to the public
service a third of their salary and fees from the 5th of January next
to the end of the war: this was an act of true patriotism. Before the
session closed an attack was made upon another patent place, that of
the office of registrar of the admiralty and prize courts. A bill for
regulating this office was brought in by Mr. Henry Martin, but it was
rejected by a majority of sixty-five against twenty-seven. In the
course of this last debate it was made to appear that Lord Arden, the
registrar, whose fees amounted to about L12,000 a year, had made L7000
a year more by interest and profits of suitors' money, and that he had
sometimes above L200,000 of such money employed at interest. A bill,
however, proposed by Mr. Perceval himself, which declared that the
registrar should be entitled to one-third part only of the fees of his
office, and that the remaining two-thirds should go to the consolidated
fund, was carried, though not without some opposition. This was noble
conduct on the part of Mr. Perceval; for this office had been granted in
reversion to his elder brother, Lord Arden, and after Lord Arden's death
it was to revert to Mr. Perceval himself. Its merits were, however,
lowered by the consideration that the reductions of emoluments were
not to take place till after the expiration of the existing present and
reversionary interests; that is, till after the deaths of Lord Arden and
Mr. Perceval.

CHANGES IN THE MINISTRY, ETC.

At this period the present cabinet was not only weak but distracted.
The Marquess Wellesley, indeed, who was dissatisfied with some of his
colleagues, had signified his intention of resigning almost as soon as
parliament met, although he agreed to hold office till the expiration
of the year to which the restrictions on the regent were limited. He
resigned on the 19th of February, and he was succeeded as secretary for
foreign affairs by Lord Castlereagh. Six days before the resignation of
Marquess Wellesley the regent wrote a letter to his brother, the Duke of
York, in which he began with alluding to the fast approaching expiration
of the restrictions; stated that motives of filial affection had induced
him to continue the present cabinet; adverted to the success of his
first year's administration, and expressed a hope that a new era
was arriving. He concluded with these words:--"Having made this
communication of my sentiments, I cannot conclude without expressing the
gratifica