of the state were not the property of individuals; they were public trusts to be confided to those who were politically competent to occupy them. The diffenters defired, as a matter of right and justice, a participation of offices. If this were granted, they might acquire a dangerous afcendency in corporations; and an exclufive corporation interest in the hands of the diffenters was a very different thing from the liberty of fitting in that house on the free choice of the general mass of electors. It was now indeed afferted, that they had no such object in contemplation. But it was neceffary to take into the account the real springs by which human affairs were regulated, and not to depend upon the fecurity of words in contradistinction to the tenor and tendency of actions. There were perfons amongst the diffenters who would not admit any ecclefiaftical establishment to be neceffary. Against such perfons it became the legiflature to be upon their guard. He had indeed an high opinion of the merits of diffenters; but they already enjoyed every mental privilege, every freedom to ferve God according to their confciences in the most ample degree."

The motion of Mr. Beaufoy was powerfully supported by Mr. Fox, who magnanimously declared, " that whatever personal reason he might have to complain of the recent conduct of the diffenters, he would never lose fight of the great principles of civil and religious liberty, on which the present application to the house was founded. He had confidered himself as honored in acting with them on many former occafions, and he acknowledged the general tenor of their political conduct to be in the highest degree meritorious. In his opinion, it was very unwife in any cafe to take religion as religion for a test in politics; and he averred, that the maxims advanced by Mr. Pitt were such, that though he declined perfecution in words, he admitted the whole extent of it in principle." Upon a di

vifion, after a long debate, the numbers appeared, for the motion 100, against it 178.

This was by no means, confidering the opposition of the minister to the motion, a discouraging divifion on the first effort. But the diffenters were in the last degree aftonished and chagrined at the part taken by Mr. Pitt in this debate, it being almost universally understood by them, that the application would at least not be discountenanced by him. And the expreffions used by him in the previous conferences held with the leading diffenters, though far from amounting to a promife of support, were confidered as certain indications of a favourable disposition. Doubtless Mr. Pitt found, in the progress of the business, obstacles in the way of the repal which he had not at first apprehended; and he flattered himself, that his public profeffions of regard and esteen for the diffenters would fo far footh and conciliate their minds as to reconcile them to the disappointment they sustained. But the most refined address, and the greatest ability in the management of bufiness, may easily be overrated. It was not possible for Mr. Pitt, on this grand question, to stand well at once with the court and with the dissenters. The dissenters clearly perceived the difference between the fituation of Mr. Pitt and that of his predeceffor fir Robert Walpole, when the last application for a repeal of the test was made on their part above fifty years before. That wife minister, though his judgment was decidedly in favor of the repeal abstractedly confidered, was justly apprehenfive of the clamors which would have been unquestionably raised at that turbulent period against a measure, as the consequence of which the weak, the bigoted, and the factious would have joined in vociferating, that the CHURCH was in DANGER. It was an experiment at that time not worth the rifque; and the minister chose the least of the two evils, condescending himself to talk absurdly, in order to prevent others from acting mischievously. But that senseless and terrific clamour

clamor had long fince become a mere brutum fulmen. The application of the dissenters in the present instance was in unison with the general fenfe of the public and of the parliament, or at least not inconsistent with it; and a flight degree of countenance only from the court would have fufficed to enfure the fuccess of the motion: nor, on the other hand, was the oppofition of the court so openly and decidedly hoftile as to preclude the idea of future attempts.

The attention of the house and of the nation was foon When

transferred to a fubject of a very different nature. the prince of Wales attained the age of majority, A. D. 1783, the fum of fifty thousand pounds per annum only was allotted to him out of the civil lift revenue to defray the entire expence of his establishment. Confidering the numerous falaries payable to the officers of his household, this fum was manifeftly inadequate to the just support of his rank and fituation in life; and the then ministers, Mr. Fox and lord North, strongly insisted upon the neceffity of fixing the revenue of the prince at one hundred thoufand pounds per annum, which the late king had enjoyed as prince of Wales at a period when the civil lift produced two hundred thousand pounds per annum less than at present. To this the fovereign positively objected; and the prince in order to prevent difagreeable confequences, generoufly declared, that he chose to depend upon the fpontaneous bounty of the king. The obvious refult of this miferable economy was, that the prince, in the four years which were now elapfed, had contracted debts to a large amount; his negligence as to pecuniary concerns being perhaps increased by the confciousness of the extreme difficulty and apparent impoffibility of contracting his expences within the narrow limits of his income. 'The public, not sufficiently adverting to these circumstances, censured the prince with a too rigid feverity for the heedleffness and prodigality of his conduct. The general neral prejudice was much heightened by the habitual and confidential intercourse maintained by the prince with the great leaders of the late unpopular administration. It was also too notorious to admit of disguise or palliation, that the prince was exempt from none of those youthful indifcretions and excesses by which men of high rank in early life are for the most part so unhappily characterized.

A report of a very ferious nature had moreover for fome time past gained very general credit; namely, that the prince had contracted a fecret marriage with a lady of the Roman catholic religion; -a fatal step, for which the acknowledged perfonal charms and mental accomplishments of Mrs. Fitzherbert (fuch was the name of the lady in question) would make in the public opinion a very inadequate compenfation. It is true that the marriage, in whatever mode it were folemnized could not by the royal marriage act be regarded as legal; and by a clause in the act of fettlement, if the legality of the marriage were affirmed, the prince, by marrying a papist, would ipso facto forfeit his right of fucceffion to the crown. His fituation therefore was in the highest degree fingular and critical, especially as the marriage act itself was by many perfons confidered as founded in fuch manifest abfurdity and injustice, as to be in its own nature null and void. To balance these unfavorable circumstances, the prince was faid to poffefs good temper and good fenfe: his perfon was agreeable, his deportment affable and engaging, and, by mixing familiarly in the society of men of enlightened minds, he had, as there was good reason to believe, acquired far juster and more liberal ideas of the nature of government and the spirit of legiflation than those which constituted the policy of the present reign. Happily alfo, as it was contrary to law for the heir apparent to leave the kingdom, he had the advantage of an English education, and his manners and modes of thinking were entire*ly English; while the German education of the bishop of Ofnaburgh,

Oshaburgh, now Duke of York, and of the other younger branches of the royal house, and their familiarity with the German courts, could have no other tendency than to inspire them with sentiments totally oppofite to the genius of the English constitution. There is nothing indeed more furprizing in the history of the present reign, than the tame acquiefcence of the legiflature in fo apparent an affront, as is implied in the supposition that an English prince cannot receive an education in England proper for his station. England has, it must be confeffed been indeed grofsly and culpably inattentive to the education of her princes; and in this respect, as well as many others, the present reign will furnish to posterity a striking and instructive lesson.

Finding his embarrafsments continually increasing, and a large debt accumulated, the prince of Wales, in the fummer of 1786, applied to the king his father for afsistance: but meeting with a harsh and peremptory refufal, he adopted a resolution which seemed to indicate a firmness and vigor of mind, capable under a right direction of great and noble things. Supprefling the establishment of his household, he formally vested forty thoufand pounds per annum of his revenue in the hands of trustees for the liquidation of his debts. His stud of running horfes, his hunters, and even his coach-horfes, were fold by public auction. The elegant improvements and additions making to the palace of Carlton House, where he resided, were fuddenly stopped, and the most splendid apartments shut up from use; in this manner choofing to retire from the world, rather than forfeit the honor of a gentleman by practising on the credulity of his creditors,

Things had remained in this posture for near a twelvemonth, when the prince was perfuaded to give his affent to a proposal for laying the state of his affairs before parliament; and on the 20th of April Mr. Alderman Newnham, member for the city of London, gave notice that VOL. II.

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