of the council had left Windsor, the physician alluded to in the last clause of the report, stated, in writing, to the other members of the council then remaining at Windsor, "that he had, unquestionably, made use of an expression, which he was apprehensive

extremely improbable, and they do not expect it; but they also concur in stating, that they do not entirely despair of it." Signed as above,

1812.

The members of the council to whom the above statement was made, (having sworn the physician alluded to, to the truth thereof) afterwards communicated the same to the whole council, assembled this 5th day of January, who have deemed it'right to subjoin this fact to the above decla(Signed)

ration.

C. CANTUAR, E. EBOR,

MONTROSE,

WINCHILSEA,

AYLESFORD,
ELDON,

ELLENBOROUGH,
W. GRANT.

Declaration made on the 4th of April,

1812.

"We, the underwritten, do hereby declare and certify, that the state of his majesty's health, at the time of this our meeting, is not such as to enable him to resume the personal exercise of his royal authority.

"That his majesty's bodily health is as good as at any of the periods of our former reports.

"That his majesty's mental health is as much disordered as it has been during any part of his majesty's indisposition.

"That all the physicians in attendance concur in thinking, that his majesty's final and complete recovery is

"We, the underwriten, do hereby declare and certify, that the state of his majesty's health, at the time of this our meeting, is not such as to enable his majesty to resume the personal exercise of his royal functions.

"That his majesty's bodily health is as good as it was at the period of our last report.

"That his majesty's mental health is as much disordered as during any period of his majesty's indisposition.

"That the hope of his majesty's ultimate and complete recovery is diminished since the period of our last report; but that such recovery is not absolutely despaired of.” Signed as above.

Letter from his Royal Highness the Prince Regent to the Duke of York.

Feb. 13. My earest brother,As the restrictions on the exercise of the royal authority will shortly expire, when I must make my arrangements for the future administration of the powers with which I am invest. ed, I think it right to communicate to you those sentiments which I was withheld from expressing at an earlier period of the session, by my earnest desire, that the expected motion on the affairs of Ireland might under

go the deliberate discussion of parliament, unmixed with any other consideration.

I think it hardly necessary to call your recollection to the recent circumstances under which I assumed the authority delegated to me by parliament. At a moment of unexampled difficulty and danger, I was called upon to make a selection of persons to whom I should entrust the functions of the executive govern

ment.

My sense of duty to our royal father solely decided that choice; and every private feeling gave way to considerations which admitted of no doubt or hesitation. I trust I acted in that respect as the genuine representative of the august person whose functions I was appointed to discharge; and I have the satisfaction of knowing, that such was the opinion of persons, for whose judgment and honourable principles I entertain the highest respect.

In various instances, as you well know, where the law of the last session left me at full liberty, I waved any personal gratification, in order that his majesty might resume, on his restoration to health, every power and prerogative belonging to his crown. I certainly am the last person in the kingdom to whom it can be permitted to despair of our royal father's recovery.

A new æra is now arrived, and I cannot but reflect with satisfaction, on the events which have distinguish ed the short period of my restricted regency. Instead of suffering in the loss of any of her possessions, by the gigantic force which has been employ. ed against them, Great Britain has added most important acquisitions to her empire. The national faith has been preserved inviolate towards our allies; and if character is strength, as

applied to a nation, the increased and increasing reputation of his majesty's arms will shew to the nations of the continent how much they may still achieve when animated by a glorious spirit of resistance to a foreign yoke. In the critical situation of the war in the peninsula, I shall be most anxious to avoid any measure which can lead my allies to suppose that I mean to depart from the present system. Perseverance alone can achieve the great object in question; and I cannot withhold my approbation from those who have honourably distinguished themselves in the support of it. I have no predilections to indulge-no resentments to gratify-no objects to attain, but such as are common to the whole empire. If such is the leading principle of my conduct-and I can appeal to the past in evidence of what the future will be-I flatter myself I shall meet with the support of parliament, andjof a candid and enlightened

nation.

Having made this communication of my sentiments in this new and extraordinary crisis of our affairs, I cannot conclude without expressing the gratification I should feel, if some of those persons with whom the early habits of my public life were formed, would strengthen my hands, and constitute a part of my government. With such support, and aided by a vigorous and united administration, formed on the most liberal basis, I shall look with additional confidence to à prosperous issue of the most arduous contest in which Great Britain was ever engaged. You are authorised to communicate these sentiments to Lord Grey, who, I have no doubt, will make them known to Lord Grenville.

I am always, dearest Frederick, your affectionate brother, (Signed) GEORGE P. R.

P. S. I shall send a copy of this letter immediately to Mr Perceval.

Letter from Lords Grey and Grenville.

r

February 15, 1812.

Sir, We beg leave most humbly to express to your royal highness our dutiful acknowledgements for the gracious and condescending manner in which you have had the goodness to communicate to us the letter of his Royal Highness the Prince Regent, on the subject of the arrangements to be now made for the future administration of the public affairs; and we take the liberty of availing ourselves of your gracious permission to address to your royal highness in this form, what has occurred to us in consequence of that communication.

The prince regent, after expressing to your royal highness in that letter his sentiments on various public matters, has, in the concluding paragraph, condescended to intimate his wish that "some of those persons with whom the early habits of his public life were formed, would strengthen his royal highness's hands, and constitute a part of his government;" and his royal highness is pleased to add, "that with such support, aided by a vigorous and united administration, formed on the most liberal basis, he would look with additional confidence to a prosperous issue of the most arduous contest in which Great Britain has ever been engaged."

On the other parts of his royal highness's letter we do not presume to offer any observations; but on the concluding paragraph, in so far as we may venture to suppose ourselves included in the gracious wish which

it expresses, we owe it, in obedience and duty to his royal highness, to explain ourselves with frankness and sincerity.

We beg leave most earnestly to assure his royal highness, that no sacrifices, except those of honour and duty, could appear to us too great to be made, for the purpose of healing the divisions of our country, and uniting both its government and its people. All personal exclusion we entirely disclaim: we rest on public measures; and it is on this ground alone that we must express, without reserve, the impossibility, of our uniting with the present government. Our differences of opinion are too many and too important to admit of such an union. His royal highness will, we are confident, do us the justice to remember, that we have twice already acted on this impression; in 1809, on the proposition then made to us under his majesty's authority; and last year, when his royal highness was pleased to require our advice respecting the formation of a new government. The reasons which we then humbly submitted to him are strengthened by the increasing dangers of the times; nor has there, down to this moment, appeared even any approximation towards such an agreement of opinion on the public interests, as can alone form a basis for the honourable union of parties previously opposed to each other.

Into the detail of these differences we are unwilling to enter; they embrace almost all the leading features of the present policy of the empire but his royal highness has, himself, been pleased to advert to the late deliberations of parliament on the affairs of Ireland. This is a subject, above all others, important in itself, and connected with the most pressing

dangers. Far from concurring in the sentiments which his majesty's ministers have, on that occasion, so recently expressed, we entertain opinions directly opposite; we are firmly persuaded of the necessity of a total change the present system of government in that country, and of the immediate repeal of those civil disabilities under which so large a portion of his majesty's subjects still labour on account of their religious opinions. To recommend to parliament this repeal, is the first advice which it would be our duty to offer to his royal highness; nor could we, even for the shortest time, make ourselves responsible for any further delay in the proposal of a measure, without which we could entertain no hope of rendering our selves useful to his royal highness, or to our country.

We have only therefore further to beg your royal highness to lay before his royal highness the prince regent, the expression of our humble duty, and the sincere and respectful assurance of our earnest wishes for whatever may best promote the ease, honour, and advantage of his royal highness's government, and the success of his endeavours for the public welfare. We have the honour to be,

as to the perseverance of that govern ment in the assertion of principles, and in the maintenance of a system, not more hostile to the maritime rights and commercial interests of the British empire, than inconsistent with the rights and independence of neutral nations; and having thereby plainly developed the inordinate pretensions which that system, as promulgated in the decrees of Berlin and Milan, was from the first designed to enforce; his royal highness the prince regent, acting in the name and on the behalf of his majesty, deems it proper upon this formal and authentic repub. lication of the principles of those decrees, thus publicly to declare his royal highness's determination still firmly to resist the introduction and establishment of this arbitrary code, which the government of France openly avows its purpose to force upon the world, as the law of nations.

From the time that the progressive injustice and violence of the French government made it impossible for his majesty any longer to restrain the exercise of the rights of war within their ordinary limits, without submitting to consequences not less ruinous to the commerce of his dominions, than derogatory to the rights of his crown, his majesty has endeavoured by a restricted and moderate use of those rights of retaliation, which the Berlin and Milan decrees necessarily called into action, to reconcile neutral states to those measures, which the conduct of the enemy had rendered unavoidable; and which his majesty has at all times professed his readiness to revoke, so soon as the decrees of the enemy, which gave occasion to them, should be formally and unconditionally repealed, and the commerce of neutral nations restored to its ac customed course.

menced, and shall be in the prosecution of a voyage, which, under the said orders in council, or one of them, would have subjected her to capture and condemnation; and the claimant of any ship or cargo which shall be captured at any time subsequent to such authentic act of repeal by the French government, shall, without any further order or declaration on the part of his majesty's government on this subject, be at liberty to give in evidence in the High Court of Admiralty, or any court of Vice-Admiralty, before which such ship or vessel, or its cargo, shall be brought for adjudication, that such repeal by the French government had been by such authentic act promulgated prior to such capture; and upon proof thereof, the voyage shall be deemed and taken to have been as lawful as if the said orders in council had never been

made; saving nevertheless to the captors such protection and indemnity as they may be equitabiy entitled to, in the judgment of the said court, by reason of their ignorance or uncertainty as to the repeal of the French decrees, or of the recognition of such repeal by his majesty's government, at the time of such capture.

"His royal highness, however, deems it proper to declare, that, should the repeal of the French decrees, thus anticipated and provided for, afterwards prove to have been illusory on the part of the enemy; and should the restrictions thereof be still practically enforced, or revived by the enemy, Great Britain will be obliged, however reluctantly, after reasonable notice to neutral powers, to have recourse to such measures of retaliation as may then appear to be just and necessary."

The Petition of the Catholics.-T• his Royal Highness the Prince Regent.

The humble petition of his majesty's Roman Catholic subjects of Ireland, sheweth,

That we humbly approach your royal highness, as the guardian of the honour and interests of this great empire, and presume respectfully to submit to your royal consideration, our peculiar condition under the penal laws now in force against us.

The generous and elevated character which the people of Ireland have long been taught to attach to the name of your royal highness, has impressed us with the pleasing confidence, that the glorious work of effectually relieving the Roman Catholics of these realms from their numerous sufferings, has been reserved for your gracious and happy interposition in our favour.

We have publicly and solemnly taken every oath of fidelity and allegiance, which the jealous caution of the legislature has, from time to time, imposed as tests of our political and moral principles; and although we are still set apart (how wounding to every sentiment of honour!) as if unworthy of credit in these our sworn declarations, we can appeal confidently to the sacrifices which we and our forefathers have long made, and which we still make (rather than violate conscience by taking oaths of a spiritual import contrary to our belief) as decisive proofs of our profound reverence for the sacred obligation of an oath.

By those awful tests we have bound ourselves, in the presence of the Allseeing Deity, whom all classes of Christians adore, "To be faithful,