in both houses several supporters of the government ratted, for the
prince seemed the rising sun, and he and the Duke of York openly
canvassed on Fox's side.

Nevertheless the commons approved Pitt's resolutions to the effect that,
as the personal exercise of the royal authority was interrupted, it was
the duty of the two houses to supply the defect, and that it was
necessary to determine on means by which the royal assent might be given
to bills for that purpose. None of the precedents adduced by the
committee met the present case. Fox argued that to appoint a regent by a
law was to treat the monarchy as elective, and that the two houses had
no legislative power independently of the crown; and assuming that he
was about to re-enter on office taunted the ministers with a design to
weaken their successors by limiting the powers of the regent. The
ministerial majority was 268 to 204. Pitt proposed to provide for the
royal assent by placing the great seal in a commission with authority to
affix it to the bill. This daring fiction, the only means by which a
regency could be established by enactment, was approved by 251 to 178.
On this question, and throughout the whole course of the struggle, Burke
spoke with a violence and impropriety which injured his party and
suggested a disordered mind. He called Pitt the prince's competitor,
referred to the chancellor as Priapus and as "a man with a large black
brow and a big wig," and later disgusted the house by speaking of the
king as "hurled from his throne" by the Almighty. In the lords the
proceedings followed the same lines as in the commons. Willis's account
of the king convinced Thurlow that he was playing a wrong game, and when
the question of the prince's right was discussed in the lords' he spoke
strongly on the government side. Several members of the lower house were
present to hear him. He referred to the favours he had received from the
king, "When I forget them," he said, "may God forget me!" "Forget you!"
said Wilkes with exquisite wit, "He will see you damned first." "The
best thing that can happen to you," said Burke. Pitt left the house
exclaiming, "Oh, the rascal!" On the 25th Thurlow formally severed his
connexion with Fox. After a warm debate the ministerial resolutions were
affirmed by the lords by 99 to 66.

[Sidenote: _RESTRICTIONS ON THE REGENT'S POWER._]

The restrictions which the cabinet proposed to place on the power of the
regent were laid before the