. man these jackets. Thus, when a fine athletic but not for fifty thousand ; and that, after sailor came on board, scrub him well was experience of their quality, it had been the first thing to be done, then put proper deemed advisable, when a large stock was clothing on his back, taking care, however, on hand, to reduce the amount to three that his debt to the government for these months supply, and the rest were sold. slops should be squared, so that he did not The charge to the seamen was lls. 6d., owe as much as would make it worth his the cost price being 9s. 6d. The loss was while to run away. There was nothing so not of such importance to the public, as capricious as this system of clothing. to induce the Admiralty to continue the Officers knew not, from day to day, how sale of these jackets, especially(as the seafar they were safe in the official pattern of men would so much the sooner, after they their uniforms. By arithmetic a were discontinued, obtain a comfortable might cast up his accounts, and know how suit. He had said that the jacket now he stood ; but there was no arithmetic to sold was of a much better kind at the gauge the clothing for the circle of a man's same price; but he had said, also, that as person, to regulate the rotundity of an ad- it was desirable to place the best kind miral's belly, as compared with the sparer within the reach of the seamen, the best shape of a midshipman's. Lately they that could be made were sold to them at had done away with the whole cut of the 24s., the same as were commonly selling naval uniform, and for no purpose upon at the ports for 40s. and 50s. The earth that he could understand. Why, it Finance Committee were going into all the was only last summer, that at the very points connected with the expenditure of best dinner he had ever sat, Mr. Speaker's, ihe navy. He had been twice before the he (sir Joseph) was complimented as the committee, and he could state that they best-dressed man in the room. The com- did not seem inclined to suffer any thing pliment came from his rev. friend, the to pass unnoticed. Speaker's chaplain. For forty years had Sir Joseph Yorke said, he was quite he been in his majesty's naval service, and surprised that the government, in the improvement after improvement, as it had manufacture of the Finance Committee, been called, had been made in the pattern had not put upon it one, or two, or three of his coat, until it had been reduced to professional men, connected with the navy, what they now saw, with hardly a skirt army, and ordnance, who could unravel upon it. Their coats were now reduced the matters connected with their departto trumpery jackets of the most extraor- ments with technical dexterity. Upon it, dinary appearance. It might be conveni- however, there was not a single great gun; ent for the service to shorten the jackets, no, not even a pistol, or a patterero. because it was not always fine weather; Mr. Alderman Waithman said, he could but was it equally convenient for the not help expressing his astonishment that pocket? There was the rub. How long the House should be called upon to agree was this little jacket to last? Would his to votes on account, without any statement gallant friend, in the language of the being before them, or any one point famous Liverpool speech, give him a marked out in which some reduction was guarantee that this uniform would last a to take place in the expenditure. That iwelvemonth? Would he say it would he considered to be the proper time for a not be penal to wear it at the end of the member of that House to take into bis year? He hoped the Finance Committee consideration any and all the acts of governwould look to this particular grievance. ment into which he deemed it right to in Sir G. Cockburn said, that, after his ex- quire, and to demand something like a traordinary speech, he could not help pledge from them, before he intrusted complaining of his gallant friend's not them with the disposal of large sums of being in his place on the occasion to which money which might be spent, as it appearhe had referred, as he had thought proper ed, on their own shewing, that former in so loose a manner to quote the proceed- grants had been, wastefully and extrava-. 1 ings. His gallant friend had no right to gantly. It was rather a matter of surprise, put words into his mouth which he had that an hon. gentleman should, by way of never uttered, for the sake of answering passing a high encomium on a noble duke, them in his own way. What he had have stated that a considerable effort had really said was, that an order had been been made in the Board of Ordnance, to given for a better description of jackets, ' facilitate economy. The gallant officer had stated, the other evening, that a saving 300,0001. a year, and kept two hundred of 300,0001. yearly had been effected, and and forty useless clerks? 'How could the two hundred and forty clerks discharged. members of that House agree to suspend Now, he considered that this statement their functions, and suffer government to involved the most serious charge ever delude their constituents, by throwing brought against any set of individuals every thing on the Finance Committee ? He concerned in the management of public had as much confidence in that committee affairs. It was obvious, on the face of as any member. He believed they would it, that a scandalous waste of the public honestly discharge their duties; but that money, to the extent of 300,0001. a was no reason why he should not also do year, had been continued for many his duty. No member could transfer years, and that two hundred and forty his responsibility to any body else. The useless clerks had been retained in the right hon, gentleman had taken him to public service when they were of no task, the other evening, for not having use to it; for the gallant officer had known better than to introduce, what gone on to say, that every thing was, since he called, extraneous matter on this this reduction, as effective and complete question. But he would contend, that as before. The House had a most im- this was the proper occasion. If the right portant duty to perform. They had been hon. gentleman turned to the speeches of told, that they had nothing to do with Mr. Pitt, he would find that there was not establishments, nor with the question of a single point he now urged, which had not peace or war; that it was their duty sim- been maintained by that minister. The ply to give money for the wants of the House had been told that it would be government. That, then, was the only much better to leave the consideration of time, when the supplies were under con- these affairs altogether to the Finance Comsideration, to decide whether they would mittee. So it would be infinitely better, restrain or repress the extravagance of the he agreed, for the government, if all were men who held the public purse. He, for kept out of sight of the public, and talked one, objected to the voting of any money over only in the committee. Had not the until the Finance Committee had done House had professions of economy enough? something satisfactory in explaining the Yet, had they not seen that the expendimode in which the public affairs were ture was not lowered ? This session they conducted.--He begged the attention of had voted thirty thousand seamen. Lord the House to the facts which he was about Castlereagh, in 1817, had reduced the to state. They were not charges against number to eighteen thousand. They had the present administration or the last, but voted ninety-one thousand men for the against all the administrations and all the army. Not a single man had been repersons who, during the last fourteen or duced in either service. The right hon. fifteen years, had been concerned in the gentleman had stated a most extraordinary management of public affairs. The other fact in his recent speech on the finances of evening he had stated, on the authority of the country. He had admitted, that there the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Peel), that was a deficiency of eight millions. If the there had been expended, during the last Dead-weight was included, the deficiency four years, an excess of nine millions and would be thirteen millions. How was this a half beyond the revenue of the country. to be supplied ? Government would not Now, the House knew that every year reduce the expenditure : they left all that when his majesty addressed his faithful to the Finance Committee. By act of parCommons from the Throne, he always liament they were bound to support the told them he had ordered the estimates to Sinking-fund. How, then, he asked again, be prepared with every attention to econo- was the deficiency to be supplied ? Did my. He would, however, ask the House ministers mean to raise money by a loan, whether it could be possible that ministers or by new taxes? What means had they had paid all due attention to economy—but by one or other of those courses ? whether they had not, in fact, put a false. They told the House that they would prohood into his majesty's mouth, in order to tect the public creditor. So would he ; delude that House—when they made him but that could only be effectually done by say so; as it now turned out, on their own raising money by taxes, or reducing the confession, that in one single branch of public expenditure. Without new taxes, expenditure they had wastefully spent | or a reductions of the public expenditure a the interest of the debt could not be I would, in the same manner, reduce the paid. He had taken the pains to look revenue, government would find means to into the expenditure of 1817, in order reduce the expenditure. The House had to contrast it with that of the present it all in their own power. They might do year. That year was rather an unquiet it in a moment by a stroke of the pen, by one. There were Spafields meetings, withholding the supplies. It was for the and various other disorders calculated, House to say what burthen the country in the view of government, to create should bear, and for the government to alarm; yet that very year lord Castlereagh make reductions in their establishments acstated, that the government would only cordingly. The Finance Committee could want seventeen or eighteen millions ; not judge of items, but the individuals at which he afterwards reduced, by deduct- the head of the departments could easily ing the expenditure of a former year, to decide on the reforms they would effect; about thirteen millions. If the expen- and after the important discovery of this diture since 1823 had not exceeded that saving of 300,0001. a year in the Ordnance, of 1817, there would have been a saving, the House would be criminal if they sufcompared with what it really had been, offered a single shilling to be voted on acnine and a half millions. If the expendi- count, thereby confiding in ministers who ture had been regulated according to the had so greatly abused the trust reposed statement of the Finance Committee of in them. They should compel ministers that year, or that of lord Castlereagh, the to come down with their plans of reform saving from 1817 to the present year at once, and leave the House to judge would have been within a fraction of how far they deemed them effectual. twenty-five millions. Taking the expen- Lord Castlereagh did not throw every diture at thirteen millions, the sum saved thing on the committee. He brought would be sixty-five millions. He called down a set of lowered estimates. If on the House to give its most serious at- ministers wanted to know how the public tention to this subject. Had they ever money could be saved, it was easy to point touched the estimates? Had they ever out to them where reductions might be cut down a single item? Had not minis- effected. They might get rid of two or ters defended them, and insisted that they three thousand cavalry, and they might were reduced to the lowest pitch ? His cut down ten or twelve thousand seamen. hon. friend (Mr. Hume) had endeavoured | Only a few years ago the number of seain vain to effect the saving of 5,0001. here, men was reduced to fourteen thousand. and 10,0001. there, even in that very Surely eighteen thousand seamen and one branch of the Ordnance in which such thousand marines would be fully adequate great reductions had been effected. But to the wants of the public service now. ministers had always resisted every econo- Government had gone on increasing the mical proposition; and now they asked expenditure year after year. They had for the confidence of the House, and as- laid on one hundred millions of taxes since sured it how very saving they were going the peace, and nothing had been done to become; while they admitted that they towards the reduction of the debt; for the had been justifying the most extravagant Sinking-fund had been aptly compared, waste, to the amount of 300,0001. in one on high authority, to the attempt of a department, in which two hundred and wooden-legged man to catch a hare. The forty clerks had been kept of no use to the country borrowed at sixty or seventy, and public. That House was of no use if it paid at eighty or ninety. No greater farce was merely to sit, and, by its acquiescence, or delusion was ever practised. If there give a colour to the acts of the ministry. was a surplus of revenue it would be Lord Somers had said, that “parliament wisely so applied, and a surplus there was the great inquest of the whole king- would be, if the public affairs were dom, to search into all oppression and in- managed with common economy. Не justice on the part of the king's ministers." hoped the committee would examine Had that House done so ? Had they, in minutely into the establishments, and if a single instance, thwarted the minister, ministers were not prepared to defer the excepting in the case of the Property-tax ? estimates until there had been an opThat was the only instance, and let the portunity to revise them, he would oppose House mark what followed-an immediate any grant on account. reduction of expenditure. If the House Sir C. Cole also expressed the gratifica 1 tion he felt in joining with the gallant ad- / which reference had just been made. In miral (sir J.Yorke)his surprise, that no person forming the committee, it was necessary connected with the navy, army, orordnance, to select its members from persons conhad been placed on the Finance Commit- nected with England, Scotland, and Iretee, He had looked into the estimates of land, and when the smallness of its num1792, relative to the navy, and those for ber was considered, it would be perceived the present year; and he held it to be a that it was by no means easy to place great injustice to make a comparison be upon it all those members who had turned tween them. He would go back to the their attention to finance, and whose asyear 1792, when he was serving in the sistance could scarcely be dispensed with. East Indies. The squadron then was It was the limitation as to numbers which nearly equal in force to that now employed prevented the introduction of any members on duty there, though this country had of the army or navy on the committee. then a smaller interest to protect. The But every military and naval man could squadron had only to watch over the two attend the committee, and lay before it sides of the Peninsula, and not quite the whatever information it was in their power whole of them; as there were some places to communicate. on the coast in possession of other Eu- The resolution was then agreed to. ropean nations. This country had since acquired immense possessions in that part ARMY ESTIMATES.] On the Order of of the world. We had now not only to the day for receiving the Report of the guard the Peninsula, but to send a part Committee upon the Army Estimates of our force into the Straits of Malacca being read, and the Persian Gulph after the pirates, Sir John Brydges said, that before the both of which places we never visited in report was brought up, he believed he 1792. Besides these, we had the Mau- should not be irregular in saying a few ritius and the Cape of Good Hope to words upon that subject. He had hoped, attend to. The service of the navy was when the provisional grants for the differnow five-fold, nay ten-fold, greater than it ent branches of the public service were was in 1792. No fair comparison could passed the other evening, including that be drawn, therefore, between the estimates for the yeomanry-corps, that some hon. of 1792 and the present year. The House member would have taken the opportunity knew, also, that there was the whole to have done that justice to them which service of South America, and of North they were so fully entitled to; but that not America, too, which had considerably in- having been the case, he should trouble creased on account of the growth of the the House shortly upon the subject. Innavy of the United States. Even in stead of offering any objection to the vote Europe, though the navy of Spain was proposed on that head, he had to express destroyed, yet every body was aware of the his regret, that it was not to a greater rise of a new naval force in Russia, more extent. It had been his intention to have effective than any that Spain had ever had. submitted a motion to that House having There were sufficient reasons for keeping for its object the consideration of the up the service of the navy in a fit state to measure of certain corps of yeomanrymeet emergencies. cavalry having been recently disbanded by Mr. Secretary Peel said, he could assure bis majesty's late ministers; but, underhis gallant friend that, in the formation of standing that it was in the contemplation the Finance Committee, nothing was fur- of the present government to make some ther from his intention than to imply the alter ion in that establishment, he had slightest disrespect to the army or navy, declined to fulfil his intentions. He felt, by omitting the names of members of however, he should be guilty of a dereliceither service in the list of that committee. tion of duty, if he suffered that grant to He could likewise assure him, that, so far pass, without shortly bringing the services from such a circumstance contributing to of those corps to the grateful recollection prevent the committee from turning its of that House and of the country at large. attention to the details of both services, He did not desire unnecessarily to impugn since its appointment two distinguished the conduct of his majesty's late ministers! military officers, members of that House, They were, happily, defunct, and peace had been examined before the committee be to their manes : all he should apply to at great length upon all the points to them was the epitaph on sir John Van, . a brugh, an architect of merit in his day; s expense which its maintenance cost the but remarkable more for the ponderosity country; and the late administration felt than the elegance of his structures- that the public at large ought not to be taxed for the support of such a force, "Lay heavy on him, Earth ; for he Laid many a heavy load on thee.” because in certain districts, and in certain times, services had been performed by it. Neither would he take up the time of the Would it be said, because a particular porHouse in eulogising that establishment, tion of the yeomanry, on a particular ocwhose loyalty, and efficient services, on all casion, had discharged their duty, that occasions, for more than a quarter of a cen- therefore the public should be burthened tury, were beyond all praise; but the cold with the expense of the entire body? It and ungracious manner in which a portion was a principle of economy which animated of it had been dismissed called upon him to the late administration in carrying this rebear this public testimony to their great duction into effect. But before the hon.' deserts. Economy was urged as the motive member cast his censure so unsparingly for their reduction : but this economy, he upon the late government on account of said, was false : it was being penny wise this measure, he would request him to and pound foolish. For how could so inquire how many members of the present cheap, and so constitutional a force be government would be included in that obtained by any other means? Disband censure. Because certain corps had been the yeomanry, and the standing army efficient in certain districts, was that a (that never-ceasing subject of vituperation reason that those corps which were perwith the Opposition) must be augmented fectly useless should be maintained at the for home service; whereas these corps, public expense ? For several years, the composed of the brave yeomanry of the yeomanry corps in the county of Devon land, the independent country gentlemen, had cost annually 14,0001. and during the and the nobility of the realm, were always last ten years they had never upon any one ready, and had been so for thirty years, at occasion been required to afford their aid considerable personal expense and incon- to the civil power. This was a sample of the venience to themselves, and at little charge system which the hon. gentleman would to the state, to leave their homes, and to support, and these were the forces for the forego their private interests, for the public reduction of which he so freely lavished his good. He concluded with expressing an censure upon the late administration. The earnest hope, that some more gratifying reduction of the yeomanry corps was and more suitable acknowledgment than effected by the late administration, because the paltry grant to the Staff only, of such it did not look forward to exist as a goas had been disbanded, would be extended vernment of force-because it did not to those who already had been, or who might desire to be a government of military hereafter be, released from the service, strength—but because it depended upon and that it would never fail to be registered its measures and its regard to the princiin the recollection of a grateful country, ples of economy, for its claim to the public that although it had not been the fortune support. By the late reduction a saving of these corps to earn Waterloo laurels, of two-thirds of the charges for the yeothey had proved themselves the patriotic manry corps had been made. Those corps protectors of their altars and their homes. which had proved themselves a really Mr. S. Rice said, he could answer for efficient and useful force had not been the noble marquis, lately at the head of reduced. He was confident that this the Home Department, that in reducing the reduction would meet with the approbation yeomanry corps, nothing was further from of the House; and the opinion of the his intention than to cast the slightest re- country, with the exception of a few flection upon any one individual connected persons who were pleased with the amusewith them, or to manifest an indifference ments of soldiery, and whose personal to the services which those corps had vanity was mixed up with the establishrendered to the public. The government ment of yeomanry corps, had been already felt grateful to the yeomanry forces for its pronounced in favour of the measure, as past services; but there was an extent one of great utility, and from which no beyond which that feeling should not be detriment could arise arise to the public carried. The extent of service rendered service. by that force bore no comparison with the Mr. Littleton said, that with him the |