was removed to Kew, pursued a new line of
treatment, prohibited irritating restraints, and controlled him by
establishing influence over him. He told the committee that he had found
that such cases lasted on an average five months, and at worst about
eighteen; the other doctors, though less hopeful, held that ultimate
recovery was probable. The ministers were ready to proceed, and
reckoned that another month would see the prince appointed regent, and
that their own dismissal would follow at once.[217]

[Sidenote: _FOX ASSERTS THE PRINCE'S RIGHT._]

On the 10th Pitt moved for a committee to search for precedents. Fox
objected; it was not for parliament, he maintained, to consider who
should be regent; the Prince of Wales had a clear right to the regency,
and parliament was only qualified to decide when he should exercise his
right. When Pitt heard the authority of parliament thus called in
question, he is said to have slapped his leg and to have exultantly
exclaimed to the minister sitting beside him, "I'll unwhig the gentleman
for the rest of his life!" He declared that Fox's doctrine was in the
highest degree unconstitutional, and that no part of the royal authority
could belong to the prince unless it was conferred on him by parliament;
the question, he told the house, concerned its right of deliberation.
Fox saw his mistake, and two days later stated that the prince put
forward no claim of right; both sides agreed that he must be regent and
that before he assumed the office he must be invited to do so by
parliament; his right was an abstract question upon which it was no use
to argue. Pitt was too good a tactician to allow him to minimise the
point at issue; he denied "that the prince had any right whatever". The
difference between an irresistible claim, which Pitt acknowledged, and
an inherent right was not one merely of words; if the prince could claim
the regency as of right, parliament could not restrict his power without
his consent. The effect of Fox's false move was heightened by the folly
of Sheridan who raised a storm of indignation by a threat of the danger
of provoking the prince to assert his claim. Once again Fox made Pitt
the champion of the king and the nation against the pretensions of a
whig faction. The character of the struggle was understood, and bills
were posted with the heading: "Fox for the prince's prerogative," and
"Pitt for the privilege of parliament and the liberties of the nation".
Yet