and conduct being in such admirable keeping. Some have imagined a resemblance between him and the Emperor Tiberius. Both disappointed the expectations formed of them previous to their accession to power. One lived secluded from the sight of his subjects at the island of Capri ; the other at Windsor. Women, wine, and mere sensual indulgence formed their chief employment and amusement. Neither of them knew how to forgive, and were implacable in personal resentments. The prosecution, by the King, of the unfortunate CAROLINE, and all who supported her, was mean, ungenerous, and unrelenting. His love of dress and etiquette was coxcomical, and detracted from the regal dignity. His love of seclusion it is not difficult to explain: George IV. was a spoiled child, who, through life, had been accustomed only to do what ministered to his own gratification. In his latter days, neither his vanity nor desires were likely to be flattered by a frequent appearance in public; age had enfeebled his powers, and to mingle among the "high-born dames" of the aristocracy, to select an object to whom to cast the royal handkerchief, was not among his urgent necessities.

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To conclude: "GOD is just in all his ways!" George IV. Lord Castlereagh, Mr. Canning, and Mr. Huskisson are all gathered to their fathers, and will soon be forgotten. They lived for themselves, and the public will not cherish any lasting and grateful remembrance of their memories. The monarch expired on a chaise percée-what a death-bed for an "exquisite!" Lord Castlereagh perished by his own hands. Mr. Canning, after indulging in some unseasonable jokes on the infirmities of poor Ogden-of which no doubt he repented-died of internal inflammation. Mr. Huskisson's death was deplorable. But what ought we to learn from these catastrophes ?-Neither to envy the great, nor refuse sympathy to the unfortunate!

CONCLUSION OF THE CROWN REVENUES AND CIVIL LIST.

We shall conclude our account of the hereditary revenues of the Crown and the Civil List, with a brief recapitulation of the chief points comprised in this and the preceding chapter.

1.-The crown lands, from the earliest period of the monarchy, have been improvidently managed, and the source of endless jobbing and abuse; and the sale of these national domains would not only cut off a dangerous source of ministerial influence, but render them more productive, and effect a saving in the public expenditure.

2.-There is a large mass of floating revenue, accruing from the droits of admiralty, from the four-and-a-half per cent. fund, the ancient income of Scotland, colonial duties, escheats in cases of illegitimacy, quit-rents in the colonies, and other sources, producing, in the two late reigns, fourteen millions of money, which is neither applied directly to defray the charges of the civil list, nor to any public object, but forms a fund at the irresponsible disposal of ministers.

3. It is extremely difficult to say what funds are considered at mi

N

nisterial disposal. The instance mentioned, page 141, of remitting the customs duty on sugar is an example of the power of a Treasury Minute, to raise contributions in case of emergency. The appropriation of the surplus of the French claims is another instance. In this case, a finance-committee ascertained that a sum of £250,000 had been, by a mere order of the treasury, paid over, without the consent of parliament, to the commissioners of woods and forests, by the commission for liquidating the claims of British subjects on the French government, and subsequently expended in the alterations at Buckingham House.*

4. The immense income arising from the hereditary revenues, and other sources, and not appropriated by parliament, appears to have been chiefly expended by ministers in objects personal to themselves, the king, or royal family; in pensions and grants to their parliamentary supporters, their relatives and dependants; in the purchase of tithes and church patronage; in the building and pulling down of palaces; in payments into the privy purse; in defraying the expense of the king's household, and other outgoings, which ought to have been defrayed out of the civil list: in short, it appears that, for the last seventy years, the public has not only been burthened with an enormous provision for a civil list, but has failed to derive any advantage from those funds, in lieu of which a civil list was specially granted.

5.-The civil list granted to George IV. was to an unprecedented amount, and ought to have formed the first object of economical reduction.

6. The civil list of the late reign was settled on the basis of the extravagant expenditure during the first years of the Regency; when, from profusion in the household, and other departments, the outgoings exceeded, by more than a quarter of a million, the outgoings in the seven last years of the government of George III.

7.-Allowing for the alteration in the value of money, and the transfer to other funds of charges heretofore paid out of the civil-list, the real income of George IV. exceeded that of his predecessor fiftyeight per cent.

8.-The total income of the royal family, for the last seventy years, has been at least £100,000,000, or £1,428,571 per annum.

9.-The civil list forms the first subject for reduction; and to reduce the salaries of the subaltern servants of government, while this charge continues, without the abatement of at least half a million per annum, is futile and unjust, and does not evince a sincere desire in ministers to relieve public distress by effectual retrenchment.

10.-The vote of the first session of the reign of George IV., which left the hereditary revenues at the irresponsible disposal of ministers, and without a vast reduction in the civil-list-allowance, on account of the alteration in the value of money, and the removal of charges to other funds, was the most improvident on record; and though it was such

Mr. M. A. Taylor's motion in the House of Commons, June 23, 1828.

an one as might be expected from a body of men directly interested in the profusion they supported, still, we trust, such a pernicious precedent will not be followed on the approaching settlement of the civil-list of William IV.

Lastly. The whole subject of the crown-revenues and civil-list calls loudly for revision and inquiry; no branch of the public expenditure presenting such a mass of incongruity, abuse, and profusion. There is nothing either simple, dignified, or economical, in the present arrangement. A civil list is voted by the house of commons; of which part is given to the king, as pocket-money, by his ministers, that is, his servants; part is expended in supporting the household; part in defraying the salaries of the lords of the treasury, and in paying a part of the salaries of the judges and speaker of the house of commons; then comes a list of trifling and absurd payments to the mayor of Macclesfield, to the corporation of Lyme Regis, for repairing the pier, to schoolmasters, sealengravers, church-wardens, to the city of London for wine, to the Greenwich astronomer, to the keeper of the lions in the Tower, including extra allowance for the animals. Now, one might ask in what way is the king's dignity maintained by the civil-list being burthened with these absurd and incongruous payments? or, we might ask, where is the propriety of paying the salaries of the judges, and other public officers, partly from one fund and partly from another, some of them being paid from seven or eight different funds? Can this serve any object, except to mislead the public as to the real amount of their incomes, and keep up a system of collusion and abuse? Lastly, we might ask, where is the utility of the house of commons voting a fixed sum for the civil-list, or scrutinizing the different items of the royal expenditure, when, by another vote, it leaves immense funds, of uncertain amount, at the uncontrolled disposal of the Crown?

PRIVY COUNCIL, DIPLOMATIC MISSIONS,

AND

CONSULAR ESTABLISHMENTS.

A BRIEF notice of these subjects will appropriately follow our preceding exposition of the hereditary revenues and civil-list. In the salaries and emoluments enjoyed by the privy council, no less than in the dignity and utility of its functions, it may justly claim precedence next the Crown. The number of members of this august body is indefinite, and at the pleasure of the king; at present it is 169, comprising the royal dukes, the archbishops, the ministers, the chief officers in the royal household, the heads of the law-courts, and all the principal nobles and commoners who hold, or have held, the more important situations in the civil, military, and diplomatic service of the government. They sit during life, or the life of the king who nominates them, subject to removal at his majesty's discretion. They are bound by oath to advise the king, without partiality, affection, and dread; to keep his council secret, to avoid corruption, and to assist in the execution of what is there resolved. To assault, wound, or attempt to kill a privy counsellor, in the execution of his office, is felony.

Although the ostensible duties of the council are, to advise the king in affairs of state, yet this duty is seldom discharged; and a privy counsellor, as such, is as little the adviser of the sovereign as a peer of the realm, who is denominated the hereditary adviser of the Crown. The really efficient and responsible advisers of the king are the ministers, especially that portion of them constituting the cabinet. No privy counsellor attends in council, unless expressly summoned for the occasion; and summonses are never sent except to those counsellors who, as members of the administration, are in the immediate confidence of his majesty. The privy council, then, is an institution of state, without salaries and without duties; and, as such, would require no notice in this publication. Authors who amuse themselves and their readers in describing that "shadow of a shade," the English constitution, make a great parade of the grave functions and high privileges of "his majesty's most honourable privy council;" but practice is as widely dif

ferent from theory, in respect of this, as in respect of the representative branch of the government.

Although the privy council ex officio is little more than a nonentity, yet, from extrinsic circumstances, it is a body of great interest, and some account of it is strictly relevant to our purpose. Nearly the whole of the privy counsellors do now, or have held important offices in the state; and, in consequence of these offices, have contrived to concentrate, in their own persons, a miscellany of pensions, salaries, sinecures, and grants, which is almost incredible. The mass of taxes consumed by George III. and IV. having been set forth, we may, as an appropriate sequel, set forth the mass of taxes still annually consumed by those " grave and reverend seigniors," who were fortunate enough to enjoy the greatest share of the favour and confidence of these monarchs. Our task will be much abbreviated by the exposition of an honourable member last session of Parliament. In a committee of supply on the 14th of May, Sir JAMES GRAHAM moved "For a return of all salaries, profits, pay, fees, and emoluments, whether civil or military, from the 5th of January, 1829, to the 5th of January, 1830, held and enjoyed by each of his Majesty's most honorable Privy Council, specifying, with each name, the total amount received by each individual, and distinguishing the various sources from which the same is derived." After urging a variety of cogent arguments in support of the propriety and utility of his motion, Sir James made the following extraordinary statement, founded on documents in his possession, and which statement was not contradicted.

"He had divided the Privy Counsellors into classes, excepting from each the Royal Family, because they, having a certain income under the assignment of Acts of Parliament, there was nothing mysterious about them; and, in many cases, these assignments had been made under the sanction of bills, which had themselves undergone discussion in the House. He, therefore, excluded them altogether from his calculations upon this occasion. The total number of Privy Counsellors was 169, of whom 113 received public money. The whole sum distributed annually amongst these 113 was £650,164, and the average proportion of that sum paid to each yearly was £5,753. Of this total of £650,164, £86,103 were for sinecures, £442,411 for active services, and £121,650 for pensions, making together the total which he had stated. Of the 113 Privy Counsellors, who were thus receivers of the public money, thirty were pluralists, or persons holding more offices than one, whether as sinecurists or civil and military officers. The amount received by the pluralists was £221,133 annually amongst them all, or £7,331, upon an average, to each annually. The number of Privy Counsellors who enjoyed full or half pay, or were pensioned as diplomatists, was twenty-nine, and the gross amount of their income from the public purse was £126,175, or, upon an average, a yearly income to each individual of £4,347 a year. The whole number of Privy Counsellors who were members of both Houses of Parliament was sixty-nine, and of those forty-seven were PEERS, whose gross income from the public purse was £378,846, or, upon an average to