I will read you from the Journals, a memorandum at the bottom of the main account: "The deputy auditor of the Exchequer having repeatedly declared the impossibility of making out an account of the Civil List expences, which incurred and became due at that office for above eight years; therefore the lords of the Treasury directed that the same should be made out in the best manner possible from the entries in the Treasury books.-The treasurer of the chamber, having informed their lordships that, from want of materials in his office, no account can be made up of the charge during the same time, the above charge inserted in this account, is therefore the amount of the several sums craved by the then treasurers of the chamber for those years, and which were actually paid upon their memorials to the Treasury. The master of the horse not having any accounts in his office, to enable him to make out the charge there, the same hath been done in respect to the expence of that office, as in that of the treasurer of the chamber. The other charges are taken from the accounts transmitted to the Treasury from the several other offices abovementioned. As it is impossible to make an annual account from the 1st Jan. to the 31st January, therefore this account is made for eight complete years, commencing the 1st January, 1761."

You may by this see the effects of your application. All tell you of the impossibility to give you an account, for all are equally unable or unwilling to give you a full, fair, and satisfactory account. The Treasury call on them likewise, but for once call in vain, and then that treasury that has expended the secret service money, that has paid the secret pensions, gives you such accounts as best suits their pleasure; then can there be, Sir, a wonder that the accounts are deemed by all unintelligible?

Lord North contradicted several of the facts, and controverted several of the deductions drawn and stated by the two hon. gentlemen. He contended, that the late king's revenue, including the 450,000l. granted by parliament to him in 1747, exceeded the average income received by his present Majesty, since his accession, even taking in the 513,000l. given in 1769; and if the increased value of the necessaries and luxuries of life, and other domestic circumstances were taken into the account, he insisted, that 900,000l. a year, at present, was not equal to 800,000l.

about 1742 or 1743, the period at which the average expenditure of George the 2nd should be struck. He saw several gentlemen present, who remembered how much more valuable money was 35 years ago than now; and he trusted to their candour, and that of every gentleman who heard him, to form an equitable estimate in his own mind of what would be a proportionate augmentation to the increase of expenditure, arising from an increase of the necessaries of life. His lordship presumed, that the hon. gentleman (Mr. Wilkes) when he supposed that the majorities in that House were created by the increased influence of the crown, did not mean to conclude, that each individual who composed those majorities was bribed or influenced in the vote he gave. That, he would venture to say, was not the intention of the hon. gentleman: such a proposition maintained without reserve, would cut up by the roots all pretensions to free enquiry, or conduct arising from opinion. The hon. gentleman_thought differently from him; that was no just foundation for charging the hon. gentleman with being influenced by improper motives. On the other hand, he, and those who thought with him, might act upon principle, and not, as the hon. gentleman termed it, be influenced by a temporary pension. As to the objection urged so warmly against the account relative to the disbursements in the office of the Treasurer of the Chamber, not being accompanied with vouchers in one period, nor even the sums specified during another period; that he said might be explained satisfactorily, by repeating a single fact, which was, that his predecessors in office had taken away all the papers, which contained the information now so earnestly sought. So the case stood, particularly as to that of the master of the horse, and so in every other account, as far as the objection could be fairly maintained or supported. On the whole, therefore, the charge of the accounts being defective, mutilated, or imperfect, must fall to the ground. The Treasury had used all the industry in their power to satisfy the House. They had ordered the books to be minutely examined, and the warrants to be compared with the books. If some of the vouchers were mislaid, lost, or taken away, the Treasury-board could not be blamed. They looked for every document that seemed necessary to explain the account; they produced such as they could

but for purposes not fit to be avowed by ministry, and therefore very fit to be inquired into by this House..

Mr. Rice explained what had been mentioned by lord North, relative to his predecessors in office taking the papers away, which were necessary to vouch the first four years of the accounts which came from the office of the Treasurer of the Chamber. He said the warrants from the Treasury, with the accounts of sums issued, were vouchers sufficient to shew the faithful disposition of the money. That, allowing some of the articles in the account did not appear so well authenticated as could be wished, or that a saving might be made; in either event, it would be proper to go into the committee, because he believed no gentleman present would say, that the King's debts ought not to be paid; they were the debts of the public, and no matter how they were incurred, they must be paid by the public; and if the motion for discharging the order, was intended to make way for a committee of enquiry, that committee might be moved after the committee of supply had come to the first resolution, to discharge the debt already incurred. He affirmed, from his own knowledge, and by every thing he could learn from others, that all possible frugality had been practised, in every branch of expenditure of the Civil List revenue; but that some of them were notwithstanding on the increase, and were likely to augment instead of diminish; and if to this were added, a numerous increasing family, several of whom, in a few years, would call for separate establishments, he did not see how the House could, with any degree of consistency, or regard for the honour and dignity of the crown, refuse the augmentation, which he understood it was the intention of the ministers to ask. The papers on the table already shewed, that the average expence of maintaining the houshold, and defraying the expences of the civil government, was, on an average, since the present accession, about 870,000l. a year; and that the amount of the duties relinquished by his Majesty, at that period, was pretty nearly equal to the expenditure; that probably those duties would still continue to increase; so that taking the matter in either a retrospective view, or in its consequences, the nation, though the revenue should be augmented 100,000l. would, on the whole, be found to be no loser.

Mr. Adam sincerely regretted our pre

sent situation, but did not agree that it was a sufficient reason against the motion. But on the contrary, that rendering our sovereign respectable, might prove a means of relieving us from that situation, as it must give an idea of the vigour and resources of this country, which could not fail to have a tendency to prevent hostile attempts upon the part of our enemies, and strike the minds of our revolted colonies with terror. It must therefore prove a salutary measure, even in this moment of distress, to discharge the arrears upon the Civil List.

With regard to increasing the revenue he took it for granted, that the only objection to it was, that by putting too much power into the hands of the crown it might endanger the liberty of the subject, and be prejudicial to our national happiness. That one great ingredient in the happiness of a nation, was the respect it held as a nation. That it yielded to internal freedom alone, and that this latter blessing gained additional value as the means of procuring the former. That in order to secure that respect which rested upon national independence as its basis, no necessity should be created that could make it desirable in any degree to barter that independence for a temporary ease and advantage. That such necessity had in former times suggested to Charles the 2nd his dangerous connections with France, the ignominy and disgrace of which might have been saved had his parliament been less rigidly parsimonious. That the eminent virtues of our present monarch happily secured us from every such idea, so far as it depended upon his steady and earnest desire to maintain our respect and independence: but we could not always depend upon the minister who might have the immediate management of affairs. To secure us therefore against the machinations of wicked ministers, we should render the private revenue of the crown equal to its necessities. When he said this, he did not mean to assert any thing prejudicial to the honour of the present minister. He had upon former occasions animadverted upon the conduct of the noble lord: they were public animadversions upon a public conduct, which he made because he felt them just, and which he would never hesitate to repeat when similar circumstances should produce a similar conduct. He was convinced, that the noble lord was too much a gentleman, and too much an Englishman, to entertain any idea prejudicial

to the independence of this country; but we were not always to see the noble lord in the place he now filled; and when another should come without the same virtue, and the same talents, we might see the disgraceful days of Charles the 2nd renewed, and another Dunkirk sold to relieve the embarrassments of a scanty revenue.

He next stated an opinion which he professed had at first sight a paradoxical appearance, but he thought the paradox would vanish upon a state of the argument. It was that increasing the revenue of the Civil List would add security to the liberty of the subject. That prerogative having been done away at the Revolution, influence, it was now thought, had taken its place, and was the disease which threatened our constitution. The way, therefore, to prevent the evils of influence, was to keep it from acting, or allowing it to act in as few instances as possible. If we could prevent its operation in ten instances, by admitting it in one, we might by this means award the blow, and perhaps destroy the disease that threatened our liberty. It was, therefore, better to give an adequate revenue to the crown, than to suffer repeated applications to parliament for the payment of arrears; which, by being repeated every two or three years, would make the importance of the grant dwindle into the same insignificance that attended the common and most trivial operations of parliament; and that this day would cease to be, as it now was, a day of terror to the minister. He said, there was a great and marked distinction to be attended to in this argument, between the Civil List or revenue of the crown, and the revenue of parliament. That distinctions of this nature were essential to the existence of the constitution, as they steered us between the horrors of despotism and the evils of a republic. The first revenue was subject of calculation, and an adequate sum ought to be fixed, that applications for arrears might be avoided the other could not be matter of calculation, at any distant period of time, as it altered with the necessity of the times. Besides, it was that revenue which supported our fleet, maintained our army, paid the interest of our national debt, the revenue upon which our liberty, dignity, and independence rested. That if any minister should dare to encourage an idea that could render that revenue independent of parliament, no punishment could be too bad for his crime. He then shewed that this distinction had been [VOL. XIX.]

recognized at the Revolution, and entered into a history of the Civil List from that period downwards, to prove that to agree with the motion of the day, was to follow up the idea of the revolutionists: and concluded, by saying, that if our national respect was to be preserved, and our internal freedom to be rendered more secure by an addition to the revenue of the crown, we ought cheerfully to unite in a measure that would give comfort and dignity to a prince so highly virtuous and respectable.

Mr. T. Townshend assured Mr. Adam that he had too much respect for his person and his talents to presume to treat his arguments with ridicule or with levity. He hoped, however, that his expressing his surprise at the novelty of the argu ments would not be construed into dis respect and if, upon his bare recital of them, the House should receive them the second time in the same manner as they had done the first, he trusted that reception would not be attributed to any levity in the person who repeated them. He owned that his dull imagination would never have enabled him to conceive that a time when we were engaged in an enormously expensive war, was the hour of all others the most proper to give away a large sum of public money; or that such a conduct would impress our enemies with fear, and that such profusion would give them a higher opinion either of our strength or of our wisdom.

He could not help agreeing with the hon. gentleman in his apprehensions of the increase of the influence of the crown. He thought with him, that it threatened the annihilation of any balance or proportion between the different branches of the legislature. But he had always supposed that influence to arise from the great revenues and emoluments which were in the disposal of the crown. He therefore imagined, that an increase of influence, rather than a decrease of it, was likely to be the consequence of an increase of those revenues. He was so bigotted to these opinions, that he had found himself inclined to doubt, for once, the solidity of the reasoning of the hon. gentleman. He could not help thinking that his talents had a little failed him. He was at first at a loss to what cause he should attribute it, but recollecting the enthusiastic terms in which the hon. gentleman mentioned a lately deceased, learned, and ingenious author (Mr. Hume) he could not help thinking that the gentleman was ambitious of being [K]