Mr. Fox. Mr. Huffey the amount for this extraordinary year is 14.000 and odd pounds. He mentioned the table the Commiffioners had made out, and the fees taken; and after urging the House to adopt a measure which would effect a confiderable faving to the public, he declared he would not then take up more of the time of the Houfe, but would merely move for leave to bring up the clause. Mr. Huffey feconded the motion. Mr. Secretary Fox declared, that he would not touch places that had been confidered as freeholds, and negotiated as perfonal property. Of all the influence of the Crown, he knew of no fpecies of influence fo much to be dreaded as the influence of terror. Those who profeffed themselves the warmeft and moft ftrenuous advocates for extending the influence of the Crown of another kind, were, he believed, as adverse as he was to this influence of terror, because they knew that if it were suffered to be exercised in one instance, it would be exercifed in many others, and in fhort that it would shake the whole kingdom. He therefore was determined to refift it wherever the attempt was made to exert it. He faid farther, that in all matters of reform, it was neceffary and wife to begin in as broad and intelligible a manner as poffible; he prefumed his noble friend had chofen in the prefent bill to fave whole and entire the rights of all those perfons, now in poffeffion of places in the Exchequer, for this reafon; and to fix the time for the operation of the bill to commence, at the period of the lives of fuch perfons as were in actual poffeffion of the offices it went to affect. He thought the idea a wife one, and being perfuaded, that any attempt to alter it weuld produce a bad effect, and the attempt now made the worft effect poffible, he should give the motion for leave to bring up the claufe his pofitive negative. Mr. Huffey declared, he had fcarcely ever heard the right honourable Secretary argue fo little to his conviction as at prefent. He then entered into argument in fupport of Mr. Pulteney's motion, and contended, that it had been plainly proved by the honourable gentleman, that the fees of the offices in queftion had never been confidered as any part of a freehold, but had in frequent inftances, from the year 1708 to the prefent time, been deemed fubject to regulation, and had in fact been regulated, fometimes by exprefs command of the Crown, fometimes by orders from the Lords of the Treafury, and fometimes in confequence of proceedings in that Houfe. Mr. Huffey faid farther, that no placeman whatever whatever had a right to carve out a freehold from the yearly grants of the public. The fums expended, and upon the iffue of which they grounded all their fees in the Exchequer, were fums voted by that House from year to year. He muft therefore deny, that any perfons fhould be allowed a right to carve out of thöfe fums a life-rent, over which the public, from whofe pockets the money was taken, had not a full power of controul. He mentioned the Exchequer with fome degree of contempt, confidered as an office of business, and faid three clerks of the Bank executed the chief of the actual duty. The Bank in fact was the Exchequer ; and from fome recent tranfactions, he declared, he was inclined to think the officers of the Exchequer not the moft fit to manage the public accounts. Perhaps if Commiffioners were appointed for the purpose, the public would be better served. Mr. Huffey added a variety of other arguments, and alluded to feveral facts which were all in fupport of Mr. Pulteney's motion. Sir Adam Ferguson was in fome fort of doubt how he should Sir Adam vote upon the question then under confideration. What the Ferguson. right honourable Secretary had faid, appeared to him to be by no means a fatisfactory anfwer to what had been urged by the honourable gentleman who made the motion; on the contrary, it had puzzled him a good deal, becaufe, if he understood it rightly, the fame argument that the right honourable Secretary had ufed to oppofe the prefent motion, applied equally to the cafe of Lord Thurlow, and proved, that if in the inftance of the Tellers in poffeffion, it were a violent injustice to attempt any reduction or regulation of their fees and emoluments, it muft in the fame proportion be a violent injuftice to force Lord Thurlow to the new regu lation of emoluments held out to all future Tellers by the bill, fince it had been agreed on all hands, that his Majefty's promise of a Tellership was given to Lord Thurlow in 1778, when nothing like the reform eftablished by the present bill was in contemplation. Sir Adam reafoned upon this very fhrewdly, and then took notice of the various inftances of interference with the fees of the Exchequer by the Crown, the Treasury, and that House, that had been mentioned in the course of the debate. He reminded the House alfo of a bill juft paffed for paying the Commiffioners of Accounts for their trouble, in which bill it was enacted that the Commiffioners fhould receive their money net and entire, without being liable to any fee in the Exchequer. Sir Adam VOL. X. Rr faid, faid, he had observed that in a life annuity bill paffed three years ago, a clause was inferted which exempted the annuity payments from all fees in the Exchequer; and it had a little furprised him, that in the life annuity bills that had passed fince, no fuch claufe was inferted. He wished to know the reafon of this; and alfo, what gave Parliament a power to control Exchequer fees in fome inftances, if it had not an univerfal power of controlling them? Ld. North. Lord North answered the queries of the honourable Baronet, and faid, nothing was eafier than to fatisfy him. The bill for life annuities paffed three years ago, directed that the annuities, made payable under the authority of that bill, fhould be payable at the Exchequer, and therefore it very naturally exempted the holders of fuch annuities from the payment of any fees. The bills for annuities fold fince, ordered the annuities to be paid at the Bank, confequently there was no occafion to direct that no fees fhould be taken at the Exchequer, when they were paid, as they were not paid there. With regard to the inftances, in which Parliament had a power of control over the Exchequer fees; whenever any new fums were levied by votes of that Houfe, and thofe fums made payable to the Exchequer, or were to pafs through that office, the Houfe had an undoubted right to direct that no fees fhould be paid on thofe fums being either received or iffued. The fees now under confideration, were not thofe fort of fees, but the antient legal fees, fanctioned by long ufage, and which certainly were a part of the life-rents of thofe who held them, and ought, in his opinion, to be held facred. His Lordship enlarged on this idea, and followed his colleague, Mr. Fox, in declaring his diflike of any attempt to attack fuch fort of freeholds, to be equal to his diflike to attack any, the most indisputable private right in the poffeffion of an individual. His Lordship afked, even if for the fake of argument he were to admit that the fees in queftion were fair objects of regulation, whether any claufe affecting a matter fo deeply interefting to the perfons concerned ought to be received and adopted, without giving the parties to be affected by it an opportunity of being heard by their counfel upon the fubject? He declared, he did not imagine above five thousand a year, or fome fuch matter could be faved by the regulation in question; and he faid, he never would confent to fpread alarm and terror from one end of the kingdom to the other upon any fuch confideration; he should therefore give his negative to bringing up the claufe. Mr. Mr. Rigby fupported Lord North: he faid, he would not Mr. Rigby. fuffer the perfons alluded to to be heard by their counsel, becaufe he would not fuffer the Houfe, if he could prevent it, to question their title to their freehold; this would be an act of prefumption; a thing the more alarming, as no one knew where it would ftop: there were perfons of the first quality in the kingdom, who enjoyed fees or emoluments under the Great Seal, fuch as the Dukes of Richmond and Grafton; and he would as foon contend to take away from the former his eftate in Suffex, as his grant on coals; and from the latter the eftate of Eufton, which he had acquired by marriage, as his grant of prezage on wines. As the Civil Lift was now establifhed, it might be desirable to refume fome of them, but fo far from fuch an idea's being founded in juftice, he would ftrenuously oppose every such attempt, fince the national faith was pledged, and they were in truth and fact as much freeholds as any private property whatever, and to be held as facred by Parliament. If refumptions of grants were countenanced, who knew but the very penfions they were in the act of paffing bills for, the penfions to Lord Rodney and Sir George Auguftus Eliott, might be next year brought under revifion, and their grants might be propofed to be refumed on a declaration, that the merits of those brave officers were not equal to fuch annui ies? A penfion had been some time fince granted to the family of the late LordChatham. Why not refume that? He did not speak this ad inviduam? Lord Chatham was indisputably a great Minifter, and deferved well of his country, but in his mind, it would be juft as warrantable to refume that penfion, as to touch the fees of the Auditor of the Exchequer. There had been penfions of a very different nature granted the laft year, penfions to Colonel Barre and Lord Afhburton. Without entering at all into the merits of thofe penfions, or faying whether he liked the men or not; if he difliked the one and the other ever fo much, being once granted, he never would give his confent to refume them. He was an enemy to the manner in which the present reform was carried on; he wished he could get back the Board of Trade, which was so neceffary at present, when all our commercial laws food in need of revifion, to which Privy Councils very little attended.If it was to root out influence in that Houfe that the Board had been abolished, the reformation had begun at the wrong end; for if the Commiffioners Rr 2 Mr. Demp fter. Commiffioners of the Treasury and Admiralty were dissolved, and these departments filled by a Lord High Treasurer, and a Lord High Admiral, fuch a measure would drive from the House, or at leaft deprive of their valuable places, eight or nine Members of Parliament. After more arguments, Mr. Rigby reverted to the queftion immediately under confideration, and declared, that the fame reason which induced him. to fupport the question the House had just difpofed of, would induce him to oppofe the prefent. He confidered the emoluments of the various offices as the legal rights of the perfons in poffeffion; and he begged the Houfe to confider to whom thofe offices were ufually given? To great and able Minifters for their public fervices! He therefore for one would not have given his confent to any part of the present bill, much less to the claufe now moved to be brought up, because fince the official emoluments of statesmen were fo cut down by modern reforms, as they were called, (though he thought they had been carried much too far) it would fcarcely be poffible to get any men of talents to take the government of the country, if fuch advantages as the places in the Exchequer were not suffered to remain, as fit rewards and inducements to excite them to accept of the pofts of Minifters. Mr. Rigby concluded with declaring he should oppofe the motion. Mr. Dempfier was for the fpirit and intention of the motion, but it might endanger the bill. At length the queftion was negatived. The bill with the amendments was then ordered to be engroffed. July 8. The House went into a Committee on the bill for appointing Commiffioners to enquire into, and report upon the claims of the Loyalifts. Lord John Sir Adam Sir Adam Ferguson mentioned a cafe of peculiar hardship, Ferguson. which he earneftly recommended to the Commiffioners. It was the cafe of a Mr. M'Knight, who had fitted out a fhip to carry relief to the King's troops and friends in America, but which was captured and condemned, under the prohibi tory |