that the Hanoverian family were called and raised to the throne by the voice of the people, and eftablished in the fovereignty by an act of parliament. His majesty's acceffion to the throne produced no material change in any branch of adminiftration. The fee of Canterbury was filled by Secker, a divine renowned for his philanthropy; Lord Henley was appointed chancellor; Lord Mansfield continued in the court of King's Bench; and Judge Willes in the court of Common Pleas. In the ministry, Earl Bute fucseeded Lord Holdernefs, as fecretary of ftate, for the northern department; while Mr. Pitt acted as his coadjutor; and, from the different views of their politics, well might they be ftiled the evil and good genius of the country. The Duke of Newcastle was first lord of the treafury; Earl Granville prefided at the council; and Lord Anfon at the board of admiralty. Earl Temple kept the privy feal; Mr. Legge acted as chancellor of the exchequer; and Mr. Charles Townfhend was appointed fecretary at war. Mr. Henry Fox was paymafter; the Duke of Devonth re, chamberlain; his Grace of Rutland, master of the horse; and Earl Talbot, fteward of the houfhold. Lord Halifax was appointed lordlieutenant of Ireland; an office of the first dignity, confequence, truft, and patronage. Lord Ligonier was placed at the head of the army in Great Britain. Prince Ferdinand, and the Marquis of Granby, commanded the British forces in Germany; and the army in America was directed by Sir Jeffery Amherst. In the naval department, no material change took place. Admiral Holborne continued at Spithead; Sir Edward Hawke, and Sir Charles Hardy, were ftationed in Quiberon Bay; Sir Charles Saunders, in the Mediterranean; Rear Admirals Ste vens and Cornish commanded a fquadron in the East Indies; Rear Admiral Holmes, another at Ja maica; Sir James Douglafs, another at the Leeward Iflands; and Lord Colvil, a fourth at Halifax, in Nova Scotia. These were stationary; but there were other fquadrons occafionally equipped, befides many fingle fhips that cruifed in the channel, and different parts of the world, to protect the trade of Great Britain and Ireland. The At this period, the character of the nation affumed a new appearance. Military fuccefs inflated the minds of the people at large with pride and vanity. They looked upon themfelves as fuperior to the rest of human nature, and treated foreigners with the utmost contempt. nobility and gentry plunged into every fpecies of luxury, and the middling clafs of people followed the evil example. Even the citizens of London laid afide their ufual fobriety; with their wives and children they mixed in every public fcene of diffipation, and too often indulged in private debaucheries. The common people were feized with the fame furor: pleafure was the purfuit of all; till. at laft, public entertainments became fcenes of riot and confufion, from the heterogeneous mixture of the company that attended them; and thofe peo ple of high rank, who paid regard to decency, withdrew, by degrees, to more felect parties. This general corruption of manners, alarmed the fage and the expe rienced. It was a fymptom which preceded the lofs of liberty to the Romans, and was the true caufe of degeneracy among that once fimple and brave people. In this country its effects have been alarming; and, but for the nature of the Proteftant religion, and the conflitution, which has always vindicated itfelf when invaded, no human exertions could Brit have preferved freedom to Great Britain. The lofs of chastity, in women, to the unt.linking and ignorant, is confidered merely as a family misfortune; but the wife well know, that female debauchery is the certain forerunner of ruin to a state. When women part with their virtue, they become the worft corruptors of the men; who, under the malignity of fuch a fweet, yet poifoned influence, foon lofe every fenfe of honour. The prefent reign has given many melancholy illuftrations of this pofition; for the records of Doctors Commons, and of parliament, have fwelled, to an enormous magnitude, with caufes of adultery, and pleas of recrimination between the parties. The vices of the times have been rendered still more confpicuous by the virtues of the fovereign, and his royal confort, who have strictly adhered to a purity of private conduct, religious and moral, and taken every means of dif couraging indecency and profanenefs. The day of the king's coronation having been fixed for the twentyfecond of September, his majefty communicated to his council a circumftance, which, when known, gave general joy to the nation. This was, his intention to marry; and that his affections were fixed upon the Princess Charlotte Sophia, Princefs of Mecklenburgh Strelitz. The Earl of Harcourt had vifited the court of the reigning prince, where, having been taken ill, he had leisure to study the difpofitions of the family, and gave fo favourable an account of the Princess Charlotte, on his return to England, that his fovereign became enamoured of her character, and determined to demand her for a wife. The propofal of an alliance fo illuftrious and advantageous, was, of course, received at Mecklenburgh with the utmoft joy; and the Earl of Harcourt was ap pointed plenipotentiary extraordinary to demand the princefs in form, and fign the contract. The new queen, in confequence of the elevation fhe had acquired, was received with every poffible mark of respect by the different towns through which fhe paffed. A proper houfhold was appointed for her in England; and on the feventh of September the arrived at Harwich, after a tedious and tempeftuous voyage of ten days. The number of carriages, horfemen, and perfons on foot, who crouded, were multitudinous beyond all belief; and their acclamations were fo loud and repeated, the princess must have imagined that the inhabitants of the country had been seized by a frenzy. At Romford fhe was met by the king's coaches, and a party of horfe guards, who conduced her to St. James's, where the Duke of Devonfhire, as lord chamberlain, handed her from the coach, and prefented her to the Duke of York. By his royal highness, the princefs was conducted to the king, who waited to receive her in the garden. She knelt to his majefty, who raised her by the hand, which he kiffed, and then led her up the palace stairs to an apartment where the royal family were met, with whom the dihed. The princefs was accompanied on her journey by her brother the reigning duke, and the ducheffles of Ancaster and Hamilton attended her as ladies of the bedchamber, on the occafion; a circumftance rather extraordinary, as the beauty of one was the boast of England, and the other was fupposed to poffefs charms and graces equal to any woman that Ireland ever produced, The first appearance of thefe elegant and accomplished women at the court of Mecklenburgh, made a forcible impreffion on all prefent, but particu larly on the princefs, who enquired, with a good deal of eagerness, if all H 2 the PROCEEDINGS ON THE KING'S INDISPOSITION. 20.) The Lord Prefident of the Council not only concurred in this opinion, but obferved that the prefent meeting would be illegal, though his Majefty were prefent; for after a prorogation, it had been ufual to give feveral days notice of the actual meeting of Parliament, that nothing might be carried by furprize. For which reasons he moved to adjourn for a fortnight, that, in the mean time, the Lord Chancellor might write to every peer, requesting his attendance; and, no oppofition ap pearing, the motion was carried. On this day alfo the Commons met; and, after feveral new members had taken their feats, Mr. Pier fpoke nearly to the fame purport with the Lord Chancellor in the other houfe. He moved an adjournment of a fortnight, as well in hopes that fome alteration for the better would take place in his Ma jefty's malady, as to give the Speaker time to write circular letters to all the members, defiring their attendance on that day; when, if the government ftill remained defective, it would be neceffary to propofe fome remedy; it was a fituation as mo mentous as it was new. Mr. Pitt's motion was agreed to unanimously. DEC. 4.] Agreeable to the preced ing refolutions, and notices in writing having been fent to all the peers and commons, both houfes again affembled. The Lord Chancellor, in the upper houfe, apologized for the abfence of feveral peers, from fickness and other plaufible caufes; as did other lords for their respective friends. These, and a few other preliminary matters being adjusted, the the Lord Prefident of the Council (Lord Camden) pathetically lamented that the house had been again obliged to meet without a fpeech from the throne, his Majesty's indifpofition still continuing with equal violence; the confequence of which was, that all the executive functions of government were fufpended, and the government itself defective, maimed, and incomplete. It was the duty of the two remaining branches, therefore, to fupply this deficiency: but, before they proceeded any further, it was nece fary, that the fact of this infuffici ency fhould be proved. It was with this view that the Lords of the Council, who in this cafe, he thought, acted legally, had examine ed the five phyficians, Warren, Baker, Pepys, Reynolds, and Addington, as to the unequivocal state of the fovereign's health, the probable duration of the malady, and what hopes might be cherished of a fpeedy or of a diftant recovery. From delicacy, we prefume, to the royal family, a restriction was fet to the questions tendered the phyficians but the Lord Prefident was confident they would be deemed adequate and fufficient; and in confequence begged to prefent the houfe a minute of their anfwers. This being ordered, the clerk read the whole of the examination; which was conclufive, That his Majelly was totally incapable of public bufinefs. Thefe medical genflemen, from their experience in fimilar cafes, agreed that a recovery was to be expected; it might be in a few months, or it might be at a more distant period. This was the collective opinion: but Dr. Addington, who had more particularly ftudied the progrefs and termination of the difeafe which afflicted his Majefty, was fervently difpofed to hope, as the malady was accidental, not hereditary, that a recovery ་ would very fhortly take place; and that of the most perfect nature. To ftrengthen his opinion, he faid that, at his country refi, dence, he had ufually from fix to twelve of thefe unhappy kind of pas tients under his care; that he attended them every day; and, except one or two uncommon cafes, he had always the happiness of fuccefs, and that too within the limits of a year. The minute of these examinations was ordered to lie on the table; and the houfe, ordering the Lords to be fummoned, adjourned to the enfuing Monday. In the House of Commons, there were upwards of four hundred and forty members prefent. The examination of the phyficians was treated fimilarly as in the other houfe, and was alfo ordered to be taken into confideration on Monday. Some members, however, expreffed an apprehenfion, that the mode of receiving the state of the king's health was not fufficiently metho dical for a parliamentary proceeding. But, in anfwer to this, it was fuggefted, and indeed agreed to on both fides, that its legality or ille gality might be difcuffed on Monday. 8.] The doubts which had been but flightly mentioned in the lower houfe,,as to legality of receiving a ftate of his Majefty's health from the privy council, was now treated by the peers with a greater degree of serioufnefs. The Marquis of Staf ford moved, That a felect committee fhould be appointed to examine the two phyficians who had been called to attend his Majefty fince the former minutes were taken, and also to reexamine thofe who had before attended the privy council, although their report was then. before the house. So anxious were their lordships to prevent any precedent that might obtrude on the legal and established forms of the houfe, that this motion was was unanimoufly and warmly fupported. They did not, by any means, doubt the circumstances reprefented; but it was neceffary, and that abfolutely, to re-examine the phyficians by a committee of their own, before they could proceed to its confideration. A noble lord, Porchester, faid that he could not, for one, admit the idea of receiving a report from the privycouncil in any fhape; it would be impolitic, and might be highly dangerous. In his opinion, the examination had already gone too far: the phyficians had declared his Majesty unfit for exercifing the functions of executive government; and that, of itself, was fufficient to enable the other two branches of the legiflature to fupply that deficiency. This noble lord contended, that it was needless to enter into the probability of the king's recovery. His Majefty was at prefent incapable, and that incapacity ought to be fupplied. A great law lord, Loughborough, perfectly agreed with the preceding noble fpeaker; but wished that the investigation had been carried on by the joint co-operation of both houfes, for which he faid there was a precedent on the journals in 1671. But to this it was objected, that the number of the committee belonging to the Commons being much greater than thofe of the Lords, it would occafion much unneceffary trouble and inconvenience. The motion for the attendance of the phyficians on the next day was unanimoufly carried. To give a detail of all that paffed in the Houfe of Commons, would be only to recapitulate the previous arguments and opinions; a committee of twenty-one was appointed to examine all the phyficians who had at that time attended his Majesty. 10.] The committee appointed by the House of Lords attended at twelve o'clock; and, by fix, had concluded their examination of his Majefty's phyficians. In the Commons, Mr. Pitt brought up the report made by the committee appointed to examine the king's phyficians. It confirmed what had before been declared, by the fame authority, that his Majefty was at prefent totally incapable of meeting bis parliament, or of tranfacting any public bufinefs. Dr. Willis, however, who had been added to the lift, after the first minutes taken by the privy council, appeared to be more fanguine than Dr. Addington, of a fafe and a fpeedy recovery. But if any thing, he faid, could obfruct his efforts, peculiarly adapted to that kind of malady which afflicted his Majefty, it was the exalted station of the royal patient, who, when the first indications of reafon should return, would inftantly reflect too deeply on his unhappy fituation, which at any rate might protract a restoration of the mental powers. He deduced the caufe which occafioned the melancholy difeafe, from the discharge of weighty business, fevere exercise, extreme abstemioufnefs, and little reft. The nature of the origin was, however, falutary to the means of remedy: thofe in the habits of diffipation, of whatever kind, he should confider in a much worfe predicament. Several of the members, particularly Mr. Rolle, wifhed that the report might be printed, for the fatisfaction of the public at large, to prevent falfe representations, which might produce much mischief; and, as it did not appear that the measure would be productive of any material delay, the Chancellor of the Exche quer cheerfully acquiefced, and the whole examination was ordered to be printed accordingly. When this bufinefs had been difposed of, the minister moved, to have a committee appointed to examine and report precedents of fuch proceedings |