for an examination into accounts at fome time of greater leifure.

The nation had fettled 800,000l. a year on the Crown, as fufficient for the support of its dignity, upon the estimate of its own Minifters. When Minifters came to Parliament, and faid that this allowance had not been fufficient for the purpofe, and that they had incurred a debt of 500,000l. would it not have been natural for Parliament first to have afked, how, and by what means, their appropriated allowance came to be infufficient? Would it not have favoured of fome attention to justice, to have seen in what periods of Administration this debt had been originally incurred; that they might discover, and, if need were, animadvert on the persons who were found the most culpable? To put their hands upon fuch articles of expenditure as they thought improper or exceffive, and to secure, in future, against fuch mifapplication or exceeding? Accounts for any other purposes are but a matter of curiofity, and no genuine Parliamentary object. All the accounts which could answer any Parliamentary end were refused, or poftponed by previous questions. Every idea of prevention was rejected, as conveying an improper fufpicion of the Minifters of the Crown.

When every leading account had been refused, many others were granted with fufficient facility.

But with great candour alfo, the House was informed, that hardly any of them could be ready until the next feffion; fome of them perhaps not fo foon. But, in order firmly to establish the

precedent

precedent of payment previous to account, and to form it into a fettled rule of the House, the god in the machine was brought down, nothing less than the wonder-working Law of Parliament. It was alledged, that it is the law of Parliament, when any demand comes from the Crown, that the House must go immediately into the Committee of Supply; in which Committee it was allowed, that the production and examination of accounts would be quite proper and regular. It was therefore carried, that they should go into the Committee without delay, and without accounts, in order to examine with great order and regularity things that could not poffibly come before them. After this ftroke of orderly and Parliamentary wit and humour, they went into the Committee; and very generously voted the payment.

There was a circumftance in that debate too remarkable to be overlooked. This debt of the Civil Lift was all along argued upon the fame footing as a debt of the State, contracted upon national authority. Its payment was urged as equally preffing upon the public faith and honour: and when the whole year's account was ftated, in what is called The Budget, the Ministry valued themselves on the payment of fo much public debt, just as if they had discharged 500,000l. of navy or exchequer bills. Though, in truth, their payment, from the Sinking Fund, of debt which was never contracted by Parliamentary authority, was, to all intents and purposes, fo much debt incurred. But such is the prefent notion of public

credit,

credit, and payment of debt. No wonder that it produces fuch effects.

Nor was the Houfe at all more attentive to a provident fecurity against future, than it had been toa vindictive retrofpect to paft, mifmanagements. I should have thought indeed that a Ministerial promise, during their own continuance in office, might have been given, though this would have been but a poor fecurity for the publick. Mr. Pelham gave fuch an affurance, and he kept his word. But nothing was capable of extorting from our Ministers any thing which had the least refemblance to a promife of confining the expences of the Civil Lift within the limits which had been fettled by Parliament. This reserve of theirs I look upon to be equivalent to the cleareft declaration, that they were refolved upon a contrary course.

However, to put the matter beyond all doubt, in the Speech from the Throne, after thanking Parliament for the relief fo liberally granted, the Minifters inform the two Houses, that they will endeavour to confine the expences of the Civil Government-within what limits, think you? those which the law had prescribed? Not in the leaft" fuch limits as the bonour of the Crown "can poffibly admit."

Thus they established an arbitrary standard for that dignity which Parliament had defined and limited to a legal ftandard. They gave themfelves, under the lax and indeterminate idea of the bonour of the Crown, a full loofe for all manner of diffipation, and all manner of corruption. This arbitrary standard they were not afraid to hold

out

out to both Houses; while an idle and unoperative Act of Parliament, eftimating the dignity of the Crown at 800,000l. and confining it to that fum, adds to the number of obfolete ftatutes which load the shelves of libraries without any fort of advantage to the people.

After this proceeding, I fuppofe that no man can be fo weak as to think that the Crown is limited to any fettled allowance whatsoever. For if the Ministry has 800,000l. a year by the law of the land; and if by the law of Parliament all the debts which exceed it are to be paid previous to the production of any account; I prefume that this is equivalent to an income with no other limits than the abilities of the subject and the moderation of the Court; that is to fay, it is fuch an income as is poffeffed by every abfolute Monarch in Europe. It amounts, as a perfon of great ability faid in the debate, to an unlimited power of drawing upon the Sinking Fund. Its effect on the public credit of this kingdom must be obvious; for in vain is the Sinking Fund the great buttress of all the reft, if it be in the power of the Ministry to resort to it for the payment of any debts which they may choose to incur, under the name of the Civil Lift, and through the medium of a Committee, which thinks itfelf obliged by law to vote fupplies without any other account than that of the mere existence of the debt.

Five hundred thousand pounds is a ferious fum. But it is nothing to the prolific principle upon which the fum was voted; a principle that may be well called, the fruitful mother of an hundred

more. Neither is the damage to public credit of very great confequence, when compared with that which results to public morals and to the fafety of the conftitution, from the exhaustless mine of corruption opened by the precedent, and to be wrought by the principle, of the late payment of the debts of the Civil Lift. The power of difcretionary difqualification by one law of Parliament, and the neceffity of paying every debt of the Civil Lift by another law of Parliament, if fuffered to pass unnoticed, must establish such a fund of rewards and terrors as will make Parliament the best appendage and fupport of arbitrary power that ever was invented by the wit of man. This is felt. The quarrel is begun between the Representatives and the People. The Court Faction have at length committed them.

In such a strait the wifeft may well be perplexed, and the boldeft ftaggered. The circumstances are in a great measure new. We have hardly any land-marks from the wisdom of our ancestors, to guide us. At best we can only follow the fpirit of their proceeding in other cafes. I know the diligence with which my observations on our public disorders have been made; I am very fure of the integrity of the motives on which they are published: I cannot be equally confident in any plan for the abfolute cure of thofe diforders, or for their certain future prevention. My aim is to bring this matter into more public difcuffion. Let the fagacity of others work upon it. It is not uncommon for medical writers to defcribe