On the Monday when the report was to be taken into consideration, however, the general sense of the House seemed to be that in a matter of such magnitude it was advisable that the House itself should examine the physicians, and this was thought the more desirable because since the examination of the Privy Council Dr. Willis and Dr. Gisborne had been called in. A committee of twenty-one members was appointed on December 8 to hear the doctors' opinions, which were naturally identical with their previous pronouncements, with which Willis agreed, except that he was emphatic in his conviction of the speedy recovery of the King; and two days later the Committee made its report to the House. It is not necessary to go into the details of the struggle between the Government and the Opposition: how Pitt proposed a committee to report on precedents of measures to carry on the government when the personal exercise of the royal authority had been prevented by infancy, sickness, infirmity, or other causes: and how Fox interrupted the harmony of the proceedings by asserting the _right_ of the Prince of Wales to the regency. It may be pointed out that there was something behind this bold assertion, for, since the heir-apparent was the natural selection for the office, Fox would scarcely otherwise have raised the point. It was indeed a foregone conclusion that the Prince would be regent, but the point at issue was whether the regency should be restricted or unrestricted. Pitt, left to himself, would undoubtedly impose conditions, but if Fox could impress the House with the belief that the Prince had the right to the office, then the regency would doubtless be unfettered. It has usually been assumed when Fox put forward his view he made a blunder--and if we regard it as a blunder, it was a very bad one; but is it not more likely that the _right_ was claimed, merely as a tactical move in the parliamentary warfare? It had the great advantage that the party advancing the theory could lose nothing by it, for the Prince must be offered the regency, while if the bluff were successful, the regency would be unrestricted. However this may have been, Fox's attempt raised a tremendous outcry, and the Prince (among whose qualities loyalty was not included) instructed the Duke of York to say in the House of Lords that, "His Royal Highness understands too well the sacred principles which seated the House of Brunswick on the throne of Great Britain, ever to assume or exercise any power, _be his claim what it may_, not derived from _the will of the people_, expressed by their representatives and your lordships in Parliament assembled."