of the public money were, in all the great revenue offiées, conducted and managed with the utmost purity and fidelity. The evil consequences of a contrary practice were too obvious to need illustration. He would, therefore, proceed to shew, that abuses in offices of revenue really existed, and that to a very great and alarming amount. And first, he would say something with regard to fees, gratuities, and perquisites. To instance one office only; in the navy-office, when an enquiry was instituted by the late Board of Treasury, with a view to prepare the present bill of reform, the answer given was, that there were no fees received by that office. Upon a closer examination of the matter, however, it afterwards came out, that although there were no fees, received as such, yet that money, to a very considerable amount was received by some of the officers, under the name of gifts: thus, for instance, the chief clerk of the navy-office received a salary of about 240 or 250l. a-year, and it turned out that he received no less than 2500l. in gifts. Other clerks with smaller salaries received gifts in proportion. Mr. Pitt dwelt for some time on this fact, and urged, that the public were liable to have great frauds practised upon them, if those, in whose hands the means of check and controul were placed, were in the practice of receiving what certainly might be termed the wages of corruption. In the particular instances of those officers of the public yards, who were entrusted with the delivery of stores, the House must see that the practice was big with the most dangerous mischief. Mr. Pitt further stated, that in various other cases, the practice prevailed to an alarming degree, and mentioned a particular contract that had been deemed a very easy one, insomuch so, that it had been a matter of wonder how it could be fulfilled on terms so extremely reasonable. The solution of the enigma was, however, as easy as any solution could be, since it was only recollecting that the officers, who were to pass the contractor's accounts, to see that his contract was duly and faithfully executed, and to report, if they found the contrary to be the fact, were each of them in the pay of the contractor. In order, therefore, to put a stop to these abuses, and to prevent any more

of this infamous traffic between the clerks in office, immediately concerned in checking, passing, and expediting the accounts of persons employed in serving the public with different articles, and those persons themselves, he said, the aim of one clause of the bill was to establish and ascertain the actual amount of all the fees hereafter to be taken, and to appoint an officer in each office to receive the fees thus established.

While he was upon this part of the subject, he took notice of what had fallen from Mr. Burke a few days since, and said, that honourable gentleman had charged the two late Secretaries of State with having unprecedentedly and illegally extorted enor. mous fees for passports. [Mr. Fox and Mr. Burke said across the House, there never was any such charge made.] Mr. Pitt, observing the contradiction, said, he averred it on his recollection, that the charge was as he had declared it to be. He then explained the matter, by stating, that when passports had been applied for on the conclusion of the peace, enquiry was made what had been the custom and usage of the office in that particular, when the noble lords, then Secretaries of State, were each informed what the uniform practice had been, and that practice they very naturally followed. Upon the matter being complained of as a grievance, one of the noble lords had declared, he had no objection to abide by the decision of a court of law, and had in the mean time stopped the distribution of the fees so taken. So far, therefore, had the honourable gentleman, who had moved for the account of passports granted, been from bringing forward any thing adverse to the bill under consideration, that he was free to confess his obligations to the honourable gentleman in that particular, since the honourable gentleman had thereby fortified him with a very strong argument in support of the bill, and in proof of the necessity of such a bill's passing. In order to shew that he felt the matter in that way, he declared, he meant to move for an instruction to the committee, to insert a clause to 'make the bill extend to the fees taken in the Secretaries of State's office, as well as in the others already enumerated in the first clause of the bill. ''

He also took notice of a remark made by Mr. Sheridan a few days ago, who had charged the late board of treasury with having created a new fee at the very time that they professed to be employed in forwarding plans of economy and reform respecting office-fees in general. Mr. Pitt said, the charge was ill-founded, and he went into an explanation of the subject-matter of it, declaring that the lords of the treasury had acted therein solely upon the ground of custom: that the matter related to a sum claimed as a gratuity upon contract, which the treasury, as a custom and usage were proved to have warranted such gratuities, and as the regulations intended relative to such points were not at the time carried into execution, had allowed to be taken. [Mr. Pitt produced and read the treasury minute that had been made on this occasion, in proof of what he asserted.] In the course of speaking of fees, he also mentioned the place of the secretary of the post-office, who, with a salary of 500 or 6007. made an annual income of upwards of three thousand. Mr. Pitt stated this to arise from his having two and a half per cent. on all packets; and in the last year of the war, he said, 140,000l. had been expended in packets, so many were either lost at sea or taken. He likewise alluded to the salaries of the two secretaries of the treasury, which he stated at 2000l. a-year during peace, but said they swelled to 5000l. a-year during war.

After very amply discussing the subject of official abuses in respect to fees, perquisites, and gratuities, he proceeded to the other parts of the bill, promising not to take up the time of the House in saying much on those, which were admitted by the noble lord to be proper objects of reform. The sale of places certainly ought to be checked, and so likewise ought some regulations to be made respecting the superannuation of officers, and the appointment of persons to discharge the duty of such as may have leave of absence. He would mention one instance of the latter species of abuse, which, he trusted, would sufficiently demonstrate the necessity of some immediate reform. Previous to the existence of the last board of treasury, a practice had obtained of the occasional superannuation of the stampers of the stamp

office, when the commissioners of the treasury each appointed a stamper, regularly one after the other in turn, as real vacancies happened, or as artificial vacancies were created. It also pretty generally was the practice for each commissioner to appoint one of his own servants, and instantly to grant him a leave of absence, which leave of absence was constantly renewed for six months, every half year; so that in fact the place was a sinecure to the servants appointed, and all the business was done by a deputy. This abuse the last board of treasury had stopped as far as in them lay, and he meant in this bill to give the regulation in this particular the sanction of an act of parliament. The creation of new offices unnecessarily, was equally a matter that called for reform. It was pregnant with abuse, and could produce no possible good to the public.

The next article the bill stated its intention to reform, was the improvident expenditure of the public money in what were termed incidental expenses; under which head were comprehended, the supply of persons in office with coals, candles, furniture, &c. This, he observed, was subject to great abuse, and had in some instances been carried to a most absurd and indefensible extent, there being in existence, to his knowledge, various proofs of officers having not only made no scruple to order the different articles at the expence of the public, to their dwelling-houses in town, but even to their houses in the country, and that at a most extravagant rate.

The clause Mr. Pitt next spoke of, was the clause relative to work done in the houses held under government. The abuses under this head, he declared, it appeared from enquiry, were very great. He mentioned the expense of repairing the house in Downing-street, in which he had the honour to be lodged for a few months. The repairs of that house only, had, he said, but the year or two before he came into office, cost the public 10,000l. and upwards; and for the seven years preceding that repair, the annual expense had been little less than 500. The alterations that had cost 10,000l. he stated to consist of a new kitchen and offices, extremely convenient, with several comfortable lodging

rooms; and he observed, that a great part of the cost, he had understood, was occasioned by the foundation of the house proving bad. Nor had the house of the chancellor of the exchequer alone proved a source of expense. Other houses belonging to the public in Bushy Park, at Hampton Court, and elsewhere, though they had not cost so much, had followed at no very considerable distance, and would be allowed, when the charges were ascertained, to have kept their pace in tolerably regular gradations.

He at length came to the latter clauses of the bill, those respecting the improvident consumption of stationary wares by the offi cers of the different departments of government. The abuses under this article of charge were, he said, almost incredible, and the mode of abuse in some instances truly ridiculous. He had even heard of rooms being papered with stationary at the expense of the public, and of other as unjustifiable uses of it. The annual charge on account of stationary wares, he stated to be above eighteen thousand pounds, and it would, he believed, somewhat astonish the noble lord in the blue ribbon *, when he told the House, and informed him, (for he really believed the noble lord had no idea of any such circumstance,) that the noble lord alone, as the first lord of the treasury, cost the public, the year before the last, no less than thirteen hundred pounds for stationary. Great as this sum must appear to gentlemen, he declared, that, knowing as he did, of what curious articles the bill consisted, he should not have wondered if the amount had been as many thousands as it was hundreds. One article of the bill was an item of three hundred and forty pounds for WHIP-CORD! When he mentioned this circumstance, he desired to be understood, as not intending any thing personal to the noble lord; he was persuaded, the noble lord neither connived at, nor knew of the abuse, and from that very circumstance he drew an argument in support of his bill, and in proof of the necessity of a substantial reform. The bill of the two secretaries to the treasury jointly for stationary the same year, nearly amounted to as much as the bill of the first lord; the bill of the five lords to little more than an hundred