; and
this likewise was carried _nem. con._, and ordered to be carried to
the lords. The motion for the concurrence of their lordships to these
resolutions was made by Lord Camden; and this being voted, committees
were forthwith appointed for the purposes therein specified. One of the
joint committees of lords and commons waited upon the Prince of Wales,
at Carlton-house, on the 30th of January, the anniversary of the
execution of Charles I., a day on which parliament never met for the
despatch of business, but which was not considered too sacred for the
execution of such an important commission. The reply of the prince was
brief, and to the point. He thanked the lords and gentlemen for the
communication of the resolutions agreed upon, and requested them to
assure their respective houses, that his duty to the king, his father,
and his concern for the safety and interests of the people, together
with his respect for the united desires of the two houses, outweighed in
his mind every other consideration, and determined him upon undertaking
the weighty and important trust proposed to him. At the same time, while
he accepted this trust, his royal highness took care to record what his
opinions were respecting the restrictions imposed upon his regency.
He remarked:--"I am sensible of the difficulties that must attend the
execution of this trust, in the peculiar circumstances in which it is
committed to my charge, of which, as I am acquainted with no former
example, my hopes of a successful administration cannot be founded on
any past experience. But confiding that the limitations on the exercise
of the royal authority, deemed necessary for the present, have been
approved by the two houses only as a temporary measure, founded on the
loyal hope, in which I ardently anticipate, that his majesty's disorder
may not be of long duration; and trusting, in the meanwhile, that I
shall receive a zealous and united support in the two houses and in the
nation, proportioned to the difficulty attending the discharge of my
trust; in the interval, I will entertain the pleasing hope that my
faithful endeavours to preserve the interests of the king, his crown,
and people, may be successful." On the same day, a joint committee of
lords and commons waited upon the queen at Kew Palace, and were assured
by her majesty, that out of her duty and gratitude to the king, and from
a sense of the great obligations she owed to this country, she would
accept