3rd.--A question was proposed to the House by Sir William Yonge, whether such members as were named to be servants to the new Prince of Wales were to vacate their seats, as their appointment was by the King. Stone and John Selwyn were of the number. It was agreed in the negative without a Motion.
7th.--The Duke of Newcastle opened the Regency Bill in the House of Lords, and it was read the first time without opposition.
10th.--The committee in the Lords on the Regency Bill. Earl Stanhope, whose studies were mathematical, and principles republican, to the honour of which, though without any parts, he had acted steadily in Opposition, when Jacobites and Royalist-Whigs, and men of all other denominations had changed for every other denomination, opposed the clause that gave the Regent a Council; an opinion that was rather more consistent with the effect of his principles, to oppose a Regal Government, than with his principles themselves; but it was carried by 98 against him, and the Earls of Thanet, Shaftesbury, Oxford, and Lichfield, the Viscount Hereford and Townshend, and the Lords Ward, Maynard, Foley, Romney, and Talbot.
Lord Bath then made as miscellaneous a speech as he used to do in the House of Commons; objecting to the not leaving the Regent power to displace any of the inferior Commissioners of Treasury or Admiralty; and weeping actual tears when he mentioned the possible event of the King’s death. This duteous dew was followed by a joke on Harry Vane[111], formerly his tool and spy, now in that office to the Pelhams, and a wonderful Lord of the Treasury, who, whenever he was drunk, told all he knew, and when he was sober more than he knew, and whom Lord Bath said, on seeing there, he did not mean to propose removing. Then soaring up to a panegyric on the Princess, he observed, that female reigns in England had not been the least glorious, and yet the great Princess, who was likely to figure with the Elizabeths and the Annes, would not be empowered to reward merit, or to place, if she found such an one, a proper person at the head of the Treasury: that she even would not have authority to appoint her own son, Prince Edward, Lord High Admiral, nor to grant convoys to any merchants who solicited for them: that indeed she might tell the merchants she would use her interest with Parliament to get this Bill altered, and then she would protect them. He then (it is very true he said so) wished that all employments were for life, or _quam diù_ those who held them _se benè gesserint_; and professed (it is even true that he professed) having been ashamed of the struggles he had seen for places, half of which he wished were to be diminished at the King’s death, and the salaries to be applied to the Sinking Fund: that, having been lately in France, he had observed that the weight of their debt is the debts on employments. He concluded with declaring he liked the Bill, and did not mean to oppose it.