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that their sovereign participated in the sufferings of the empire, and presented an honourable example of retrenchment in an hour of general difficulty. They ought to have consulted the glory of their royal master, and have seated him in the hearts of his people, by abating from magnificence what was due to necessity.. Instead of waiting for the slow request of a burthened people, they should have courted popularity by a voluntary surrender of useless revenue. Far more agreeable would it have been to that House to accede, than to propose; much more gracious to have observed the free exercise of royal bounty, than to make the appeal and point out what was right or what was necessary. But if ministers failed to do this; if they interfered between the be nignity of the sovereign and the distresses of his people, and stopped the tide of royal sympathy; was that a reason why the House of Commons, His Majesty's public counsellors, should desist from a measure so congenial to the paternal feelings of the sovereign, so applicable to the wants and miseries of the people?

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Lord Hyde..............

(afterwards Earl of Clarendon) Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

Earl of Sandwich................. First Lord of the Admiralty.

Lord Viscount Townshend... Master General of the Ordnance.

Charles Jenkinson, Esq.......

(afterwards Earl of Liverpool)

Right Hon. Richard Rigby...
Welbore Ellis, Esq................................

Secretary at War.

Paymaster-General of the Forces.

(afterwards Lord Mendip) Treasurer of the Navy.

James Wallace, Esq.

Attorney-General.

James Mansfield, Esq......... Solicitor-General.

Earl of Carlisle.................................

William Eden, Esq.......... (afterwards Lord Auckland)

Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

Secretary to do.

The natural benificence of the royal heart would be gratified by the seasonable remittance. And surely it was no reason, because ministers failed to do their duty, that the House should cease to attend to theirs. Acting as the faithfui representatives of the people, who had trusted them, they ought to seize on every object of equitable resource that presented itself; and surely none were so fair, so probable, or so flattering, as retrenchment and economy. The obligations of their character demanded from them not to hesitate in pursuing those objects, even to the foot of the throne; and, actuated by duty, to advise the crown to part with useless ostentation, that he might preserve necessary power; to abate a little of pomp, that he might ascertain respect; to diminish a little of exterior grandeur, that he might encrease and secure authentic dignity. Such advice would become them, as the counsellors of His Majesty, and as the representatives of the people; for it was their immediate duty, as the Commons House of parliament, to guard the lives, the liberties, and the properties of the people The last obligation was the strongest; it was more immediately incumbent upon them to guard the properties, because they were more liable to invasion by the secret and subtle attacks of influence, than either their lives or liberties-it would not derogate from the real glory of the crown to accept of the advice. It would be no diminution of true grandeur to yield to the respectful petitions of the people. The tutelage of that house might be a hard term; but the guardianship of that House could not be disgraceful to a constitutional king. The abridgment of useless and unnecessary expense could be no abatement of royalty. Magnificence and grandeur were not inconsistent with retrenchment and economy, but, on the contrary, in a time of necessity and of common exertion, solid grandeur was dependent on the reduction of expense. And it was the general sentiment and observation of the House, that economy was at this time essentially necessary to national salvation. This had been the language of the noble lord* on the other side of the house, and he had declared, that, if the bill then before

* Lord Nugent.

the House had provided that all the monies to be derived from the reductions proposed were to be applied to the public service, he would have given his hearty concurrence in it, and would have become one of its warmest advocates. Here then he begged leave to join issue with the noble lord. He had said, that the savings were to be appropriated towards a fund for creating a provision for the royal family; and this clause he had found in the bill before them. He begged to inform the noble lord, that there was a clause in the bill which expressly stated that the monies arising from the reductions proposed should be directly applied to the public service. The only merit that he could claim in a competition with the noble lord was, that his eyes were somewhat younger than his, and he would read the clause to which he alluded. He here read the following clause:

"And it is hereby enacted by the authority aforesaid, that all salaries, lawful fees, perquisites, and profits whatsoever, belonging to all and every the offices by this act suppressed, shall cease and determine with the determination of the said offices severally, and be no longer paid; and that the commissioners of the treasury shall, within a reasonable time, make, or cause to be made up, an account of the salaries and fees now payable for or on account of the said offices severally, as also an account of all the charges whatsoever, ordinary or extraordinary, incurred for, or by reason of the said offices, during (a certain number) of years last past; and shall cause a sum, to the amount of a medium of the said salaries, fees, and charges, to be annually set apart, and a separate account to be kept of the same, and to carry the said sum or sums of money, together with the amount of each and every pension as it shall fall or determine, until the said pension-list be reduced to a sum to be limited by the act (except as in this act otherwise provided) to the sinking fund, there to remain for the disposition of parliament." This was the clearest refutation of the noble lord's assertion; but his error seemed to have arisen from his having taken notice of another clause in the act, which ordains that the monies appropriated to the payment of annuities to be granted

to those persons whose places were to be abolished, should be placed in a fund, as they should arise by the death of the annuitants, to create a provision for the royal family. This was the error of the noble lord; he had mistaken this provision for all the savings of the plan; unless indeed he imagined that to place money in the sinking fund, subject to the disposal of parliament, was not to apply it to the public service. He might consider the blind profusion of the minister as the public service; and unless it had been left to him to be mismanaged and squandered in his usual way,. it was not applying it, in his opinion, to the public service. He trusted the house would excuse him for having wantoned with their patience on this point; and he, for his own part, should think his time and labour very well repaid, if thereby he had been fortunate enough to gain over so powerful an assistant and friend as the noble lord to the principle of the bill.

It had been said by an honourable gentleman who spoke early in the debate, that the bill connected two objects that ought to have been kept separate. His honourable friend * near him had shewn that these objects ought to go hand in hand together; and had very properly contended that this was the fit moment for introducing reform and economy. He should add, that the bill had a third object, much more important than either of these, and that was, the reduction of the influence of the crown -that influence, which the last parliament, by an express resolution, had declared to be increasing, and that it ought to be diminished—an influence, which was more to be dreaded, because more secret in its attacks, and more concealed in its operations, than the power of prerogative. All these objects were not only compatible with each other, but they had a mutual connection, and ought not to be divided in a measure of reformation.

In all the arguments of the noble lord who spoke last, on the subject of the resolutions of the 6th of April, he observed the noble lord's objections were directed solely to the second of * Mr. John Townshend.

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these resolutions; he took it for granted, therefore, that the noble lord admitted the first. That resolution pledged the House to do something effectual, in compliance with the petitions of the people. Why then should the House refuse to adopt the present bill, the operation of which, in diminishing the influence of the crown, rendered it, in his opinion, much more valuable than the mere consideration of the saving it would effect?

But it had been said, that the saving was inmaterial — it was a matter of trifling consideration, when measured by the necessities, or the expenses of the time. It proposed to bring no more than 200,000l. a year into the public coffers; and that sum was insignificant, in the public account, when compared with the millions which we spend. This was surely the most singular and unaccountable species of reasoning that was ever attempted in any assembly. The calamities of the crisis were too great to be benefited by economy! Our expenses were so enormous, that it was ridiculous to attend to little matters of account! We have spent so many millions, that thousands are beneath our consideration! We were obliged to spend so much, that it was foolish to think of saving any! This was the language of the day, and it was by such reasoning that the principle of the bill had been disputed.

Much argument had been brought to prove the impropriety, and the injustice, of resuming a parliamentary grant; and it had been even said, that they had not a right to do so. It would be needless to attempt an answer to such a doctrine. It contained its refutation in its weakness. But it ought to be remembered, that the civil list revenue was granted by parliament to His Majesty for other purposes than those of personal gratification. It was granted to support the power and the interests of the empire, to maintain its grandeur, to pay the judges and the foreign ministers, to maintain justice and support respect; to pay the great officers that were necessary to the lustre of the crown; and it was proportioned to the dignity and the opulence of the people. It would be an ungracious task to investigate the great difference that there was between the wealth of the empire when

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