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the constitution . The sovereign is 9 , sole corporation , enjoying a political immortality , and in at * tempting to destroy it the late ministers have committed a > regi . cide aet against , royal magistracy . In feeling particularly for the pre
sent state of th « sovereign , I can . not separate for a moment the welfare of tfoe constitution from that of the king ; whatever affects the one affects the other ; and I presume that by the course pursued by liis majesty ^ s late ministers , the constiution is in danger , and my father and sovereign stands in the same perilous situation . In such a momentous occasion , I look to you my * lords for support ! you have the undoubted right to j maintain yp ^ r laws , and to preserve the constitution from a ministerial faction : and I call on you to preserve it sacred from a self-assuming committee , who s seem to me to have made a shield of the sovereiga instead of being the constitutional shield of their royal master .
They seem to me to be making the crown as precarious and elective a& they can , and to be raising their own power upon the ruins of monarchy . If the estates proceed by bill , they assume to legislate without the royal authority , which is a violation of the constitution ; and they claim to elect a person to exercise the magistracy of royalty : and if they can do it at this time , what shall hinder
at a future period the election of a person to exercise permanently the royal authority ? I hear of restrictions , but if there is to be a regent , let him possess the ppw ^ r , and not the mummery of royalty . Let him be an efficient magistrate with prerogatives such as the
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94 State en Public Affairs *
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common law assigns to a king . I have watched for upwards of eighteen years the rapid strides of the hydra of devolution on the continent , and have observed the constant forerunner bf the
downfall of government in the bringing of the magistracy of royalty into contempt , and the prejudicing of the public mind against the sovereign and his heirs *
Lord . Mulgrave contended , that the proceeding by address was to establish a precedent unknown to the country , and he objected to the doctrine that the two Houses
were merely a convention , for he thought more highly of them , and esteemed them to be no less than the two Houses of Parlia * menti In 1789 , they proceeded in the manner of fhe present times , and it received the sanction of the
crown , as appeared by his majesty ' s speech alter his recovery , for though the speech might be considered as that of the ministers , yet it afterwards became a parliamentary record , and might be consulted as such . The Duke of
York deprecated the present course as being unconstitutional and derogatory to the dignity of the crown , and weakening its power at a time when the whole of its authority was not tpo great for the difficulties of the crisis in
which we lived . Lord Moira declared , that no circumstances could justify the two houses in
that assumption of royalty . He did not question their right to decide on the best mode of supplying the present vacancy , but contended that it would be best
secured by address . They agreed that in the present dilemma the prince ought to be applied to 9 and yet they acted in a w \ v thm
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1811, page 54, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2412/page/54/
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