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palatine of Lancaster do not yield, as I have reason to believe, on an average of twenty years, four thousand pounds a year clear to the crown. As to Wales, and the county palatine of Chester, I have my doubts whether their productive exchequer yields any returns at all. Yet one may say, that this revenue is more faithfully applied to its purposes than any of the rest; as it exists for the sole purpose of multiplying offices and extending influence.

An attempt was lately made to improve this branch of local influence, and to transfer it to the fund of general corruption. I have on the seat behind me, the constitution of Mr. John Probert; a knight-errant dubbed by the noble lord in the blue riband, and sent to search for revenues and adventures upon the mountains of Wales. The commission is remarkable; and the event not less so. The commission sets forth, that "Upon a report of the deputy auditor (for there is a deputy auditor) of the principality of Wales, it appeared, that his Majesty's land revenues in the said principalities are greatly diminished;"-and "that upon a report of the surveyor-general of his Majesty's land revenues, upon a memorial of the auditor of his Majesty's revenues within the said principality, that his mines and forests have produced very little profit either to the public revenue or to individuals;"—and therefore they appoint Mr. Probert, with a pension of three hundred pounds a year from the said principality, to try whether he can make anything more of that very little which is stated to be so greatly diminished. "A beggarly account of empty boxes." And yet, Sir, you will remark-that this diminution from littleness (which serves only to prove the infinite divisibility of matter) was not for want of the tender and officious care (as we see) of surveyors-general and surveyors-particular; of auditors and deputy auditors; not for want of memorials, and remonstrances, and reports, and commissions, and constitutions, and inquisitions, and pensions.

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Probert, thus armed, and accoutred-and paid, proceeded on his adventure; but he was no sooner arrived on the confines of Wales, than all Wales was in arms to meet him. That nation is brave and full of spirit. Since the invasion of King Edward, and the massacre of the bards, there never was such a tumult, and alarm, and uproar, through the region of Prestatyn. Snowden shook to its base; Cader Idris was

loosened from its foundations. The fury of litigious war blew her horn on the mountains. The rocks poured down their goatherds, and the deep caverns vomited out their miners. Everything above ground, and everything under ground, was in arms.

In short, Sir, to alight from my Welsh Pegasus, and to come to level ground; the Preux Chevalier Probert went to look for revenue like his masters upon other occasions; and, like his masters, he found rebellion. But we were grown cautious by experience. A civil war of paper might end in a more serious war; for now remonstrance met remonstrance, and memorial was opposed to memorial. The wise Britons thought it more reasonable that the poor, wasted, decrepit revenue of the principality should die a natural than a violent death. In truth, Sir, the attempt was no less an affront upon the understanding of that respectable people, than it was an attack on their property. They chose rather that their ancient, moss-grown castles should moulder into decay, under the silent touches of time, and the slow formality of an oblivious and drowsy exchequer, than that they should be battered down all at once, by the lively efforts of a pensioned engineer. As it is the fortune of the noble lord, to whom the auspices of this campaign belonged, frequently to provoke resistance, so it is his rule and nature to yield to that resistance in all cases whatsoever. He was true to himself on this occasion. He submitted with spirit to the spirited remonstrances of the Welsh. Mr. Probert gave up his adventure, and keeps his pension-and so ends "the famous history of the revenue adventures of the bold baron North, and the good knight Probert, upon the mountains of Venodotia."

In such a state is the exchequer of Wales at present, that upon the report of the treasury itself, its little revenue is greatly diminished; and we see, by the whole of this strange transaction, that an attempt to improve it produces resistance; the resistance produces submission; and the whole ends in pension.1

1 Here Lord North shook his head, and told those who sat near him, that Mr. Probert's pension was to depend on his success. It may be so, Mr. Probert's pension was, however, no essential part of the question; nor did Mr. B. care whether he still possessed it or not. His point was, to show the folly of attempting an improvement of the Welsh revenue under its present establishment.

It is nearly the same with the revenues of the duchy of Lancaster. To do nothing with them is extinction; to improve them is oppression. Indeed the whole of the estates, which support these minor principalities, is made up, not of revenues, and rents, and profitable fines, but of claims, of pretensions, of vexations, of litigations. They are exchequers of unfrequent receipt, and constant charge; a system of finances not fit for an economist who would be rich; not fit for a prince who would govern his subjects with equity and justice.

It is not only between prince and subject, that these mock jurisdictions, and mimic revenues, produce great mischief. They excite among the people a spirit of informing and delating; a spirit of supplanting and undermining one another. So that many, in such circumstances, conceive it advantageous to them rather to continue subject to vexation themselves, than to give up the means and chance of vexing others. It is exceedingly common for men to contract their love to their country into an attachment to its petty subdivisions; and they sometimes even cling to their provincial abuses, as if they were franchises and local privileges. Accordingly, in places where there is much of this kind of estate, persons will be always found, who would rather trust to their talents in recommending themselves to power for the renewal of their interests, than to encumber their purses, though never so lightly, in order to transmit independence to their posterity. It is a great mistake, that the desire of securing property is universal among mankind. Gaming is a principle inherent in human nature. It belongs to us all. I would therefore break those tables: I would furnish no evil occupation for that spirit. I would make every man look everywhere, except to the intrigue of a court, for the improvement of his circumstances, or the security of his fortune. I have in my eye a very strong case in the duchy of Lancaster (which lately occupied Westminster Hall and the House of Lords) as my voucher for many of these reflections.'

For what plausible reason are these principalities suffered to exist? When a government is rendered complex (which in itself is no desirable thing) it ought to be for some

1 Case of Richard Lee, Esq. appellant, against George Venables Lord Vernon, respondent, in the year 1776.

political end which cannot be answered otherwise. Subdivisions in government are only admissible in favour of the dignity of inferior princes, and high nobility; or for the support of an aristocratic confederacy under some head; or for the conservation of the franchises of the people in some privileged province. For the two former of these ends, such are the subdivisions in favour of the electoral and other princes in the empire; for the latter of these purposes, are the jurisdictions of the imperial cities and the Hanse towns. For the latter of these ends are also the countries of the States [Pais d'Etats] and certain cities and orders in France. These are all regulations with an object, and some of them with a very good object. But how are the principles of any of these subdivisions applicable in the case before us?

Do they answer any purpose to the king? The principality of Wales was given by patent to Edward the Black Prince, on the ground on which it has since stood.-Lord Coke sagaciously observes upon it, "That in the charter of creating the Black Prince Edward prince of Wales, there is a great mystery for less than an estate of inheritance so great a prince could not have, and an absolute estate of inheritance in so great a principality as Wales (this principality being so dear to him) he should not have; and therefore it was made, sibi et heredibus suis regibus Angliæ, that by his decease, or attaining to the crown, it might be extinguished in the crown."

For the sake of this foolish mystery, of what a great prince could not have less, and should not have so much, of a principality which was too dear to be given, and too great to be kept and for no other cause that ever I could find-this form and shadow of a principality, without any substance, has been maintained. That you may judge in this instance (and it serves for the rest) of the difference between a great and a little economy, you will please to recollect, Sir, that Wales may be about the tenth part of England in size and population; and certainly not an hundredth part in opulence. Twelve judges perform the whole of the business, both of the stationary and the itinerant justice of this kingdom; but for Wales there are eight judges. There is in Wales an exchequer, as well as in all the duchies, according to the very best and most authentic absurdity of form. There are, in

all of them, a hundred more difficult trifles and laborious fooleries, which serve no other purpose than to keep alive corrupt hope and servile dependence.

These principalities are so far from contributing to the ease of the king, to his wealth, or his dignity, that they render both his supreme and his subordinate authority perfectly ridiculous. It was but the other day, that that pert, factious fellow, the Duke of Lancaster, presumed to fly in the face of his liege lord, our gracious sovereign; and, associating with a parcel of lawyers as factious as himself, to the destruction of all law and order, and in committees leading directly to rebellion-presumed to go to law with the king. The object is neither your business nor mine. Which of the parties got the better, I really forget. I think it was (as it ought to be) the king. The material point is, that the suit cost about fifteen thousand pounds. But as the Duke of Lancaster is but a sort of Duke Humphrey, and not worth a groat, our sovereign was obliged to pay the costs of both. Indeed this art of converting a great monarch into a little prince, this royal masquerading, is a very dangerous and expensive amusement; and one of the king's menus plaisirs, which ought to be reformed. This duchy, which is not worth four thousand pounds a year at best to revenue, is worth forty or fifty thousand to influence.

The duchy of Lancaster and the county palatine of Lancaster answered, I admit, some purpose in their original creation. They tended to make a subject imitate a prince. When Henry the Fourth from that stair ascended the throne, high-minded as he was, he was not willing to kick away the ladder. To prevent that principality from being extinguished in the crown, he severed it by act of parliament. He had a motive, such as it was: he thought his title to the crown unsound, and his possession insecure. He therefore managed a retreat in his duchy; which Lord Coke calls (I do not know why) par multis regnis. He flattered himself that it was practicable to make a projecting point half-way down, to break his fall from the precipice of royalty; as if it were possible for one who had lost a kingdom to keep anything else. However, it is evident that he thought When Henry the Fifth united, by act of parliament, the estates of his mother to the duchy, he had the same pre

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