The people, too, have their prerogative; and I hope the fine words of Dryden will be engraven on our hearts, 'Freedom is the English subject's prerogative.'" These were the last sentences of No.45.And in the present day it will hardly be thought that, however severe or even violent some of the epithets with which certain sentences of the royal speech were assailed may have been, the language exceeds the bounds of allowable political criticism.

With respect to the King, indeed, however accompanied with personal compliments to himself those strictures may have been, it may be admitted that in asserting any responsibility whatever to the people on the part of the sovereign, even for the choice of his ministers, as being bound to exercise that choice "with wisdom and judgment," it goes somewhat beyond the strict theory of the constitution.

Undoubtedly that theory is, that the minister chosen by the King is himself responsible for every circumstance or act which led to his appointment.

This principle was established in the fullest manner in 1834, when, as will be seen hereafter, Sir Robert Peel admitted his entire responsibility for the dismissal of Lord Melbourne by King William IV., though it was notorious that he was in Italy at the time, and had not been consulted on the matter.

But as yet such questions had not been as accurately examined as subsequent events caused them to be; and Wilkes's assertion of royal responsibility to this extent probably coincided with the general feeling on the subject.[6] At all events, the error contained in it, and the insinuation that due wisdom and judgment had not been displayed in the appointment of Mr.G.Grenville to the Treasury, were not so derogatory to the legitimate authority and dignity of the crown as to make the writer a fit subject for a criminal prosecution.