§ The order of the day being read for the house to resolve itself into a Committee of Supply, the Chancellor of the Exchequer moved, That the several estimates on the table be referred to the said committee; and, amongst others, that for an additional grant towards carrying on the building of the Naval Asylum at Greenwich.
§ Sir C. Poleopposed the grant; for which, he said, the trustees ought not to have applied to parliament while they had in their hands a sum of 50,000l. towards carrying on the purposes of that institution, no account of the application of which was laid before the house, nor the interest of that sum, which ought also to be applied to the purposes of the establishment, He said, that a great waste of the public money already granted had been committed, in paying a large salary and allowances to an useless and unnecessary officer; namely, the Auditor; and expended in building for him a house, with extensive gardens and offices. There was no such officer in the Military Asylum, and he thought this a wasteful profusion of public money; and towards a clergy-man, too, who possessed two valuable livings in Ireland, upon which it was his duty to reside, and which, in the spirit of the act lately passed in that house, he ought to be obliged to do. He objected also to the employment of a surgeon with a large salary, house, and offices, who never had been in the navy; because he thought, that all officers of a naval institution ought to be naval men, and that this institution, by employing men wholly unconnected with the navy, was rather a discouragement to the navy than otherwise.
Mr. Roseexpressed his astonishment that the hon. baronet could expect that a sum of 50,000l. which was the donation of private persons, and given expressly on the condition of providing for such children of seamen as they should recommend, was to be applied in the first instance for the quite different purpose of carrying on the building now adopted by his majesty, and sanctioned by parliament. He was ready to give the lion, admiral credit for the friendship he had always professed towards the navy; but was utterly at a loss to reconcile that profession with the 920 hon. admiral's opposition to the means of carrying on the building of an Institution, where 1000 children, the orphans of seamen, were to be provided for, and which must actually be stopt, if the means were not immediately granted for continuing the business of architecture; and this merely because two gentlemen were employed as officers in the Institution, who were not actually naval men. He was utterly at a loss to account for this persevering opposition from the hon. admiral, who, while ha professed a zeal for the interests of officers in the navy, was actually, in effect, endeavouring to impede objects most interesting to the feelings of those officers. There was a school instituted at Greenwich Hospital, designed originally for the sons of naval officers, to the number of 200. That school was now full, but not entirely with the children of officers, of whom there were but 73, the rest being the sons of common seamen; and for want of room the son of an admiral was now obliged to sleep in the same bed with one of those common boys. It was designed to remove from the school to the Asylum all the children of common seamen, so as to leave the Institution free for the full number of officers' children; and yet to this intention, the hon. admiral was, in effect, offering every opposition in his power. As to the gentleman who filled the office of Auditor, he was not employed by the present commissioners; they found him in the employment, while under private direction, and they thought it not right to discontinue him. But he begged leave to say, there was an officer in the Military Asylum to execute the same duties, but he was under the denomination of Treasurer. The Auditor was personally quite a stranger to him, except in his official capacity, and he had himself inspected the house and garden allotted, and thought them by no means unreasonable for the person who filled the situation. But as to his livings in Ireland, and his own residence there, it had nothing to do with this question, so long as he was obliged, by the strict rules of the Asylum, to be constantly resident there, or resign his situation.
§ The house then resolved into the Committee, and on the Chancellor of the Exchequer moving for the sum of 35,000l. for the Asylum,
§ Sir C. Polesaid, that his motives for persevering were the same which had actuated him with respect to Greenwich Hospital; namely, to preserve the exclu- 921 sive right of the navy to the official appointments originally intended for them, but which principle had been shamefully violated in the case of Greenwich Hospital. The like violation of principle had commenced in the Naval Asylum, and if it was Hot resisted in the outset, he should expect shortly to see the governorship there conferred, perhaps, upon some German captain of cavalry, and the minor situations filled by Hanoverian subalterns or serjeants, instead of British naval officers. He would not, however, divide the committee.
§ Mr. Windhamvindicated the motives of the hon. admiral, without entering into the examination of his objections.—The Resolution was then put and carried.