rorogued and dissolved..... Settlement of Disputes with
Spain..... Continental Affairs..... Progress of
revolutionary Principles in England..... War in India.....
Meeting of Parliament.

{A.D. 1789}

ELECTION OF SPEAKER.

Mr. Cornwall, the speaker of the house, having expired on the 2nd of
January, business received a temporary interruption. On the 5th of that
month William Wyndham Grenville was proposed as his successor by the
friends of administration, and Sir Gilbert Elliot, by the Whigs. The
former was chosen by a majority of two hundred and fifteen against one
hundred and forty-four.

THE QUESTION OF THE REGENCY RESUMED.

On the day that the election of speaker took place, Pitt gave notice
that he should, on the morrow, lay before the house the restrictions
which he considered necessary to be annexed to the regency. Hitherto Fox
had complained of Pitt's tardiness in proposing a regency, but he now
seemed resolved to impede the progress of the minister. He was well
aware that Pitt was averse to bring the royal physicians to the bar of
the house to give evidence, yet notwithstanding he resolved that
they should be again there examined. On the very day that Pitt was to
introduce the subject of the restrictions, therefore, urged by Fox,
the member for Abingdon, Mr. Loveden, made a motion to that effect. In
support of his motion, Mr. Loveden said, that before the house proceeded
any further, they ought to know how the case now stood; what was the
present state of his majesty's health, what the degrees of alteration it
had undergone since the physicians were last examined, and whether the
probability of recovery was increasing or diminishing. This was the more
necessary he said, because contradictory reports were in circulation,
which were said to be supported by the different royal physicians. The
reports unfavourable to the king's recovery had been put forth by, or
at least was imputed to Dr. Warren, whom Pitt, in reply, treated as a
violent Whig and party man, whose wishes suggested his predictions. Pitt
also plainly intimated that he conceived gentlemen on the opposite side,
who were to form the new administration under the regency, wished
the doctor's opinion to be true. This insinuation was repelled by the
opposition as unjust and illiberal, but in the same breath they acted as
unjustly and illiberally, by falling upon Willis, the Tory doctor, and
accusing him with uttering false or