Expenditure of the Civil List.

grooms, farriers, smiths, saddlers, and all other trades any way connected with the stables. He has the privilege of applying to his own use one coachman, four footmen, and six grooms, in the king's pay, and wearing the king's livery. In any solemn cavalcade he rides next behind the king. Besides these officers, the lord privy seal, whose office is to put the seal to all charters, grants, and pardons, signed by the king;* the lord president of the council, whose office is to manage the debates in council, to propose matters from the king, and to report to him the resolutions thereupon; and the commissioners of the treasury may be considered as part of the household.

"

The little necessity for this immense establishment was sufficiently evident during the limitations on the Regency. At that time the Regent discharged all the duties of the Executive with only his establishment as Prince of Wales. It did not appear then, no more than now, there was any want of attendance to give dignity and efficiency to the first magistrate. Burke mentions in his time, that at least one half the household was kept up solely for influence. He also mentions that one plan of reform, set on foot by lord Talbot, was sud denly stopped, because forsooth it would endanger the situation of an honourable member who was turnspit in the kitchen! Whether the duties of this important office continue to be discharged by a member of the honourable house we are not sure; but in looking over a list of the household, we observe that two noble lords occupy situations little inferior in dignity and utility: the duke of St. Albans is master of the hawks, salary £1372, and the marquis Cornwallis is master of the dogs, salary £2000. These offices sound rather degrading to vulgar ears; but "love," as the poet says, "esteems no office mean;" and no doubt it is the love of the sovereign rather than £3000 of the public money which actuates these noble personages. In 1811 there were no fewer than twenty-six peers and four commoners, who held situations in various departments of the household.

The parade of useless offices is not less great, and still more ridiculous, in the counties palatine of Durham and Chester, and the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall, and the principality of Wales. These have all separate establishments, sufficient for the government of a kingdom, while their jurisdic tion is confined to a few private estates. There are courts of chancery, ecclesiastical courts, chancellors, attorney-generals, solicitor-generals, privy

* Before the privy seal is affixed to any instrument, it receives the royal sign manual; it then passes under the signet, which is a warrant to the privy seal; after the privy seal, it receives the great seal from the lord chancellor, which is the finale. The performance of these different formalities costs costs the public perhaps £30,000 a-year, while the whole of the duties might be discharged as well by any honest man and his clerk, for about £400 a-year.

Expenditure of the Civil List.

counsellors, registrars, cursitors, prothonotaries, auditors, and all the other mimicry of royal government. They bring nothing into the public treasury, but greatly add to the patronage of the crown, whose dignity they degrade. In one part of his kingdom the sovereign is no more than prince of Wales; go to the north, and he dwindles down to the duke of Lancaster; turn to the west, and he appears in the humble character of earl of Chester; travel a few miles farther, the earl disappears, and he pops up again as count palatine of Lancaster. Thus does the king, like Matthews in the plays perform all the different characters in his own drama.

The landed estate of the crown, and the royal forests and forest-rights, form another great source of abuse and patronage. These ought all to be sold, with the exception of those houses, gardens, and parks, which are necessary for the king's residence. They are now greatly neglected; in the hands of private persons they would afford employment to the people; the produce would be greatly increased; and many individuals relieved of the grievance of forest-rights, which extend over their possessions.

But here again there is the old obstacle to improvement, which we meet in every department; there are many good places attached to the crown lands, of which the chief duty is to receive the salary. That neat, civil, ci-devant jacobin, Mr. Huskisson, would lose his situation, and all the influence attached to it, as commissioner of woods and forests. Then there are the two chief-justices in Eyre, with salaries of £4566 for nothing; and their numerous train of dependents, they too would be sacrificed. In fact, it can not be done we must go on with our subject.

Having finished the royal household, and other great heads of expendi ture, we shall only briefly enumerate the minor charges on the civil list. The first is the salaries of the foreign ministers and their secretaries, and the charges of the different consuls abroad. The expense for the out-fit, and service of plate to these gentlemen, is also very considerable; but these appear under the head of deficiencies of the civil list, and do not form a part of the ordinary charges.

The next charge is the salaries of the judges, the commissioners of the treasury, and chancellor of the exchequer. With the exception of pensions, which amount to a very considerable sum, and certain occasional payments, there are no other charges on the civil list.

We shall now give a general statement of the amount of all the different charges of which we have been speaking, for seven years preceding the appointment of the regency, distinguishing each year, and the estimated charge in 1804. The statement is compiled from an account laid before parliament, and ordered to be printed, 2d of March, 1812.

Expenditure of the Civil List.

ids of

This statement merely exhibits the total sums under the different heads expenditure for seven years. We have selected the period from 1805 to 1811, because it exhibits the ordinary charge on the civil list under the King's government, prior to the Regency. To show the nature, necessity, and influence of these different branches of expenditure, it will be necessary to give a more particular analysis of each class. This we will do in the order in which they stand. And, first, of the

Royal Family.-We have already remarked that the incomes of the princes and princesses, are principally paid out of the consolidated fund, and it is only a few small annuities which are payable out of the civil list. We will lay before the reader a correct statement of the total sums which are annually drawn out of the pockets of the people, by the different members of the family. A more particular account will be found in our List of Places under their respective names.

* This includes £2500 payable out of the civil list, omitted in our List of Places, &c.

Expenditure of the Civil List.

Here then is the present annual cost of a single family to the people ofEngland. Will any body assert there is no room for retrenchment? Ought the people quietly to submit to such abominable profusion, when agriculture and commerce are paralysed by taxation, and the industrious artisan is famishing on five shillings a week? Will any part of the community be so stupid and so unjust to the rest of their countrymen, as to form armed associations, to defend such shameless, such unfeeling extravagance? This statement includes no charge for ambassadors, for the salaries of judges, nor pensions, nor any other extraneous item; it is the mere personal cost of fourteen individuals'; and for what? What use are they? What services do they render the state? Do they fight its battles? Do they conduct its negotiations? Do they administer justice to the people? No: they do none of these; they neither grace the country by their wisdom; spread its fame by their valour; nor conciliate the people by a just and equitable administration of its laws. Their office is as useless as that of the gilded ball on the dome of St. Paul's; and their labours as valueless as the labours of any fourteen paupers in the kingdom.

The late queen had £58,000 a-year, besides £10,000 a-year for taking care of the king. The princesses haye various sums on the Irish pensionlist, besides a contingency of £30,000, to commence on the death of his majesty. Of the Regent's income, as prince of Wales, £50,000 is set apart for the payment of his debts. His privy purse is exactly of the same nature as the privy purse of the king; it has no ostensible object: his attendants, and every other department of his establishment, are supported out of other funds: the only objects to which it can be applied are gratuities and pensions to favourites, mistresses, or such objects as vice or caprice may suggest.

We have already said, that till the present reign, no such thing as a privy purse was known. But now the evil is twofold; for, behold! there are two privy purses; one for his gracious majesty the King, and another for his royal highness the Regent. Should the prince become incapable, like his father, the public may prepare for another privy purse for the duke of York. Already the private property of the crown, including the king's income from the duchy of Lancaster and the two privy purses, amounts to £140,000 ayear; a sum wholly unknown to the constitution, and even the practice of any former reign.

Of the immense sums the public have advanced to pay the debts of the crown and the Regent, we cannot just now give any estimate. The different Branches of the royal family had received out of the admiralty droits, from 1793 to March 1818, £209,848. The WHIGS, while in office, gave to the..