§ Mr. Wetherell,in rising to submit the motion of which he had given notice yesterday, observed, that as a noble lord had given notice of a motion which was unquestionably the most important that had been brought under the consideration of parliament since the year 1789, it was impossible for any gentleman to go into the examination of that question until the necessary preliminary information had been given to the House. Were he to state, as an historical fact, that for three centuries the name of a queen consort had in no instance but one, that of the consort of George 1. been omitted in the Liturgy, he had no doubt that he should get credit for having stated the fact correctly; but he apprehended that, in parliamentary practice, such an important question ought not to be decided without a regular authentication of the facts by which the decision of the House was to be regulated. When he first proposed to move for certain papers on this subject, it had been supposed by the right hon. the chancellor for the duchyr of Lancaster, that he intended to move for a whole magazine of prayer-books. This however, was not the case. From the reign of James I. down to the present time, there were only seven instances in which he wished to know what the practice had been; and therefore the first branch of his motion would only require that seven short collects should be extracted. The two other documents which 104 he wished to be produced were, an extract from the form of prayer annexed to the act of Conformity, and a copy of the order in council for the omission of her present majesty's name. To the production of those papers he did not anticipate any opposition. He might state at the same time, that he did not want them for his own information, as he had long ago been supplied with them by a gentleman in the University of Oxford, whose attention had at an early period been directed to this order in council. The learned member concluded by moving for the documents he had mentioned.
Lord Castlereaghhad no objection to the production of the documents now moved for, although at the same time he saw no necessity for the motion, as facts of a similar kind were often stated in debate, and assumed as true, without any official authentication. His opposition to the motion of the learned gentleman, on a former occasion, had proceeded from the unusual, and, as he conceived, not very prudent moment at which it was brought, forward.
§ The motion was agreed to.