Fox replied, “that it was an absurd notion not to give the Princess the whole power of royalty, because she was not called Queen; and he hoped that the nation was not only safe from the characters of the persons who were to compose the Council, but from the constitution; and if that, and the laws already in force, were not sufficient to circumscribe the Regent, our liberties would not be safe; that if those laws would not be efficient under a Regent, how are they so under a King? That as to the precedents that had been alleged, they were urged ridiculously; must this be assented to because it was so in the days of Harry the Third, when the constitution was totally unlike what it is now? Half of the Regency nominated by Henry the Eighth were Papists, half Protestants; was that disposition preferable to a single Regent? No; it was formed for dissension; nor is there one reason to be drawn from precedent, or from the nature of our constitution. Should we follow the example of the Barons? The only reason to imitate them would be, that the times are unlike. Oxenstiern’s advice too is totally unapplicable: not,” continued he, “that I believe the Council will obstruct the Regent’s measures; I believe they will assist her: but if they should not, whoever should advise her to make a speech to Parliament to accuse her Ministers, would be guilty of a præmunire.” Pitt answered, “That the tendency of such a speech would not be to alter the plan of Regency, but to check a faction; that what he had said regarded the clause of non-amotion; and that he was of Mr. Fox’s opinion, who must have mistaken all his speech, or he all Fox’s, though the latter had said that he would not be included as agreeing for his reasons. That in any case he should not be for lodging power where there may be a temptation to prolong it.” Fox replied again, “That a Regent could not be more dangerous than a King; and imagined that Pitt had meant that the Regent’s speech should be intended to prevail on the Parliament to address her to alter the whole tenour of the Bill.” The House grew tired of their altercations, and more of General Oglethorpe, who spoke after them; and divided between nine and ten at night, when the Council clause was voted by 278 to 90; and then they adjourned the further consideration of the Bill till next day.