There was not the least chance that the Commons would send up to the Lords a vote in favour of the plan of Regency: but, if such a vote were sent down from the Lords to the Commons, it was not absolutely impossible that many even of the Whig representatives of the people might be disposed to acquiesce rather than take the grave responsibility of causing discord and delay at a crisis which required union and expedition.

The Commons had determined that, on Monday the twenty-eighth of January, they would take into consideration the state of the nation.

The Tory Lords therefore proposed, on Friday the twenty-fifth, to enter instantly on the great business for which they had been called together.

But their motives were clearly discerned and their tactics frustrated by Halifax, who, ever since his return from Hungerford, had seen that the settlement of the government could be effected on Whig principles only, and who had therefore, for the time, allied himself closely with the Whigs.

Devonshire moved that Tuesday the twenty-ninth should be the day.