years the gigantic power of Napoleon would have been crumbling into ruin,-that, like the ice-palace of the empress of Russia, "'Twas transient in its nature, as in show 'Twas durable; as worthless as it seemed In March, 1811, the empress Maria Louisa presented to the French nation a son, who was saluted by his father as king of Rome. Rome and the southern Papal Provinces were annexed to France; and the Pope was a prisoner at Savona. Louis Bonaparte, having refused to concur in the tyrannical projects of his brother for enforcing the Continental System upon * Lord Colchester's "Diary," vol. ii. p. 315. 536 STATE OF EUROPE AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE REGENCY. [1811. his Dutch subjects, had surrendered his mockery of sovereignty, and had come to reside at Powys Castle, in Montgomeryshire, upon his parole. The kingdom of Holland was then formally annexed to France. This annexation of the territory of the Zuyderzee was not enough in that direction. Ten additional departments were added to France on the 13th of December, 1810, which comprehended Holland, Friesland, Oldenburg, Bremen, and all the line of coast to Hamburg and all the country beyond Hamburg to Lubeck. The French empire now consisted of a hundred and thirty departments, containing forty-two millions of people. The millions that were dependent upon the will of the mighty emperor-a godhead with some infatuated English; a "restless barbarian" with others not wholly given up to party-can scarcely be numbered. The kingdom of Italy, which was under his sway, contained six millions. The kingdom of Naples, in which his brother-in-law, Joachim Murat, now ruled, contained five millions. The kingdom of Westphalia, of which his brother Jerome was the sovereign, submitted to the law that was enforced upon his other satellites, that "every thing must be subservient to the interests of France." Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine, he had at his feet the kings of Saxony, Bavaria, and Würtemberg, and a train of minor German princes. Prussia was wholly at his mercy. Denmark would obey any command of Napoleon since Copenhagen was bombarded and her fleet carried off. Marshal Bernadotte, prince of Ponte Corvo, had been elected by the States of Sweden as successor to the aged and childless Charles XIII., who had succeeded the deposed Gustavus. The French marshal was installed Crown Prince on the 1st of November, 1810. There only wanted the quiet possession of Spain and Portugal, under his brother king Joseph-Austria being his own by family ties, and Russia his ally, in the sworn friendship of her emperor-to make the world his own. England was to perish in the great league of Europe against her commerce; and in the resistance of America to her maritime claims. When Wellington stood within the lines of Torres Védras, and Massena was without, preparing to attack him, the fate of the nations of Europe rested upon the successful defence of this promontory. "The English," says Thiers, "once expelled from Portugal, all would tend in Europe to a general peace. On the contrary, their situation consolidated in that country, Massena being obliged to retrace his steps, the fortune of the Empire would begin to fall back before the fortune of Great Britain, to sink in the midst of an approaching catastrophe.”✦ In his place in Parliament, about this time, the marquis Wellesley proclaimed a great truth, which he repeated in 1813: "As Bonaparte was probably the only man in the world who could have raised his power to such a height, so he was probably the only man who could bring it into imminent danger. His eagerness for power was so inordinate; his jealousy of independence so fierce ; his keenness of appetite so feverish in all that touched his ambition even in the most trifling things; that he must plunge into desperate difficul ties. He was of an order of mind that by nature make for themselves great reverses." There was no one who had a more absolute conviction of this * Francis Horner-Letter to Hallam-"Memoirs," vol. ii. p. 115. "Le Consulat et l'Empire," tome xii. p. 412. Hansard, vol. xxv. col. 46. 1811.] WELLINGTON AND THE MINISTRY. 537 truth than the brother of the marquis Wellesley, who had to enforce, by his unerring sagacity and his indomitable perseverance, the realization of the change of fortune so eloquently predicted. The Regent had not been appointed more than a fortnight, when his ministers threw in the way of lord Wellington whatever obstacles a weak government could present to a strong mind. The British general had informed lord Liverpool of the probability that the command of the Spanish armies would be offered to him. The Secretary of War answers him that, "it is the unanimous opinion of every member of the government, and of every person acquainted with the finances and resources of the country, that it is absolutely impossible to continue our exertions in the Peninsula for any considerable length of time;" and that "we see no adequate advantage that would result from the command of the Spanish armies being conferred upon you." The answer of Wellington, however conceived in the most respectful terms, was the answer of a statesman. It implied his contempt for the whining over expense of a government that was continually frittering away its resources in petty undertakings—a government that had not the courage to do right for its own sake, but made the war in the Peninsula more a party question than a national object; yielding to the clamours of the Opposition, instead of rendering their objections futile by a vigorous policy that would have commanded success. Wellington said that the ministers had it not in their power to form an opinion of the real expenses of the war in the Peninsula; that the first step should be to analyse the charge, and see what the same army would cost elsewhere, at home for instance; that the transports formed a large item of expense, and that if he had been furnished with ten thousand more men in 1810 he would not have kept the transports; that he had sent them away now, because he thought that the events of the campaign had brought the enemy to such a situation that the necessity for an embarkation was very remote. He told the ministry that if the army were withdrawn from the Peninsula, and the French government were relieved from the pressure of military operations on the continent, Napoleon would incur all risks to land an army in his majesty's dominions. indignation at the thought gives him eloquence. "Then, indeed, would commence an expensive contest; then would his majesty's subjects discover what are the miseries of war, of which, by the blessing of God, they have hitherto had no knowledge; and the cultivation, the beauty, and prosperity of the country, and the virtue and happiness of its inhabitants, would be destroyed, whatever might be the result of the military operations. God forbid that I should be a witness, much less an actor, in the scene." Lord Liverpool had ventured upon some childish babble about Wellington determining between an offensive or defensive system, and he was thus answered: "In respect to offensive or defensive operations here, if they are left to me, I shall carry on either the one or the other, according to the means in my power, compared at the time with those of the enemy." With this key to his operations, we shall understand, what the public of that time could not understand, why after gaining a victory he was sometimes obliged to retreat His |