with in all situations and depend on, are Lord Chief Justice Pratt and Lord Shelburne. This pleased me as did his sentiments about Barré. Many, many other things were discussed, which I will report at large on Friday."[1]
At the end of the month the Regency Bill coming on in the House of Lords, Shelburne joined Temple in denouncing the whole Bill as unnecessary and unwise. After urging that the object of the Bill was the public peace and security of the Crown; that the King was liable, like other persons, to make mistakes, more especially in cases where his own essential interest and that of his family were concerned; that it was therefore consistent with the dignity of Parliament and of the Crown for the former to interfere, and not merely to register the wishes of the latter, he continued: "In case of a demise, the Parliament then in being may be immediately assembled, and by a clause in the last Bill of Regency now, as I think, in force, they are to sit three years, unless sooner dissolved. The most proper means of administering Government during a minority would then be in the hands of those who are alone interested in the success of those means, who can be the only judges of circumstances, situations, and characters, and who alone have a right to judge of the true interests of the State. The present Parliament seems to have no right to make laws which shall be binding upon future Parliaments, especially in points in which the future are alone interested, unless their wisdom and their power was so great that they could discern unbegotten events, or stop the fleeting currents of human affairs. If they want this power, how can it be supposed that future times will relinquish their own peculiar rights, and suffer themselves implicitly to obey the direction of those who had no right to restrain them, nor opportunities to judge of their situation or circumstances. … Yet what provision is made by this Bill for a future Regency? What judgment, what foresight is the Parliament to exert! Excepting the persons of the Royal Family, the whole is to be left to the future deter-
- ↑ Calcraft to Shelburne, April 15th, 1765.
