§ Lord Francis Osbornefelt it his duty to express his decided disapprobation of the Bill, No claims whatever had, been urged which thus required the interference of parliament. Not 24 hours had elapsed since that House refused to go into a Committee to consider the claims of the officers of our brave army; and the money which they had refused to the claims of these gallant men, they were; now called upon to vote to individuals who had advanced no claim whatever. He trusted that the House would pause before they acceded to a measure of this deseription and he would therefore move as an amendment, That the Bill be read a third time that day six months.
Mr. Morrissaid the noble lord had dealt in general statements only. He wished he could have condescended to state in what way, the claims, of individuals could be brought before the House. The present Bill merely restored to the crown a part of its prerogative of which it was deprived by the act of last session. The Resolution of the committee on which that act was founded, was materially departed from. The, Resolution proposed the nature of the service as the basis of the pension; but the act put all services of whatever nature on the same footing of ten years. A foreign Ambassador's retreat 721 from service was not always voluntary, but frequently depended on political accidents beyond his controul; and on his return he Was cut off from the professional sources of-subsistence, which he probably relinquished for his situation. It was extremely hard, therefore, that the crown should be precluded from taking his case into consideration. He hoped it would not be imputed to him that his sentiments on the present occasion were in any way influenced by the consideration that an hon. relation of his (Mr. Erskine) might soon perhaps have occasion to present himself before the House on account of his services in such a situation. He still continued of the same opinion which he maintained when he voted for the Resolutions.
Mr. Bankesobserved, that the House had no sooner passed the first measure of reform, which was founded on the report of their Committee on that subject, than they were required to repeal it. Nevertheless, if that measure could be proved unjust, it ought to be repealed. That was the point which he wished to examine. Unquestionably there were precedents for the measure which it was proposed to rescind. Those who recollected, with him, the parliamentary occurrences of 1783, would remember that, a Bill was then brought in for the regulation of the offices of the exchequer, and for the reduction of the emolument of the Tellers. When that Bill came from the Committee, there was a clause in it, providing that it should not operate against a grant in reversion by his Majesty to lord Thurlow, of a Tellership of the Exchequer. To this clause the House disagreed, notwithstanding the extraordinary exertions of a great lawyer (lord Kenyon), who then advocated the rights of individuals as other lawyers now advocated them; and, as he thought, with too much eagerness. On a division upon this clause, the number in favour of it was 49; that against it 57.—He would repeat what he had stated on a former stage of this Bill; namely, that if parliament took one step in the repeal of the principle of the act passed last session, they must take many more steps. There were many persons affected by that act, whose claims were much stronger than those of the diplomatic individuals to whom the pending bill applied. For instance, previous to the act of last session, the Old Stores were vested in the crown, which had power to grant pensions to various public officers on it. That act (very wisely in 722 his opinion) deprived the crown of that power. All, therefore, who had what might be called an expectant right under the former practice, possessed a better claim on the House than the individuals whose case was under consideration. But a still stronger circumstance existed: there were individuals who had been deprived by the act of last session, of the expectation of emoluments to which they had a title under two former acts of parliament. By the act of the 49th of the King, c. 36, and by an act passed only two weeks before the act of last session, founded on the Report of the Finance Committee, the crown was empowered to grant allowances to certain Officers of the Excise in England and Scotland; it was empowered to grant those who had served ten years, three fourths of their salaries. By the act of last session, these allowances were reduced to one half of the salaries of these officers. Had not the individuals thus affected, therefore, ten times greater right to complain, than the diplomatic individuals who were the objects of the proposed measure? Did anyone suppose from this reasoning that he entertained any wish of opening again the act of last session? Far from it. By that act a proper system of superannuation had been established; and the relaxed habit in which government had previously indulged on that subject, was corrected. The act of last session had passed with the general approbation of the country; and it was not to be disturbed, because a claim was made for two or three individuals, who, he had shewn, had not suffered by it so extensively as many others. Besides, the supporters of the Bill asserted, that all they wanted was to put these gentlemen in the situation in which they were before the act of last session. Now that was impossible. To agree to the proposed Bill, would be to give to the claims of the foreign ministers a sanction which they never before enjoyed.
The Chancellor of the Exchequercontend-ed, that whatever might be the merits of the Bill before the House, it would not afford such a dangerous precedent as was apprehended by his horn friend. With respect to the operation of the act of last session, on those individuals who had expectances on the fund of old. Stores, he did not believe that the previous practice of government had been such as to in-duce any of those individuals to imagine, that they had a claim on that fund 723 to a greater extent than that which remained after the passing of the act. And as to the Excise Officers, of whom his hon. friend said, that the act of last session had deprived them of expectant rights vested in them by two former acts, the fact was, that in some respects the claims were increased by the last act; for it was provided by it that, after a certain age, not three fourths merely, but the whole of his salary should be allowed to an officer. It was Obvious also that the number, who had the slightest shadow of justice for complaint, must be confined to those who entered as clerks in that department of the public service during the short period, a twelvemonth, between the passing of the first of the acts alluded to by his honourable friend, and the passing of the act founded on the Report of the Finance Committee. Nothing could be mote clear thin that those who had entered the service before that period Were not at all entitled to complain of disappointed expectations.
§ The House then divided—
| For the Amendment | 23 | |
| Against it | 50 | |
| Majority | — | 27 |
§ The Bill was then read a third lime and passed.