refult of the total collective exigencies of the ftate. This laft is a reigning principle through my whole plan; and it is a principle which I hope may hereafter be applied to other plans.

By thefe regulations taken together-befides the three fubordinate treasuries in the leffer principalities, five other fubordinate treafuries are fuppreffed. There is taken away the whole eftablishment of detail in the household; the treafurer; the comptroller (for a comptroller is hardly neceffary where there is no treasurer) the cofferer of the household;-the treasurer of the chamber; the master of the household;-the whole board of. green cloth; and a vaft number of fubordinate offices in the department of the steward of the boufebold;-the whole establishment of the great wardrobe-the removing wardrobe ;-the jewel office-the robes;-the board of works; almoft the whole charge of the civil branch of the board of ordnance, are taken away. All these arrangements together will be found to relieve the nation from a vaft weight of influence, without diftreffing, but rather by forwarding every public fervice. When fomething of this kind is done, then the public may begin to breathe. Under other governments, a queftion of expence is only a queftion of economy, and it is nothing more; with us in every queftion of expence, there is always a mixture of conftitutional confiderations.

It is, Sir, because I wish to keep this business of fubordinate treafuries as much as I can to

gether, that I brought the ordnance - office before you, though it is properly a military department. For the fame reafon I will now trouble you with my thoughts and propofitions upon two of the greatest under treafuries, I mean the office of paymaster of the land forces or treasurer of the army; and that of the treasurer

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of the navy. The former of thefe has long been a great object of public fufpicion and uneafinefs, Envy too has had its fhare in the obloquy which is caft upon this office. But I am fure that it has no fhare at all in the reflections I fhall make upon it, or in the reformations that I fall propofe. I do not grudge to the honourable gentleman who at prefent holds the office, any of the effects of his talents, his merit, or his fortune. He is refpectable in all thefe particulars. I follow the conftitution of the office, without perfecuting its holder. It is neceffary, in all matters of public complaint, where men frequently feel right and argue wrong, to feperate prejudice from reafon; and to be very fure, in attempting the redrefs of a grievance, that we hit upon its real feat, and its true nature. Where there is an abuse in office, the first thing that occurs in heat is to cenfure the officer. Our natural difpofition leads all our enquiries rather to perfons than to things. But this prejudice is to be corrected by maturer thinking.

Sir, the profits of the pay office (as an office) are not too great, in my opinion, for its duties, and for the rank of the perfon who has generally held it. He has been generally a perfon of the highest rank; that is to fay, a perfon of eminence and confideration in this houfe. The great and the invidious profits of the pay-office, are from the Bank that is held in it. According to the prefent courfe of the office, and according to the prefent mode of accounting there, this bank muft neceffarily exift fomewhere. Money is a productive thing; and when the ufual time of its demand can be tolerably calculated, it may, with prudence, be fafely laid out to the profit of the holder. It is on this calculation, that the bufinefs of banking proceeds. But no profit can be derived from the ufe of money, which does not make it the intereft

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of the holder to delay his account. The proces of the exchequer colludes with this intereft. Is this collufion from its want of rigour, and ftrict, nefs, and great regularity of form? The reverfe is true. They have in the exchequer brought rigour and formalifm to their ultimate perfection. procefs against accountants is fo rigorous, and in a manner fo unjuft, that correctives muft, from time to time, be applied to it. These correctives being difcretionary, upon the cafe, and generally remitted by the barons to the lords of the treasury, as the best judges of the reasons for refpite, hearings are had; delays are produced; and thus the extreme of rigour in office (as ufual in all human affairs) leads to the extreme of laxity. What with the interested delay of the officer; the ill-conceived exactnefs of the court; the applications for difpenfations from that exactnefs, the revival of rigorous procefs, after the expiration of the time; and the new rigours producing new applications, and new enlargements of time, fuch delays happen in the public accounts, that they can scarcely ever be closed.

Befides, Sir, they have a rule in the exchequer, which, I believe, they have founded upon a very ancient statute, that of the 51ft of Henry III. by which it is provided, "That when a fheriff or "bailiff hath began his account, none other shall be received to account, until he that was first appointed hath clearly accounted, and that' the fum has been received *." Whether this clause of that ftatute be the ground of that abfurd practice, I am not quite able to afcertain. But it. has very generally prevailed, though I am told

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• Et quant viscount ou bailliff ait commence de accompter, nul autre ne feit refceu de acconter tanque le primer qe foit affis, eit peraccompte, et qe la fomme foit refoeu. Stat. 5% ann. dom. 1266.

that of late they have began to relax from it. In confequence of forms adverse to fubftantial account, we have a long fucceffion of pay-mafters and their reprefentatives, who have never been admitted to account, although perfectly ready to do fo.

As the extent of our wars has fcattered the accountants under the pay-mafter into every part of the globe, the grand and fure pay-mafter, Death, in all his fhapes, calls thefe accountants to another reckoning. Death, indeed, domineers over every thing, but the forms of the exchequer. Over these he has no power. They are impaffive and immortal. The audit of the exchequer, more fevere than the audit to which the accountants are gone, demands proofs which in the nature of things are difficult, fometimes impoffible to be had. In this refpect, too, rigour, as ufual, defeats itself. Then, the exchequer never gives a particular receipt, or clears a man of his account, as far as it goes. A final acquittance (or a quietus, as they term it) is scarcely ever to be obtained. Terrors and ghofts of unlaid accountants, haunt, the houses of their children from generation to generation. Families, in the course of fucceffion, fall into minorities; the inheritance comes into the hands of females; and very perplexed affairs are often delivered over into the hands of negligent guardians, and faithlefs ftewards. So that the. demand remains, when the advantage of the money is gone, if ever any advantage at all has been. made of it. This is a caufe of infinite diftrefs to families; and becomes a fource of influence to an extent, that can fcarcely be imagined, but by those who have taken fome pains to trace it. The mildness of government in the employment of ufelefs and dangerous powers, furnishes no rea-· fon for their continuance.

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As things ftand, can you in juftice (except. perhaps in that over-perfect kind of juftice which has obtained, by its merits, the title of the oppopofite vice*) infift that any man should, by the course of his office, keep a bank from whence he is to derive no advantage? That a man should be fubject to demands below, and be in a manner refufed an acquittance above; that he should tranfmit an original fin, and inheritance of vexation to his pofterity, without a power of compenfating: himself in fome way or other, for fo perilous a fituation? We know, that if the pay-mafter fhould deny himself the advantages of his bank, the public, as things ftand, is not the richer for it by a fingle fhilling. This I thought it neceffary to fay, as to the offenfive magnitude of the profits of this office; that we may proceed in reformation on the principles of reason, and not on the feelings of envy.

The treasurer of the navy is, mutatis mutandis, in the fame circumftances. Indeed all account-. ants are. Instead of the present mode, which is troublesome to the officer, and unprofitable to the public, I propofe to fubftitute fomething more. effectual than rigour, which is the worst exactor in the world. I mean to remove the very temptations to delay; to facilitate the account; and to transfer this bank, now of private emolument, to the public. The crown will fuffer no wrong, at least from the pay offices; and its terrors will no longer reign over the families of those who hold or have held them. I propofe, that thefe offices fhould be no longer banks or treafuries, but mere offices of adminiftration.-I propofe, first, that the prefent paymafter and the treasurer of the navy, fhould carry into the exchequer the whole

Summum jus fumma injuria.
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