On the 30th, the bill was read for the second time. Lord Lyttelton made a fine speech against giving unconstitutional powers, such as that of appointing an unknown person Regent. It was asking them, he said, to put out their own eyes. He hinted a wish of having the Queen named, and was going to make a proposal tending that way, but was stopped by Lord Halifax, for no better reason than that her Majesty might not always be a proper Regent, though she was so then. The Duke of Newcastle having been so deep in the fabrication of the former bill, dared not object to anything similar in the present, and therefore said he had no objection but to the reserve of specifying the Regent, a power that ought not to be entrusted to any King. The Chancellor,[97] in his rough style, treated the Duke and the former bill with contempt and acrimony. The last bill, though drawn by all-wise, all-patriotic Ministers, had been, he said, most imperfect. This would correct it. Lord Lyttelton had ascribed the last bill to the late Earl of Hardwicke,[98] whom the Chancellor ridiculed, and said it had been calculated for his own power, and that of Newcastle and Pelham: and he asked bluntly why they had not substituted in that bill the Duke of Cumberland in case the Princess had died? That they were guilty, if the faults of the bill had been owing to craft. The Princess had been at that time so long resident in England, that it was reasonable to appoint her Regent. The youth of the Queen and her little acquaintance with the country rendered her less proper. Would their Lordships wish to place her Majesty in so invidious a situation, and wrest her out of her subjection to the King? Who would wish to have his own wife so independent? Would they determine that the same person should be Regent for seventeen years,[99] to whom they would entrust such power for three years? The Duke of Newcastle replied, that the age of the present King had been so far advanced as had made no substitution of Regents necessary. He had never known till within a few days, that in the eye of the law the Queen is not of the Royal Family. Lord Shelburne said the Constitution was secure in itself, and knew no minority. Parliament supplied all deficiencies. His objection was not to parts, but to the whole bill. Lord Sandwich said he was informed that our laws made no provision for a minority, but that whoever got possession of the infant King’s person, was King. In that case military force would be most likely to govern. The next thing he should dread would be a democracy: a popular orator,[100] backed by turbulent magistrates, might seize the government. Lord Temple said he appealed from Cæsar ill-advised to Cæsar well-advised; _was himself of no party, nor connected with any party_; was, and had been, against all Regency-bills. Lord Mansfield answered, that the King had heard so much of regencies formerly, that of this bill he had thought himself. If their Lordships did not think