did not depend upon their deliberations as a House of Parliament,--it
rested elsewhere. There was then a person in the kingdom, different from
any other person that any existing precedents could refer to,--an Heir
Apparent, of full age and capacity to exercise the royal power. It
behoved them, therefore, to waste not a moment unnecessarily, but to
proceed with all becoming speed and diligence to restore the Sovereign
power and the exercise of the Royal Authority. From what he had read of
history, from the ideas he had formed of the law, and, what was still
more precious, of the spirit of the Constitution, from every reasoning
and analogy drawn from those sources, he declared that he had not in his
mind a doubt, and he should think himself culpable if he did not take the
first opportunity of declaring it, that, in the present condition of His
Majesty, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales had as clear, as express
a Right to exercise the power of Sovereignty, during the continuance of
the illness and incapacity, with which it had pleased God to afflict His
Majesty, as in the case of His Majesty's having undergone a natural
demise."

It is said that, during the delivery of this adventurous opinion, the
countenance of Mr. Pitt was seen to brighten with exultation at the
mistake into which he perceived his adversary was hurrying; and scarcely
had the sentence, just quoted, been concluded, when, slapping his thigh
triumphantly, he turned to the person who sat next to him, and said,
"I'll _un-Whig_ the gentleman for the rest of his life!"

Even without this anecdote, which may be depended upon as authentic, we
have sufficient evidence that such were his feelings in the burst of
animation and confidence with which he instantly replied to Mr.
Fox,--taking his ground, with an almost equal temerity, upon the directly
opposite doctrine, and asserting, not only that "in the case of the