On the 4th of November, the nation joined, without distinction of parties, in celebrating the centenary an niversary of the glorious revolution in 1683 ; but their attention was almost immediately called to a more melancholy object of public feeling. The king's health, which had for some time been declining, was affected with fever and delirium. This occasioned a suspension of the royal functions, for which the constitution, in all its fulness, had provided no express remedy. The analogy of the common law seemed indeed to point out the Prince of Wales as the natural successor to the throne during its temporary vacancy ; and as the party now in opposition were avowedly the friends of his Royal Highness, a change, in every department of office, was likely to be the result of his majesty's continuing under the present affliction. Parliament met in November, but adjourned till December. On the 4th of that month, the important question of a regency began to be discussed. Mr Fox decidedly insisted on the right of the Prince of Wales to assume the vacant functions of royalty whenever parliament should pronounce it neces sary that a regent should be appointed. Mr Pitt, with no less decision, pronounced the doctrine of the prince's right to the regency treason against the constitution, and contended, that the prince had no more a right to be elected than any other individual. It was retorted, with great severity by the opposition, that this was really to make the crown elective. If a stranger, said Mr Fox, were to ask, is your throne hereditary or elec tive ? he must now answer, I cannot tell, I must ask the king's physicians,—if his majesty is well, it is heredi tary ; if he is unwell, it is elective. The revolution, it was contended by ministers, had conferred the crown by the election of a new prince ; but it was answered, that the revolution was not a precedent for the regular progress of government, any more than the sick man's physic was proper during health. Nothing in the pre sent circumstances made it necessary to break the hereditary line of succession. The case, though new, did not sanction a revolutionary reversion to the peo ple, as the primary fountain of power. It was a case to be judged of by analogy—the sovereign was dead for the present in point of political capacity ; and the hereditary nature of the government suggested no other successor than the lawful heir. The doctrine of Mr Pitt, however, prevailed in a parliament, whose zeal for the revolutionary doctrine of electing a regent, so much at variance with their principles on the public election of representatives, may be suspected of having been influenced by the hopes (that were never aban doned,) of his majesty's recovery. The question of the prince's right to the regency being decided, Mr Pitt, before he laid the full plan of the regency before the House of Commons, acknowledged the propriety of the Prince of Wales being elected to that office by par liament, and submitted to his royal highness the terms on which it was proposed that he should hold the regency. The answer of the Prince was temperate, but decided. He lamented, for the sake of the pub lic, that those powers with which it was proposed to invest him, were such as degraded and divided the exe cutive power ; yet, that a conviction of the evils that must result to the nation from his refusal, would induce him to undertake the painful trust.
On the 16th of January, 1789, the whole plan of the regency was submitted to parliament. The prince was to exercise the regency during his majesty's illness, without being admitted to any share in the care of the royal person, or interference with the king's household and private affairs ; he was to grant no pension nor reversion, and no office but what the law absolutely required for any other terms than during the king's pleasure, nor any peerage except on the royal issue. The persons attendant on his majesty, and the officers of his household in general, were to be under the ex clusive controul of the queen. The disposal of one fourth of the civil list was thus put in the hands of her majesty, and indirectly retained for the strength of a party whom she was known to favour. During these events, his majesty continued chiefly under the care of Dr Willis, who, of all his physicians, had been the most sanguine in his opinion of his recovery ; hitherto these hopes had been indefinite as to time. During the month of February they became more and more decisive.
Amidst circumstances so important to the general interests of the empire, the Irish parliament asserted their legislative independency, and voted an address to the Prince of Wales, beseeching him to assume the functions of royalty. The lord lieutenant having refus ed to transmit their address, the Irish peers and com mons voted an unqualified censure on his conduct, and sent commissioners to London to wait on his royal high ness ; but this measure, and all others connected with the plan of regency, was rendered unnecessary by the recovery of his majesty, which was announced to par liament by the chancellor on the lOth of March. In numerable congratulations reached the throne, from the peers and commons down to the humblest corporations ; a solemn thanksgiving was celebrated through the kingdom ; and in London his Majesty made a public procession to St Paul's, attended by both houses of par liament.
The business of parliament now returned to its usual channel. A supply of 218,0001. was voted for fortifying our West India possessions. Mr Fox, persevering in his efforts to obtain the repeal of the shop tax, was at last successful ; and the prohibition of the poor pedlars was also abolished. The trial of Mr Hastings proceeded, but with no circumstance of memorable importance.
\Var had for some time raged on the eastern frontiers of Europe, between the powers of Russia and Austria leagued against the Turks. In this contest, the north ern powers of the Continent found themselves at last in volved, either as principals or arbiters. While Den mark allied itself to Russia, Gustavus of Sweden, allured by a subsidy from the Porte, and impelled by his ambi tion and hatred of Russia, had declared against the lat ter power, and sought, when it was too late, to conciliate the Danes. In September 1788, the Prince of Denmark invaded Sweden on the side of Norway, and advanced to Gottenburgh with trifling opposition. The governor of the place, and the inhabitants, terrified at the prospect of a siege, had determined to capitulate ; but Gustavus riding thither with the speed of a courier, reached the place in time to save the capitulation, to displace the governor, and to animate the inhabitants with nobler sentiments. Gustavus assembled the townsmen ; lie reminded them of the ancient glory of the Swedish arms, and made them promise rather to be buried under the ruins than surrender. But from this dreadful trial of their fidelity, the inhabitants were saved by the timely interposition of England, Prussia, and Holland. Mr Elliot the British minister at Copenhagen, and Baron Borsche the Prussian envoy, threatened an immediate attack by sea and land on Denmark, if hostilities should proceed. An armistice was fixed, which ended in a treaty of neutrality, ratified in the course of 1789.
The party spirit of the nation had, for some years, assumed a milder aspect ; and the questions which had been agitated between ministers and their opponents, though they furnished matter of zealous discussion, had neither involved universal enthusiasm, nor degenerated into personal rancour. But the progress of the French revolution began at this period to be viewed by the Bri tish nation with an eagerness, that seemed to re-awaken, upon the subject of foreign civil wars, all the collision of opinions which had engendered our own. The event was foreign, but the application of its principles came home to ourselves. By the genuine Tories of England, the French revolution, even as early as the period of storming the Bastile, was regarded as a horrible event, which would annihilate France as a power in Europe, and consign to similar anarchy and ruin every nation whom the contagion of her politics should affect, " France," said Mr Burke, when he commented on this event in parliament, " France is, in a political light, to be considered as expunged from the system of Europe. Were we absolute conquerors, and France to lie pros trate at our feet, we should blush to impose upon French men terms so destructive to all their consequence as a nation, as the durance they had imposed upon them selves.'.' Ile was indignant that any Englishmen should approve of the French revolution, and astonished that they should compare it with our own. Ours was a re volution not made but prevented ; theirs was a tempest of anarchy and bloodshed ; the principles of the two events u ere as different as good and evil. Such were the sentiments delivered by Mr Burke, in a debate which took place on the 9th of February 1790, upon a subject which would seem to have no direct connection with the French revolution : (on a question of the army estimates.) But the minds amen were full of this sub ject, and disposed to give vent to their opinions where ver publicity could be obtained. Mr Fox vindicated the principles of the great event, as entirely those which had produced our own revolution ; he hailed the eman cipation of so many millions of men from tyranny, as a glorious era. France, it was owned, required a new constitution, and from whom had she to expect it ? From a king at the head of his courtiers ? From Broglio, at the head of the army ? From the dungeons of the Bas tile ? or, from that spirit in the people which had laid the Bastilc in ashes? At this period, Mr Burke, Mr Windham, and some others, who had formerly sided with the opposition, now ceased to act with them ; hut the opinions which Mr Fox had expressed, were sup ported both in and out of parliament by the generality of those who had maintained the doctrines of Vhiggism. Of these arguments and speculations respecting the French revolution, so recent in the public memory, it is needless to give any account. As the tragedy of French affairs grew deeper, much of the sanguine hope of the triumph of liberty was diminished. But in jus tice to those who predicted that final triumph, let it be remembered, that as we recovered our rights after a Cromwell and two succeeding tyrants, so may France yet recover her's after Bonaparte and his successor. The followers of Mr Burke's speculation have certainly less reason to expect their prediction to be fulfilled, that France is to be expunged from the system of Eu rope.