14th.--The Regency Bill was read a second time, and opposed only by Mr. Delaval, in a very absurd speech, which he asked pardon for not having made the day before, which was the first of his sitting in Parliament.
16th.--The House went into the Committee on the Regency Bill, when Mr. Pelham, who had apprehended no considerable opposition, was in the Chair. T. Pitt moved to refer the King’s Message to the Committee; Vyner to adjourn till the Bill could be printed; but as the House generally suffered him to be singular in his opinion, nobody seconded him now. Prowse, who affected to be in Opposition, what Mr. Pelham affected to be in power, candid, and who was, like Mr. Pelham, a man of some sense without parts, said, “That when this Bill should be passed, he supposed the King would not remove any of the great Officers who were to compose the Regency, as they would tacitly have had the approbation of Parliament; indeed, of what must they be guilty to justify turning them out after this approbation?” That it would be quoted hereafter by ambitious subjects, who should want to engraft themselves upon the Regal Authority, that even this Parliament had strictly tied up the hands of a Princess, whom they affected so much to commend; that the Royal Power can’t be divided into many hands; and that if this Bill passed, the nation ought _indeed_ to pray for the King’s life.
Lord Strange and Sir Roger Newdigate both spoke against the Bill; and Charles Yorke, second son to the Chancellor, a young lawyer of good parts, but precise and affected, for it. He said, “That there were but two instances of a Parliamentary Regency, those of Richard the Second and Henry the Sixth, and in both those, Councils had been established by Parliament; that the confusions of those minorities flowed from the advice of Parliament not being followed: that the Duke of Gloucester, on his brother’s going to France, applied to Parliament for directions how to act, and was told by them, that his power was limited, and accordingly had only the title of Protector conferred on him: that this clause puts the Princess under a happy inability of doing wrong; and that it would quiet jealousies, if there be a subject among us who could create suspicion.”