I think it right to communicate to you those sentiments which I was withheld from expressing at an early period of the session, by my earnest desire that the expected motion on the affairs of Ireland might undergo the deliberate discussion of parliament, unmixed with any other consideration.

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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 intrust the functions of the executive government.

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 have waved my 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

I

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 distinguished 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 employed 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 applied to a nation, the increased and increasing reputation of his majesty's arms will show 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 every 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 support of it. I have no predilec tions 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 as the evidence of what the future will be, I flatter myself I shall meet with the support of

parliament, and of 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 a prosperous issue of the most arduous contest in which Great Britain was ever engaged.

You are authorized to communicate these sentiments to Lord Grey, who, I have no doubt, will make them known to Lord Grenville.

I am always, my dearest Frederick,
Your affectionate Brother,
GEORGE, P. R.

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

Answer of Lords Grey and Grenville to the Duke of York, dated 15th Feb. 1812.

Sir,-We beg leave most humbly to express to your royal highness our dutiful acknowledg

ments for the gracious and condescending manner in which you have had the goodness to com municate to us the letter of his royal highness the Prince Regent, on the subject of the arrange ments to be now made for the future adminis tration of the public affairs; and we take the liberty of availing ourselves of your gracious per mission 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 pros perous 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 in 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 our selves with frankness and sincerity. We beg

leave most earnestly to assure his royal highness, that no sacrifices but those of honour and duty could appear to us too great to be made, for the purpose of healing the divisions of the 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 being united 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 upon 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 danger of the times; nor has there, down to this moment, appeared even any approximation towards such an agreement of opinion on the public interest, as can alone form a basis for the honourable union of parties previously opposed to each other. Into the detail of those 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

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