DROITS OF THE CROWN, &C

HC Deb 05 May 1820 vol 1 cc105-63

Mr. Brougham

said, that in rising to bring before the House the important subject of which he had given notice,—important, in so far as it was inseparably connected with the question of the civil list,—he trusted they would give him credit, when he assured them it was very far from his intention to trespass more than was absolutely necessary upon their time and attention. They would be the more disposed so to give him credit, when he begged leave to remind them that the bringing forward this question upon the present occasion was in reality none of his seeking. But he stood pledged to submit it to their consideration, and particularly] by what passed in 1812, in case his majesty's ministers should think proper to omit it in their arrangements. He appealed to the recollection of honourable gentlemen, whether he had not given that notice, or rather whether he had not been driven into it with unfeigned reluctance, entreating the right hon. the chancellor of the exchequer to submit himself some suitable proposition, which, coming immediately from the ministers of the Crown—directed by their superior information, and, above all, backed by their influence in that House might afford the means of an arrangement beneficial to the public, and agreeable to all parties concerned. He begged also to observe, that it was equally far from his intention, on the present occasion to suggest any thing to the House, either with the view—he would not merely say—of compassing the degradation of the royal dignity, but even of abridging those rights which were the rights and privileges of the Crown, in any one the most minute point, not only of what might be deemed necessary in supporting its weight in the constitution, but of those also which were necessary to its dignity and just splendor. If at any one period of our history it would have been next to criminal to have endeavoured to deprive the executive government of that which was requisite to its own maintenance and honour—and without honour it could not be maintained—if they were necessary to the peace and good government of the country (for which the executive government was entirely in trust), it would be altogether criminal to attempt such a measure in times like the present; for he went as far as any man, as far, he hoped as any of his majesty's ministers, in declaring that these were not times in which it became any lover of his country to tamper with the existing institutions of that country. He desired the support of no gentleman to the resolution with which he intended to conclude, but upon the previous performance of this condition by himself—that he should prove to the satisfaction of all who voted with him, that the measure he should propose was not only safe but expedient—that it not only did not degrade the Crown, but that it manifestly tended to augment its dignity—that it was founded on precedent conformable with principle, and steered within the strictest lines of sound constitutional practice.

Without further preface he would now proceed, endeavouring to bring himself within the limits he had already marked out. He should assume (and he thought he might safely do so, after the subject had been so frequently before the House) that it was needless for him to enter into † any didactic explanation of the origin, nature, history, or enormous amount of the funds embraced by the papers upon the table. He should conclude that all who heard him were possessed of sufficient information on these topics, and he would therefore proceed to establish, as he pledged himself to be able to do, that some such arrangement as he should suggest was called for by the situation in which the country now found itself. It was an old and confirmed maxim of our constitution, sanctioned by the opinions of the greatest lawyers, both on the bench and at the bar, supported by the whole current of the most venerable authorities, that the Crown, as such, was incapable of possessing separate property—in other words that the king was anciently held to possess all the lands he held, jure coronœ—they were called sacra patrimonia coronœ: even lands which he possessed in his private character, before the demise of the crown, were forthwith deemed to be holden jure coronœ. Suppose, for instance, the case of the duke of Lancaster; before the crown devolved to him, he was seized of certain lands in his own right as a private baron, but the law of England held that the moment he became king his private rights merged in his public capacity—he was no longer a terre tenant, but he retained his possessions as holden by right of the crown of England. Moreover, even if a statute gave lands or any other species of property to the king without naming that it was given to him as king, it had been held that he could only retain them by right of the Crown. The law upon this subject was quite clear, it was indisputable; and he would defy the other side of the House to produce a single dictum of a single lawyer, ancient or modern, to the contrary: in fact, no man acquainted even with the mere elements of the constitution would dispute for a moment the solidity of what he had just advanced. He only wished to mention one remarkable instance, to show how far this principle had been carried; and it was the more in point, as it related immediately to the very property new in question. All treasure had been held to be by so high a title merely the property of the Crown, that it had been deemed impossible for the king to make any grant of it, excepting under the privy seal, or great seal of the realm; and the opinion of the highest law authorities proved, that one branch of the very revenue now under consideration was viewed precisely in this light. He alluded to the opinions given by the chief justices of the court of King's-bench and Common-pleas, and the chief baron of the Exchequer, in the dispute between James 1st and the earl of Devonshire, as to some property claimed by the latter in old stores—that antiquated multum vexata questio of old stores. This formed one of the latest and best precedents he should have to submit to induce the House to adopt his proposition. Under his sign-manual, the king had granted certain quantities of old gun barrels, rusty-blades, old powder, and rotten cartridge-paper, on the preservation of which, it was now argued by the other side, the dignity of the sovereign so essentially depended. The earl of Devonshire accordingly put in his claim for a fulfilment of the grant against the king's executors, and lord Coke, who reported the case, used the following words upon the subject:—"that the treasure of the Crown" (such as old stores, treasure trove, and the like,) "being the ligament of peace, the preserver of the honour and safety of the realm, and the sinews of war (esteant le ligament de peace, le preserver del honor et safetie del realme, et les sinewes de guerre,) are in such high estimation in the eye of the law, and, with other valuable chattels, are so necessary and incident to the Crown, that they shall go with it to the king's successor, and not to his executors;" and, further on, he added, that the only warrant sufficient to pass such treasure must be under the great seal, or privy seal of the realm. This great authority, reported by such a man as lord Coke, was of itself worth a hundred lesser cases to the same effect. But he could not help adverting to one other, quite as remarkable, in the time of lord Clarendon, when the old constitutional principles were somewhat relaxed. The reign pf James 1st, formed one of the best periods of our history, as far as regarded the struggle between the House of Commons and the executive government, on the invaluable principle of a constitutional jealousy of the Crown. But in lord Clarendon's time some relaxation of ancient strictness had taken, place; yet even then the same law had been uniformly maintained. The case brought forward at this period referred to certain prizes taken from the Dutch, which the king, under his sign-manual, had granted to lord Ashley, afterwards lord Shaftesbury. On this subject lord Clarendon remonstrated, and boldly used the signal language of the constitution: he told the king, "if a treasurer hath the keeping any treasure belonging to your majesty, without most formally accounting for the same, your majesty might be most abominably cozened in your grants; nor is there any other way of avoiding it, but by issuing them either under the great seal or under the privy seal." And when lord Ashley, on his own behalf, represented the matter to lord Clarendon, the answer was not more courteous. He told him "that this was an unusual and an unnatural privilege; and as it was so, so could it never be allowed in any court of exchequer, which would exact from him accounts both of charge and discharge; and if you, lord Ashley (he added), think of depending on the exemption given you from accounting under his majesty's sign-manual, you may live to repent the day you did so."

Thus much would suffice to show how sacred the principle of the constitution had been, that the king could have no property independent of parliament, and could never allow the issue of any of his treasure without rendering the individual accountable to the exchequer. The House would probably ask when the first inroad was made upon this constitutional principle, and he was sorry to say, that it was so recent as to be within memory: it was made by Mr. Pitt, not longer ago than 1799, when, for the first time, the sovereign, his heirs and successors (for he grieved to say that the enactment was perpetual), were enabled to have property in lands and chattels, and to deal with it as their own, by disposing of it by will or otherwise. So completely were the whole of the ancient constitutional principles upset by this bill, that a doctrine was introduced, germane indeed to the matter now before the House, which showed how those who now supported so strenuously and so anxiously the dignity of the crown were, at the period to which he alluded, willing to lower it in a manner that lord Clarendon would have thought little short of profanation. What would lord Clarendon, or any of our old constitutional lawyers, have said, if they could have seen the act of which he was now speaking, which empowered the king not only to dispose of his crown lands, but to expend all the money he might be able to amass in the purchase of new property of all kinds, which, like a common private individual, he might bargain or sell again at a profit—might give away in rewards to favourites—might dispose of even to enemies—or, pro tanto, setting the votes of parliament at defiance, might defeat the whole system and policy of the constitution? But what would have been the astonishment of the venerable authorities he had mentioned, if they had seen one step further taken, still more monstrous and injurious in its consequences? What would they have said to powers given to the king, even to hold copyholds, and thus to become the tenant of his own subject? Well, indeed, might those who had accomplished this degrading innovation talk of the honour and dignity of the Crown, its ancient privileges, and its imposing lustre; and, on the opening of a new parliament, in a new reign refuse to enter upon the subject, because it was inconsistent with the veneration which the nation owed to its rightful sovereign!

So much for the general question of the treasury of the Crown. With regard to the particular funds in question, he was equally firmly established on the opinions and decisions of the ablest lawyers. He begged it to be observed, that he was not going all lengths in arguing this question, because, for a reason he should presently give, though he had never heard it from the other side of the House, he was disposed to allow that, if the Crown was now deprived of these funds, some compensation ought to be afforded. It was well known that in ancient times, but of these resources and other branches of the hereditary revenue, over which parliament had no direct Control; the Crown was bound not only to maintain its own splendor, but to provide for all public servants: by degrees various' alienations of property, the gradual disuse of feudal customs, and other causes, had rendered its revenue inadequate for these purposes, and it became necessary for the Crown to resort to parliament for slims to meet the exigencies of particular occasions—a most useful necessity; for far be it from him not to admit that the liberties of the country depended upon the gradual abandonment, step by step, of the more profitable, of the more vexatious, and of the most ancient parts of the resources of the Crown, and their gradual merger in the constitutional parliamentary revenue how granted by both Houses. But of old, certain revenues were given to the Crown, not merely for the gratification of the individual who wore the ensigns of royalty, but were vested in him that he might be able to defray the expenses of his government. He would not refer the House to more than one authority on this point, because the position was so clear and indisputable, that it needed, in truth, no support beyond the common knowledge and common sense of every man. Lord Coke held that wreck belonged to the Crown ex necessitate rei, because it must belong to somebody, and because there was no other owner: but other authorities viewed it in a different light; they held "that the Crown was entitled to wreck because the king was bound to keep the narrow seas clear of pirates: and wreck, and other such perquisites, were necessary for that purpose." The same doctrine had been laid down by some of the judges, who decided the case of Ship-money. They decided, that treasure trove, royal fish, &c. were the property of the Crown, for the purpose of enabling it to defend the narrow seas and coasts of the realm. Justice Crawley was, however, one of the doubters upon this point; for he reasoned, that royal fish were not the property of the Crown on this account—because they were too small, and below the acceptance of the king, upon such conditions. Yet they had not been found too small for the Crown in respect to its dignity. This was rather a refinement of the learned judge; yet, according to him, the sturgeon and the whale were all too small. Had he lived to our times to see the droits of Admiralty, from the body of a whale or the tail of a sturgeon, swelled to many, many millions of money, he would not have argued that they were too small for the acceptance of the Crown. He wished not to be misunderstood: he admitted, that as the law now stood, a great change had taken place in the management of the revenue of the Crown. It had no longer to perform the duty of governing the country at home, of defending it from foreign foes out of its own exclusive resources. Step by step, one after another, the burthen of each branch of the public expenditure had been removed from the Crown and laid upon the shoulders of the people. Yet, extraordinary as it might seem, though the king paid nothing towards the defence of his subjects, nothing towards driving pirates from the seas, nothing towards the "tuition and good government of the realm," (as it was worded in the statute of Henry 8th), he still kept the whole amount of his revenues from the droits of admiralty, amounting in the last reign to not less than 13,700,000l. In one sentence, this was the beginning, middle, and end of his argument. He had already said that he was in favour of compensation; since, in his view, to adhere, under existing circumstances, to the strict letter of the law, as it regarded the Crown, or any other great public corporation, would be the height of injustice; in the words of the antiquated law maxim, the greatest injury or injustice often arose out of a close adherence to the line of justice. Discretion might require, that that which had been long established, even though no legal title could be shown, should not be disturbed: mere prudence, if not a regard for the safety of the constitution, might render it unfit to vary what had been settled for ages; and if he found himself supported by analogy in another case, his opinion in this respect would be more confirmed.

He was aware that on this subject he differed from some of his hon. friends, but his opinion was in favour of compensation, and he supported it by the recollection of a case exactly parallel. He took his analogy from the manner in which the public had dealt with another great corporation; and the House would bear in mind that the point he was discussing was, the propriety of allowing a claim in opposition to the strict legal letter of right, as it respected the monarch, that great civil corporation. If he could show that there was a great analogy between this civil corporation, as respected the droits of the Admiralty, and an ecclesiastical corporation—the Church of England as respected tithes—he thought he should go far to satisfy many gentlemen that compensation ought to be allowed. The House was probably aware that the clergy were burthened with the support of the poor, which, in fact, had occasioned the fourfold division of the tithes. By degrees it was found that they were inadequate to the purpose, more especially after the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry 8th. The great fund for the maintenance of paupers was thus so much diminished, that it was not thought just to keep the tithe holders to the strict letter of the law. The claim was therefore tacitly, and but tacitly, abandoned by the public. Here, then, was a case precisely analogous to the pre sent. Originally the church had tithes burthened with the support of the poor. Originally the Crown had droits burthen ed with the payment of the public ser vice. Step by step, during the reigns of Mary, Edward, and Elizabeth (for it was not done by one statute, as was often mistakenly supposed), the public under took the maintenance of paupers, and relieved the clergy; and in the same way, step by step, the Crown had removed from the Crown the onerous duties that formerly belonged to it. Compensation was given to the clergy, by not requiring them to do what they had before been compelled to perform: and why in this case ought not the analogy to be followed up by taking possession of the droits of the Crown, with its consent (for by consent these matters were always arranged), and assigning to it such an equivalent as should be just, reasonable, and consistent with the depressed state of the country? How this compensation should be ascertained—whether upon an average of past years, whether upon a computation of the different amount of droits in peace and in war—and in what way it should be paid, were details with which he would not now trouble the House: he only wished it to support the general proposition, and to countenance the propriety of making some arrangement in the way of compensation. While touching upon the subject of arrangement, the observation, which must have struck every man at all acquainted with the documents regarding the civil list, naturally forced itself upon his mind, namely, that nothing could be worse adapted either for distinctness to its managers, intelligibility to the public, or for the real comfort, honour, and dignity of the Crown, than the whole method, if method it might be called, in which the civil list had been settled. Suppose any man, not very well versed in the minutié of finance were asked, how much the revenues of the king of England amounted to in a year, what answer could be given? He might appeal to several honourable friends near him, who had passed a long life in the investigation of matters of public expenditure, whether they would be able to give a satisfactory reply without at least half an hour's calculation. Every body could tell what was the revenue of the French king, of the American president, or for- merly of the Dutch stadtholder; but as to the salary of the king of England, with which he supported the splendour and dignity of his Crown, no man who was not a perfect adept in finance could give any conclusive information about it. Had not blunders been already committed regarding it, fatal to the dignity of the Crown? When he said fatal to its dignity, he was only using a strong mode of expressing his sense of the great injury it had sustained: the system of obscurity and mismanagement on the subject had in this view been fatal to the. dignity of the Crown, but, if possible, more fatal to the interests of the people. The same dark, confused, Gothic arrangement existed at the time Paine wrote his book, thirty years ago, wherein he complained that the king of England was a most expensive public officer, and enjoyed 900,000l. a-year for performing very easy and pleasant duties; adding, in his homely, coarse, but strong and expressive language, "I will engage to find an able-bodied man who will do it all for 500l. a-year." But the serious part of his statement was, that not one of the million to whom he addressed himself had the means of contradicting his statement. Suppose any man had told Paine, "You are a gross and wilful exaggerator; nay, I go further, and say that you have stated a downright falsehood;" he would reply, "How do you prove it to be untrue? Show it to be false from your civil list." "Oh," (his antagonist must rejoin), "the civil list proves nothing: these sums are given not only to pay a civil officer, but to support the honour and dignity of the Crown." "Very well," (Paine would add), "then show us how much is for the civil office, and how much for honour and dignity." Here the dialogue must stop of necessity; for, though a chancellor of the exchequer might be able to give a satisfactory answer (though he had seen a chancellor of the exchequer, who, he more than suspected, would be put to a non plus on such an occasion), yet the thousand and the million to whom Paine addressed himself would be as incapable of deciding the matter, as if the dispute had related to some of the nicest and most abstruse points of law. But let the House look at the title of the civil list acts, for the same title was common to them all. From the first hour they came into fashion to the present moment the words had been precisely the same. When, therefore, Paine asserted that the king of England, merely for filling a civil office, was paid 900,000l. a-year, his antagonist might reply—"No such thing; what does the civil list act say, but that it is "for the better support of his majesty's household, and for the honour and dignity of the Crown?" The same retort, such as it was, would have served, even had Paine survived to this day; for the answer might have been furnished out of the very explanatory resolutions of the chancellor of the exchequer; it was declared to be the opinion of the committee, that "for the support of his majesty's household, and for the honour and dignity of the Crown," there be granted so many hundred thousands a-year. He (Mr. Brougham) demanded, therefore, in support of the sovereign, in support of his best rights, of his character with his people, whether this was fair play? whether what he had read was a just and true, or a foul and false, statement? Was it dealing fairly with the king to mix up with the little he was allowed (and a little it comparatively was) to defray his private expenses, and really to keep up his honour and dignity, the salaries of the judges, the income of the chancellor of the exchequer and his friends, salaries to foreign ministers, and a vast accumulation of claims and allowances to officers, great and small, of all sorts and conditions? Some of them it was below the dignity of the sovereign even to name, and all below his true honour and character to have mixed up and confounded with his own person and demands. Was not the honour and dignity of the Crown best consulted by keeping all such accounts separate?

But he should be told, that it was fit and necessary that the old mystery should continue, though in private life it could be considered little short of absolute drivelling to confound things in themselves so distinct. Would not any man keep separate the accounts of wages and salaries—of his butchers and bakers' bills, and of the expenses of his form? He would thus be able to see by which of his concerns he gained, and by which he lost; and might with convenience at the end strike a balance, and ascertain what surplus remained in hand. Yet what was the strange advice of the chancellor of the exchequer? "Jumble the whole together, confound one account with another, in such a manner that it shall require an acute and accurate accountant, with much knowledge of finance, to decide how much is paid for wages, how much for the necessaries of life, or how much is expended on improvements." "But," cried the right hon. gentleman opposite, "to simplify matters in this way, to make accounts clear and explicable, would be beneath the dignity of the Crown." Admitting it for a moment, was there nothing to be gained by it—were popularity and the full approbation of the king's subjects worth no consideration? Supposing there might be some slight defalcation of dignity, was there no advantage in preventing great defalcations of a pecuniary kind, which had been perpetually occasioned by this absurd, confused, Gothic mode of keeping accounts? After all, where would be the loss of dignity, if the people told their prince—"You shall be paid largely, liberally, cheerfully, without a murmur from the people, who well know that your interests and theirs are inseparably united—not as at present, but by a fixed, constant, determined grant out of the consolidated fund." That, in truth, was his proposition; but the chancellor of the exchequer, in his love for mystery, seemed to think that there was something sublime in obscurity. The misfortune for him, however, was, that we lived in a prying age, when men would not be satisfied with being told that they must not examine and scrutinize; and when they did inquire, they would find that, among the hereditary revenues of the Crown, the sovereign did not think it below his dignity to have his revenue made up of one penny per barrel upon ale, and one halfpenny per gallon upon whiskey. This paltry pittance was accepted in exchange for the great feudal relics of wardship and purveyance—the especial jewels in the crown of a feudal sovereign—the gems that gave glorious lustre to his ancient, real, and solid dignity.

He would now call the attention of the House to the report of the committee of 1815, which gave evidence of such mismanagement as he had never before seen nor even heard of. It pointed out the origin of that confusion which appeared almost to be the incurable disease of the civil list. They would there find that a part of the royal family was provided for by grants from the consolidated fund, while the provision for another part was charged on the civil list. The sovereign was there recommended to give up great part of the civil list, and to receive a remuneration out of the consolidated fund, and he believed a bill was introduced for that purpose. But this was not all. The House was not aware of the company into which the sovereign was forced, in consequence of the present system. No petty prince, no baron of the German empire, was ever placed in worse company than was the king of England, by the present classification of the civil list. If they would look to page 54 of the report, they would find mentioned, amongst other high characters, the vicar of the Tower. This great officer of state (and he wished all other state officers were equally useful and equally cheap) was set down for a stipend of 6l. 13s. 4d. He was connected with the seventh class. The different claimants rose, step by step; but this individual, ranked as he was with those who received thousands, only cost his afflicted country 6l. 13s. 4d. Then came the vicar of St. Botolph, Aldgate, who received 1l. 15s. They next arrived at a certain set of officers, who, although not always treated with respect, were certainly very useful—he meant the churchwardens There was a sum of 7l. 13s. 1d. set down for the churchwardens of St. John the Baptist; and for the schoolmaster of Southwell 10l. The ark itself did not contain a greater variety of beings than were to be found marshalled in the civil list. There were corporations sole, and corporations corporate—persons of every description—individuals of all degrees—but, generally, four or five of each; sometimes, indeed, to make the thing the more extraordinary, there was only one. The two universities were also introduced. There were fellows without end. Emanuel college, he supposed, for preeminence, stood by itself. Then came the corporation of Lyme-Regis, to whom a payment of 25l. was to be made, towards the erection of their pier. Then there were the master of the field sports, the master of the hawks, and the master of the ceremonies. But not only were those who superintended the chase, the amusement of hawking, and the dance, paid out of the civil list; the expenses incidental to the keeping of wild beasts were also entered amongst the items. The keeper of the lions in the Tower was enumerated amongst the officers; and not far from him they would find the gentleman usher of the Black Rod. Next came the "Ex- chequer watchmen." He did not know whether the gentlemen opposite looked strictly after them; but it appeared that these individuals were paid the moderate sum of 108l. a-year, as a reward for their vigilance in guarding the public purse. He hoped those who moved in a higher sphere, where dignity of station was considered, but perhaps profit more, and whose demands amounted yearly to thousands, would prove themselves to be equally good and faithful guardians of the Exchequer as these watchmen were allowed to be. He, however, defied the gentlemen opposite, be they ever so well intentioned—he defied the officers and advisers of the Crown, pure as their views and feelings might be—let their objects be ever so upright, and their economy ever so rigorous—to do their duty to the public as in these times it ought to be done, so long as the civil list continued to present to the people a page of inexplicable mystery.

He would now briefly call the attention of the House to the reasons which made him think it absolutely necessary that a different arrangement should take place. His notion of the civil list was, that whatever appeared to be necessary for upholding the state and dignity of the monarch should be liberally and cheerfully given. He conceived that it should not be voted, once for all; but that it should continue as long as those circumstances remained under which it was granted. When they became altered, it was right that parliament should make a new arrangement. Why was the settlement made permanent? Because, for the term of his life, the sovereign gave up his hereditary revenues. But, notwithstanding that, circumstances might, from time to time, make the old arrangement improvident. It was, indeed, most fallacious to say that you must take the hereditary revenues for the life of the king; and, in consequence, that you must allow him a certain grant, without the possibility of revising the arrangement. It might, in this instance, be a short life, which God forbid! it might be a long and prosperous one, which God grant! but, with this contingency before them, it was the greatest blunder that sensible men ever made, or could ever make, to come at once to a final arrangement of the civil list. The House could be practically convinced of this fact. His late majesty reigned for sixty years; and during that period there were six new arrangements, besides eight different payments in aid of the civil list. It would appear that even nine years were too long for the continuance of this provident system. The arrangement of 1760 was made as if it were supposed that the monarch was to live only nine years; but in 1769 a debt of half a million had accumulated; and in 1777 it was found necessary to grant 100,000l. more per annum. An arrangement for life could not proceed on any one conceivable principle. The existence of the monarch might be short; in which case the provision might happen to be too much—it might be long, and then, perhaps, the provision would be too little. The only impartial course was, for parliament to take possession of those hereditary revenues—to place them to the account of the consolidated fund, and to pay, from the latter, a proper sum to maintain the dignity of the Crown. They should wholly separate from the civil list the salaries of the judges, the salary of the Speaker of the House of Commons—a situation that should be as independent as that of the sovereign himself—and the payments made to foreign ministers. There was a great number of contingent charges connected with the civil list. These were, a sum of 35,000l. to be given to this minister—a sum of 32,000l. to be paid to a Colonel somebody for a trip to Paris. He did not mean to say that these were improper; they might be very necessary. But I let any individual look over the accounts, and he would at once perceive that the whole of these items would be as soon paid, if an estimate of them were laid on the table of this House, unless they were manifestly improper, as they were under the existing system. Why could not these demands be submitted to the House, in the same way as the army extraordinaries were laid before them? Why could they not be introduced by estimate and proposal? Why should not questions be asked, and explanations be given, within the walls of that House? That was the only course that could satisfy the public—that could enforce economy—that could prevent abuse. There might be a difference of opinion on one point—he alluded to the household expenses, and the manner of defraying them. On that subject he would give no decided opinion; but he thought an estimate of those bills might be made, and provided for, adequate to the dignity of the Crown, and commensurate with the situation of the country. As to all other charges, there was no shadow of reason for not granting them out of the consolidated fund.

With respect to that separate fond, the droits of Admiralty, which had been so often before the House, it possessed all the bad qualities of a fund of that description. It was a large, lumping sum of money, which might be perverted (and the possibility was quite sufficient for his argument) to bad and dangerous purposes. If the House asked him for an instance in which that fund had been abused, he was not bound to answer the question; but he would, notwithstanding, advert to some cases which fortified his observation. In the first place, he would mention to the House how the sums which formed the droits of the Crown accrued. Gentlemen supposed that they were confined to droits of the Admiralty; but they were greatly mistaken. There were other sources that placed large sums in the hands of the Crown. In 1807, the sum of 130,000l. fell to the Crown, in consequence of the demise of a rich lunatic—at least, so he understood. In the same year, an individual who had no heirs, died intestate; his property, to the amount of 47,000l., went to the Crown. In. 1809, the Crown got possession of 62,000l. in the same way. He did not mean to say, that the enormous expenses of the Crown did not demand large supplies; but he would contend that a fund of this description, beyond the reach of parliament, possessed the worst qualities. Other sums, much larger in amount, were supplied from different sources. In 1801, prize-money to the amount of 105,000l. was received on one occasion. In the same year there was another sum of 40,000l., and a third of 55,000l. In 1806, those droits were augmented by 155,000l.; and at one period there came in nearly the whole proceeds of the Dutch prizes, amounting to 1,057,000l. From the Spanish condemnations the sum of 2,200,000l. was derived. So that large sums were not wanting in the list any; more than small ones. His late majesty, was graciously pleased, in the session of 1806, to, communicate to parliament, that, in, consideration of the heavy expense, of carrying on the war, and the distressed stated the country, he, would, put of the own particular funds, grant a sum of 1,000,000l. in aid of the supplies for the year. The House voted his majesty a loyal, and grateful address, in consequence of his liberality. Did he, in mentioning this, mean to insinuate that the House behaved too obsequiously, in expressing their grateful acknowledgments for the gift of a million sterling, to enable the country to carry on what (at that time) was an unfortunate war? He intended no such thing. But he must say, that their forefathers would have stared to see a thing so unusual. They would have been astonished if they had beheld the monarch, instead of calling on parliament to assist him with a tenth, coming down to the House as a giver and dispenser of money—as the benefactor of those from whom, according to the safe and sacred course of the constitution, all money, for public purposes ought to come! Here they had matters reversed—the Crown, not asking for assistance, but giving it;—that House, not requesting aid, but the Crown, of its own mere motion, imparting it;—parliament not receiving the royal approbation for its liberality, but thanking the Crown for its benevolence, in giving up a sum of money which was equal to an extensive impost. There was another source, too, of great importance, though not so productive as those to which he had alluded, the proceeds of which were applicable to the same purpose. He meant the revenue derivable from Bavbadoes and the Leeward Islands, from Gibraltar, from Scotland, &c. which amounted to a very large sum. How was it disposed of?—In pensions. It was not under the control of parliament, and might be expended as the reward of good services or bad services, or as the need of favouritism, or for no services at all. So that the property of those dying intestate or lunatic, the proceeds of certain captured vessels, and the other sources of revenue which he had mentioned, might all be employed in the furtherance of corrupt practices or of special jobs, or to induce individuals to undertake particular duties. He did not mean to say this in an invidious sense. He would not contend that such an use had been made of those funds. He merely alluded to the possibility of their abuse; and he conceived that pensions derived from those occasionally-accumulating funds were not so pleasing to the public as those which came through the more regular and steady channel of the legislature. If any pension were necessary to be granted to a great naval or military character—to earl St. Vincent, to lord Hutchinson, to lord Nelson, or their heirs—was there an individual in that House who would not feel it to be his duty to recommend a grant to those gallant commanders, or their relatives? If such a proposition were made, it was sure to be carried? But the privilege of the Crown was not always so wisely exerted. Individuals were honoured with pensions who had not assisted in defeating Buonaparte in Egypt, nor in effecting any other public service. The right hon. gentleman opposite, for instance, had the good fortune to obtain a pension. He did not, however, mean to say that he did not deserve it. Lady Grenville had also procured a pension. He introduced that circumstance, because he thought it fair to give an example from his side of the House as well as from the other. He did not mean to say that those individuals would not have procured their pensions if application had been made to parliament; but he was well assured that they would not have got them so unanimously, as that House would have conferred a similar mark of approbation on lord Hutchinson, earl St. Vincent, or lord Nelson: and he was equally well convinced, that no minister would have proposed a pension so cheerfully to the persons to whom he had in the first instance adverted, as to those whom he had recently named. No: a minister proceeded in a different course. He deemed it more advisable, where there was any doubt of success to screw a pension out of some fund over which parliament had no control, rather than bring it under the consideration of the House. Doubtless, the right hon. gentleman opposite, to whom he had before adverted, deserved his pension [Hear, hear!] This cheer proved the truth of his argument. If a pension had been called for by that House, to reward the merits of those great commanders whom he had mentioned, he should not have heard the voice of his hon. friend (Mr. Wynn); but the moment the pension of the right hon. gentleman opposite and that which was I granted to one of the Grenville family were noticed, the mind of his hon. friend was roused, and his jealousy was awakened. He was sure his hon. friend would have raised his voice against those pensions, and that they would not, at all events, have been carried unanimously. [Hear!] When he recollected the case of sir Homie Popham, he could not but join in opinion with those who declared that those funds were sometimes abused. At the end of a long war, when a peace of proportionate length was supposed to have been attained, that gallant officer, feeling all the ardour of a high and generous mind, and disliking sloth, inactivity, and idleness, sought the field of his former glory, the theatre of his bold achievements. Enamoured of glory, and wishing to gain new laurels by exploits on the ocean, where he had already been so successful, he engaged in a smuggling transaction! [A laugh.] Different men sought fame by different roads. One individual looked for it in the field of battle, where he would perhaps find death; another sought for it through the medium of smuggling, and found captors. The gallant officer having procured simulated papers, and all other instruments necessary for his purpose, proceeded on board his ship, which he named the Etrusco. He sailed for the East Indies, where he arrived in safety. But the best-conducted enterprizes sometimes failed, particularly on an element which was as proverbial for its uncertainty, as it was famous for the glorious scenes that had been acted on it. Commodore Robinson unfortunately fell in with and captured this great contrabandist, and his vessel was condemned by a competent jurisdiction. But how did the matter end? Instead of handing over the proceeds of the ship and cargo to the captor, who had done his duty to the country, 20,000l. and the expenses of the suit were given to the gallant officer, to comfort him under his disappointment. Sir Home Popham, it appeared, was a man of fine feeling—indeed, the man of sentiment and the hero always went together. His family, at the time to which he alluded, was on shore, and sir Home thought, "I have exposed myself to the perils of the sea, to the rage of the enemy, and to the persecution of the king's proctor; and God forbid, when I have an opportunity of seeing my family, that I should stay on board." He accordingly went on shore in a boat. But what became of the boat, or rather, as Mr. Windham had said, of the two boats? That would be presently seen. A soft intercourse was observed to be carried on during the night, between the boats and sir Home's family, and the sentimental trips from the ship to the shore continued until morning. But there was another person, whose case was much harder than that of this gallant officer, who had not supplied any of the money necessary for furnishing out the adven- ture. That individual was Mr. Charnock, of Ostend, who procured the funds that were requisite: so that the person who advanced the money lost all, while he who; originally had none received a very large sum. This was unfortunate for Mr. Charnock; but such circumstances would happen to the best of smugglers [A laugh.] He stated this, as one instance, to prove the possibility of these funds being abused. Of one thing he was quite certain, that, whether it was right or wrong, the minister who had those funds at his command, although he might propose pensions in an open and public way, if he pleased, would always take a more secure and secret course—that of conferring them out of these droits.

But, if these droits were suspicious in their progress, and of dangerous application in their result, they were, he thought, in their origin, ten thousand times worse. They offered a temptation to the Crown and the minister to embark in wars, which ought not to be thrown in their way. When he said this, he did not believe that any sovereign, since the reign of Charles 2nd, would involve himself and his country in a war, merely for the gain of a few millions. The idea, however, that during a contest, eight or nine millions would be added to these funds, might mitigate the dislike to a state of warfare in the minds of some men. He did not, however, mean to argue the question in that point of view—because he believed that no king would go to war, that no minister would plunge his country into hostilities, for gains of this kind. But undoubtedly the effect of the system was to make them go to war in an un-English manner. The tendency of those funds was, to give ministers a direct interest in proceeding to hostilities before a declaration of war, and thus they lowered the honour and character of the country [Hear!]. Gentlemen who had heard this subject discussed were aware of what he was about to state; but, for the information of those who were not conversant with the question, he would observe, that every prize made before declaration of war, was a droit of the Crown, and was added to those funds. Let gentlemen only observe the nature of those funds and ask themselves whether they ought not to be viewed with jealousy? Let them consider well whence they arose, and how they accrued, and they would find that they were premiums for going to war without the usual proclamation. On those funds † ought to be written, in indelible characters (he feared it was already written in characters of blood on the pages of our history)—"These funds are the purchase-money of the honour, the good faith, the pure and unsullied good name of England." If he wanted a proof that they were so, he had only to refer to the Dutch war in the time of Charles 2nd: that war was undertaken for the purpose of seizing the Smyrna fleet—for which perfidious action Providence punished that monarch, by overwhelming him and his ministers in discomfiture and disgrace. But, to come to later times, what did they think of the Dutch—what of the Spanish prizes? 2,200,000l. were acquired by attacking unarmed, defenceless men—men who knew of no reason for such a proceeding, except that they had dollars on board their ships [Hear, hear!]. He vowed to God, he had never yet talked to a British officer on the subject—he had never spoken of it to a gallant officer with whom he had the honour of being connected, and who had the misfortune of taking a part in the transaction—but the events of that day were described as sufficient to make an English seaman hang his head with shame. It was, however, enough for his argument to show, that a fund of this kind was a fertile source of temptation. Charles 2nd had yielded to that temptation, and other monarchs might hereafter pursue the same course. All foreign nations deemed this country most liable to be plunged into a war for the purpose of enlarging this fund; and that circumstance alone ought to cause the House to unite in wiping away so foul a stain from the national character. They ought the more readily to do so because it would take from their enemies and rivals who were continually slandering the nation on that account, all reason and all inducement for continuing their abuse. His advice, in plain terms, was this:—let the Crown be requested to give up those funds; let a proper remuneration be given for them:—let fair and just terms be offered; and henceforth let the dignity and splendor of the monarch be supported out of the consolidated fund. Similar changes bad been formerly effected. The same thing was done in the reign of Henry 8th, when an act of parliament was passed, by which the power of the Crown, with respect to certain ecclesiastical matters, was limited. The 12th of Charles 2nd afforded another instance. By that act, the right of wardship, knights' services, and several other privileges were surrendered. He particularly called on the House to look to the preamble of that act, which ran thus—"Whereas wards, purveyances, &c, and their consequences on the realm, have been found, in practice, more burthen-some and grievous to the kingdom than beneficial to the king." This was precisely the principle on which he acted in calling for an alteration of the system with respect to these funds, which were more injurious to the kingdom than beneficial to the king. Again, by the statute of Anne, first fruits and tenths were given up, although they had been conferred on Henry 8th, to hold to him and his heirs, independent of all church claimants. As to the four and a half per cent fund, he did not consider that in the same light. How that fund came into the possession of the Crown he did not exactly know. The subject was involved in considerable obscurity. All he could find was, that in 1663 an act was passed by which the island of Barbadoes granted unto the king a duty of four and a half per cent on their native commodities, expressly for the maintenance of the public sessions for the reparation of the forts, for the building of a sessions-house and a prison, and all other public charges incumbent on the government. How long this fund was applied according to its original intention he did not know: by degrees, however, it was usurped, and, instead of its being appropriated to purely colonial purposes the mother country got hold of it for her own use. At length it came into the sole possession and use of the Crown. How this happened he had not been able to trace; but he saw from the parliamentary records, that after the restoration of Charles 2nd, during the reigns of James 2nd, and even,of William, this fund was enumerated as a matter of course, and without observation, among the smaller branches of the hereditary revenue: it was not, however, described as a droit. At last, in the reign of queen Anne, there came a petition from Barbadoes and the Leeward islands complaining of the misapplication of the fund. The House listened to the petition, and, acknowledging that the fund had not been applied as it ought to have been, addressed the queen to restore it to its proper uses. Her majesty accordingly gave it up for the purposes for which it had first been granted. After this he lost sight of the fund, and could not discover by what process it became a droit of the Crown. It was somewhat curious that after queen Anne's acknowledgment that it was not hers, that it belonged to the colonies, and that parliament had the control of it, it should neither go to the use of the colonies, nor fall under the inspection of parliament, but make a dead stop, and become the absolute property of the Crown. So it was, but the cause and history of the fact were buried in obscurity; all that was known was, that it was the fund for obscure pensioners of all descriptions [Hear].

He regretted that he had detained the House so long: all that he begged of the House was, to consider that the arguments adduced by the other side of the House when he last brought this motion forward, did not now apply; it was now a new reign; and if now, in opposition to the clear law of the question, in opposition to the constitutional view of its principle, in the face of numerous precedents of mischievous abuse derived from history—if now the House neglected the opportunity of wiping away a foul blot on the honour of the country, by giving up a vile relic of feudal barbarism, useless for any national purposes, and serving only as an occasion of calumny to our carping rivals and bitter enemies—if now when this mischief could be done away, without injury to the! Crown and with benefit to the people, the House should suffer the opportunity to be lost, it would, in fact, go the length of saying that these droits ought to remain for ever a lasting anomaly in the law and constitution, a perennial source of abuses, and a perpetual stigma on the character of the country [Loud and repeated cheering for some minutes]. The hon. and learned gentleman concluded with moving, "That it is expedient with a view to the arrangement of his majesty's civil list, to take into consideration the Droits of the Crown and Admiralty, four and a half per cent West India duties, and other funds not usually deemed hitherto to be within the immediate control of parliament, and to make such provisions touching the same as may be consistent with the honour and dignity of the Crown, the interests of the subject, and the maintenance of the constitution."

Mr. Canning

began by observing, that if any stranger had entered the House during the last few sentences of the hon. and learned gentleman's speech, without knowing what had been his previous argument, such stranger would have been induced, from his high tone of indignant remonstrance, to imagine that the hon. and learned gentleman had been called upon by some pressing necessity to make a stand against some new assault of arbitrary power—some sudden encroachment of ministerial rapacity. He would have conceived, as soon as be learned the subject of debate, that some extraordinary augmentation to the royal income was contemplated; and this, without any regard had to the present state of the country, and utterly inconsistent with the universal and acknowledged practice of the constitution. That stranger, must, however, have been somewhat surprised at the motion which followed this vehement declamation, for he would see that the motion distinctly recognized that the funds in question had never been deemed as under the control of parliament, and had always been dealt with as it was now proposed to deal with them. If this stranger had heard the speech without the motion, he would have thought that all the innovation was on his (Mr. Canning's) side of the House, and that the hon. and learned gentleman was the champion of established usage; he could not have supposed that no new burthen was intended, but on the contrary, a strict adherence to an old compact, which had been long and well-considered; and that he who declaimed so loudly in favour of the constitution was the first to propose innovation, and, as the price of such innovation, was willing to impose a new burthen on the people. As to the temptation thus held out to his side of the House, he could answer for his colleagues, and (he trusted he might say it without disrespect) he could answer for the Crown, that they and it would reject the boon which was offered as an inducement to sell the royal prerogatives. He could assure parliament that there was no disposition on the part of his majesty's ministers to depart from a practice made sacred by long prescription, unless, indeed, some system was presented to them whose advantages were obviously greater than those incident to the present usage. As to one branch of the funds under consideration, that connected with the droits of admiralty, the hon. and learned gentleman objected not only to its disposal and general administration, but had argued that the fund should be abandened altogether. In his view the fund had made the country odious throughout Europe. Now, supposing this to be the fact, he did not see how the case would be bettered by putting such a fund under the control of parliament. The character of the country would be left just as it was. In order to be consistent with his argument, the motion of the hon. and learned gentleman should have been of a different description—it should have been an address to the Crown to abolish the fund altogether. In addition to its inconsistency, the motion has been interposed in a most unusual manner and season. During four reigns, and for upwards of a century, the invariable practice had been, that the settlement of the civil list should be the first subject arranged by parliament at the beginning of a new reign. The hon. and learned gentleman might, perhaps, inquire, why, then, did not ministers bring the subject forward before the dissolution? To this he would answer, that it being evident that the public business could not be brought to a close within such reasonable time as belonged to the constitutional existence of the old parliament, it had been thought adviseable, for the benefit of all, that the dissolution should take place immediately. He could not enter now into all the reasons of the measure, but he could say that it was adopted in the most perfect spirit of fairness and candour. As soon, however, as the new parliament was assembled, it was naturally its first business to arrange the civil list. The proposition from the throne stated that no new burthen was contemplated for the support of the civil government and of the splendor of the Crown. It asked nothing beyond the last arrangement; with respect to which it might be observed, that from the experience of tour years it had answered the expectations of those who framed it. It was ungraciously said, that though no new fund was wanted, yet it was the business of the House to see whether there was not something to take away. For himself, he certainly had not anticipated such an objection; and he thought it neither expedient nor fair. If the civil list exceeded the usual stipulation, then there was a cry of wasteful excess; if it came within the usual limits, then parliament was called upon to examine into such suspicious economy, and to see if something might not be cut away by act of parliament from funds which were already retrenched, without permission first had and obtained. All that was desired on the part of the king's ministers was, to adhere to the old arrangement without any augmentation; and it was too much to say, "you are too well satisfied, and it is our duty to see whether we cannot take something from you as a punishment for being so easily contented." The hon. and learned gentleman had fairly, indeed more than fairly, professed his willingness to make compensation for all he should take away; so that the question, as far as his argument was concerned, was not one of diminution or retrenchment, but of bargain and sale, with the chance of inflicting further burthens on the people.

The hon. and learned gentleman had derived his arguments from historical precedents, some of which, however, had not been stated with his usual accuracy. He should take the liberty of following him shortly through some of his cases. To begin with the 4½ per cent fund; it was undoubtedly true, as had been stated by the hon. and learned gentleman, that it was a subject involved in considerable difficulty and obscurity. It was true that queen Anne, on the petition of the inhabitants of Barbadoes, had, at the recommendation of the House of Commons, given up her control over this fund; it was also true that the original grant to the Crown had been accompanied with a stipulation that it should be employed in the repairs of the public works of the island. But he believed, that though this was the consideration of the grant, yet its origin was the giving up of some quitrents, and the settling of a disputed title. It was true that queen Anne, in answer to the application of the House of Commons for an annual account of the duties, promised to give directions accordingly. The result was, that this fund, which had formed part of the civil list of king William, did not appear in her civil list, and had not since appeared, except when called for from time to time by addresses of parliament. The usage, however, of four reigns, a space of upwards of a century, established the existence of the property, and the custom and power of granting pensions on it were co-existent with the first mention of its origin. The hon. and learned gentleman had asserted, that when a pension was to be bestowed for great public services, ministers had no hesitation in coming to parliament, because parliament in such case, had no reluctance in giving; but that it was the evil of those uncontrolled funds, that they enabled the Crown to bestow secret, bounties on obscure favourites. This was a singular character of a fund, one of the first names on which was the illustrious William Pitt, earl of Chatham; and one of the last, Edmund Burke. He would; not say any thing as to the deserts of either of these pensioners; but, as to the point of secrecy, he would ask, whether the names of William Pitt and Edmund Burke were not precisely those which were most known over the whole kingdom? And surely the Crown would not have granted pensions to those illustrious men on a doubtful fund, the title to which was likely to be disputed. The popularity, indeed, of lord Chatham was so great, as to shut the eyes of the people, however illegal the title might have been: but it was not so with Edmund Burke, high as that great man stood in the admiration of Europe, he was not so generally popular at home; at the same time he was of a size to attract universal attention; he had himself been a reformer of the civil list and of the pension list, and any grant made to him would be watched with peculiar jealousy. Must he not therefore himself have felt convinced that his pension was charged on a solid fund? [Hear and a laugh.] If any gentleman wished to degrade that illustrious statesman, he left them to the consolation of such a sneer; but, for himself, he would say that the great man to whom he alluded was as far above ridicule as he was above praise. His reason, however, for alluding to him was, to show that he had deeply studied the subject of the Crown revenues; and knowing that his right to a pension would be disputed, he would not have accepted one on a fund the validity of which was not ascertained. The only objection, therefore, that could remain as to this fund, was its liability to abuse. Mr. Burke, when he was reforming the civil-list, had examined its character and use; and, after the deepest consideration, had thought it best to leave it at the disposal of the Crown. As to its liability to abuse, from the concealment with which its proceeds might be distributed in pensions, he was ready to state, for himself and colleagues, that the amount of that fund, and its application, should be laid annually before parliament, as matter of course, and without any previous motion [Hear, hear!]. The hon. and learned gentleman had not explained how the droits of admiralty were to be administered except by the Crown. The right of the Crown to this property he Would not now discuss, but only the mode in Which it had been administered. In the course of the late reign, the whole proceeds of this fund had amounted to about 9,700,000l. Out of this there had been paid to captors and claimants and for various law expenses 5,372,000l. There remained, therefore, something more than 4,000,000l; to be accounted for. Out of that sum 2,600,000l. had been contributed for the public service: and two several sums had been given—one in aid of the civil-list, the other of the 4½ per cent fund; the first of these contributions was 1,300,000l.; the second 40,000l.: there remained, therefore, about 380,000l. to be accounted for: this sum had been paid partly in donations to different branches of the royal family, and partly in entertainments to foreign sovereigns. The expenditure, however, of the whole, had been communicated to parliament. It was true, that the account had not been laid before the House as a matter of course, but in consequence of motion and discussion. He was ready, however, now to meet the Iron, and learned gentleman fairly on this point; and he would tell him, that it was part of the new arrangement that an account of every grant out of this fund should, as a matter of course, and without address, be laid before the House in every session, immediately after such grant [Hear!]. So that the only distinction remaining between him and the hon. and learned gentleman would be whether the grant should be discussed in the House in the first instance, and be conferred in consequence of a parliamentary vote; or whether it should first proceed from the Crown, and then be submitted to the cognizance of parliament. He did not mean to say that this distinction was a trifling one, or one that did not deserve the most serious examination. All he meant to say was, that the ministers of the Crown were not prepared to propose that a long and almost immemorial usage should be abolished without the most striking proof that such usage, though co-existent with the practice, was incompatible with the spirit of the constitution—He came now to another part of the hon. and learned gentleman's speech—a part in which the hon. and learned gentleman must himself acknowledge, on mature reflection., he could § not have spoken his genuine sentiments when he proposed the change which he did propose in the revenues of the Crown. The hon. and learned gentleman had admitted that there was no remarkable abuse in the application of the funds in question, and that many of the pensions would have been readily granted by parliament. To lord St. Vincent, lord Nelson, the duke of Wellington, parliament would have granted pensions without any hesitation, according to the hon. and learned gentleman; but it would not be so with pensions for political services, if submitted to parliamentary investigation. "The hon. and learned gentleman states truly (said Mr. Canning) what he says of those on this side of the House, and what I would say were I where he sits, but I think it better that the patronage of the Crown should reward public services by property under its peculiar protection, than that a democratic assembly should dole out largesses and favours according to the impulse and force of passion, party, or canvass. We have had instances enough, in our own memory, of what party canvass can do [Cheers!]. Setting on the one side the chances of favour, canvass, party, and in-advertency—on the other, the chances of extravagance—I do think the Crown the better trustee. I complain, therefore, of this part of the speech, because the hon. and learned gentleman is too well read in the principles and practices of popular assemblies to be ignorant of the change that would take place to the prejudice of the people and of public men, if he were taken at his word, and if this task of giving pensions for political services were abandoned by the Crown, and should fall into the management of this House: I complain that, for the sake of a rhetorical flourish, he had used such an argument, independently of the change which must attend its success. If the present state of the droits in consideration is sanctioned by long usage, if it is not stained by abuse—and in the long period of sixty years the hon. and learned gentleman has hit upon only one questionable case, and that case questionable only in the view which he has taken of it; and I confess that I am not sufficiently acquainted with its circumstances to go into details; but when that pension was given it was discussed, and this House gave its opinion upon it:—if in sixty years only one suspicious case can be found, then, in addition to usage, there is the recommendation of experience and practice not to depart from the course hitherto pursued.—I come now to the more general argument, which I have already alluded to; it is, that in aggravation of funds being at the disposal of the Crown without previous sanction from parliament, that for obtaining those funds, and for pecuniary purposes, the Crown is likely to conduct the country to war wantonly and lightly. I entreat of the hon. I and learned gentleman not to concede any thing to the moral character of the administration—I entreat of him not to concede any thing to the character of the: existing sovereign—and, in a constitutional view, nothing of this kind ought to be conceded. The hon. and learned gentleman spoke properly of Charles 2nd, for a king once departed from life is fair subject of animadversion. But I ask, whether, on the average virtue of kings and ministers, if you place four millions—and that is beyond any case that can be imagined—if you place four millions against all the evil, the danger, and the disgrace that must overwhelm them when the proceeding, perhaps in twelve hours after, becomes known to parliament—I ask, whether in such a case, any administration would rush into war? I ask, whether, in times such as we live in, for the sake of any haul of droits of admiralty; I do not say the sovereign—I do not say his ministers; but whether the vilest mind that ever meddled with public affairs, or contemplated public administration, could recommend a wanton and unjustifiable war?—So far as to the motive supplied by the droits for going to war. Against this we can set on the other side the salutary practice of the Crown. During the long period of the last reign only 9,000,000l. have been accumulated. If we were to enter into the causes of war, we should find, not in one, in two, in three, but in many—in all cases, the arrangement which the hon. and learned gentleman opposes, and of which he wishes the contrary to be adopted, has tended to save the country from war. If the droits were not committed to the Crown through the proper courts of law, but were submitted to parliamentary control, the difficulties of amicable adjudication would be increased tenfold. The desire to hold the balance equal—and, if wrong was done on one side or the other, to make amicable reparation—would be counteracted by national heat, high and romantic honour, and other feelings, which would naturally prevail in an assembly like this. It would be impossible to avoid war. For the very purpose, therefore, of avoiding rash and unnecessary war, it is necessary to exclude such questions from the knowledge—that is, from the official knowledge—of parliament, till every claim has been heard, and a final adjudication made. If any private wrong should have been committed, if any inadvertent measure should have been adopted, not only the difficulty, but the inconvenience of retracing the first step, or of persevering in the course once hastily taken, would be increased by the change. If it were necessary to come down at once to parliament, and state that so many ships had been captured, and were at the control of parliament, the question would arise, was the capture just or unjust? If it should be judged unjust, the administration would be condemned; but what has this to do in repairing the wrongs of a nation? If it were thought just, war must be entered into, although policy might dissuade strongly from war. No reason, then, can be found in the usage, in any constitutional defect, or in the application of the droits for the change proposed. Every reason and every argument, arising from the first nucleus of their formation to the expenditure of the last farthing, distinctly shows that we should be wrong in changing the control of the droits in question. In the hands of the Crown, then, they are best placed, to be exercised as every prerogative of the Crown ought to be—for the benefit of the people for whom the royal prerogatives exist.—The only other argument for departing from usage on this subject is, that the whole department of the monarchy may be recast, and for the sake of doing away with every vestige of feudal monarchy. That we could erect something new that would merit great praise, I am not prepared to deny. The new fabric might be clean and neat as the American government, and intelligible as the presidency of the United States. But I am unwilling that every trace of antiquity should be done away in the British constitution. Nothing is so easy as to frame a system that will look neater on paper—a system that, by stripping the king of all exclusive and princely ornaments, would render the monarch and his ministers, in dignity and form, what they are in reality, but in a more suitable and efficient character—the mere func- tionaries of the people. There is but one step further to complete the improvement, it is, as the king is paid a fixed and calculated salary, so that ministers be removed in form as they are in substance, as well as new ministers appointed by this House. The monarch would then be separated from all the darkness of ancient times; but I do not think that the admirers of Paine's plans would be satisfied with all this. I admit that the hon. and learned gentleman would be satisfied with seeing the monarch thus stripped naked, but they would say that his salary was still too large. Mr. Canning said, he did not think that they would be satisfied without removing all the lines of circumvallation, which, thank God, the arm of a traitor must pierce before the constitution of this country would remove. The hon. and learned gentleman had amused the House by reading on the 7th head of the civil list many ludicrous charges. Much as he admired the talents of the hon. and learned gentleman he thought they were here misapplied, for he answered all the observations of this sort when he admitted, at the conclusion of his speech, that he had not made up his mind whether the insulated king should have the control of his own household; whether the various items of charge in that department should be audited by a committee of this House, or by the king himself. If the household were not given, up to his majesty's management, the civil list could be quoted and exposed to much greater ridicule than the hon. and learned gentleman had thrown upon the part he had selected. Unless the monarch should be put on board-wages, and should dine in a chop-house, they must come to the monstrous conclusion, that there would be more dishes on his table than he absolutely required. If the king lived in this guilty state, and his expenses were audited by parliament, there would be more ludicrous charges than those for the worthy vicar of the Tower, and the not less worthy keeper of the lions of the Tower. Here the right hon. gentleman read rapidly from the civil list, "Oilery, grocery, lemons, fruits, and orange's, milk and cream, butter, cheese, and eggs, bacon, butcher-meat, poultry, fish, and vegetables, stationer, china, and brazier, cider, and brandy, beer, bread, and wine"—all those were detailed in that account, and must form part of the household charges. On the subject of the household the hon. and learned gentleman ought to have made up his mind before he had brought forward this question; for it was as easy to do so on that subject as on the other points on which his motion was founded. When he had entered that House he had expected something more practicable from the hon. and learned gentleman than a proposal to strip the Crown, at one sweep of a right that had adorned it since the Revolution; to divest the king of his peculiar power and privileges; to make the civil-list less involved by making it entirely new. His proposal was as impracticable in its nature as it was undesirable in its effects. At every former period the civil-list was more obscure and complicated than the civil-list now proposed. Considering, then, the greater complication of former times, and the greater intelligence of the present time, he did think, although they had not arrived at the summum bonum of the hon. and learned gentleman that they had made considerable progress from obscurity and confusion for every former report had been less intelligible than that of 1816. He did not think that by laying an estimate before the House of every item, they would give greater satisfaction to the country, or that they would allay the discontent of those who were now dissatisfied by putting forth the precise charges more distinctly. It was not necessary, for the purpose of satisfying the people of this country, to separate the Crown from its concomitants. Whatever illusion (or, if they would, delusion) there might be in such an opinion, he was not for stripping off from the monarchy every thing which rendered it respectable in the eyes of the country. He objected to the motion of the hon. and learned gentleman, because it was ill-timed and undeserved. If any new demands had been made, if any proposal had been presented that might lead to new burthens on the country, he could understand why, in the ardour of repelling such a sally, gentlemen should be carried, as it were, into the work itself. But when nothing was demanded; when the sovereign he would not say consented—declared that he would receive with gratitude and satisfaction the civil-list that had been acquiesced in for four years; when this declaration was made, when the sovereign expressed himself satisfied, and declared that he would have no reduction made upon any sums falling in to the country, what was the return? "Aye, but you have other funds, and we wish to have them taken from you; we wish you to be a king after anew fashion; we require your allowances to be limited to your physical wants; we desire you to rival the president of America [Cheers], Oh, incomparable temptation! But he would not be induced by this temptation to strip off trappings which were neither costly to the people, nor dangerous to the constitution. Technically speaking, he admitted that this was a new reign. On other occasions there had been a sameness of office, with a change of persons; on the present occasion there was sameness of person with a change of office. The change was not so total as when one formerly a subject became the sovereign; for it was only the investing with original sovereignty one who had exercised it in a vicarious character. It would be easy to show that the difference of claim ought in this case to be the other way. They (the ministers) adhered to the pledge given, and nothing was asked; but nothing could be more natural than that he who became king from being regent should consider himself entitled to some augmentation. But no augmentation was asked. And here he would state that the idea of any augmentation of the civil list was never contemplated for a passing quarter of an hour and never for one moment intended. This he thought it necessary to state distinctly, because a report of a different kind had gone abroad. He hoped that the House would take the opportunity of availing themselves of the confidence expressed by the sovereign—that they would not reject his demands—that they would not seek to strip him of his rights—that they would not stoop to consider whether they could save by his promotion. He certainly did not mean to treat with any disrespect the motion of the hon. and learned gentleman, and disclaiming any such motive, he should conclude with; moving, that the other order of the day; be now read.

Mr. Brougham

explained, that the right hon. gentleman must have misapprehended him, or, in common policy, he would not have so far misrepresented what he had said. He had not supposed that the droits occasioned war. No king nor House of Commons would ever be so mad as to go to war for the sake of droits of the Admiralty. What he had said, and what the right hon. gentleman had left untouched, was, that the droits were a temptation to go to war without proclamation. As to all that the right hon. gentleman had said of the monarch's physical wants, it was inapplicable. He was for giving the monarch all that they were for giving, but in a separate and definite form.

Mr. Canning

admitted that the explanation made the argument quite different; but the reference to the Smyrna fleet appeared to him to go a little further.

Sir James Mackintosh

said, that if he chose his station in debate otherwise than from a sense of duty, most assuredly he should not have taken the station which brought him so nearly into contact with the great and powerful speech of the statesman and lawyer who introduced the subject, nor that which called upon him to reply to the eloquence and talents of his right hon. friend who had just sat down. Considering the speech of his hon. and learned friend as consisting wholly of reason and knowledge, and entirely free from objections usually made in that House—considering that it discussed exclusively a great and grave question of state policy, without turning it at all into a means of acquiring popularity or an instrument of inflammation, he could not regard the observations which he was now to attempt to answer but as ingenious fallacies. One of the topics urged by his right hon. friend—he could not call it argument, although it was a topic often used with effect, and its general effect he did not wish to lessen—was the reverence for feudal monarchy and gothic government, the charge of stripping the Crown of its trappings, and the monarch of his dignity. This topic was inapplicable altogether on the present occasion; for the speech of his hon. and learned friend expressed as strong a regard for the law, for the constitution, for the honour and dignity of the Crown, as any speech that had ever been Uttered in that House. His right hon. friend ought to view feudal monarchy as connected with all its evils, with the baneful and oppressive evils which were gradually removed during four centuries—from Magna Charta to the statute of Wards and Liveries. This was the olden time so warmly eulogized! This was an attempt at celebrating the golden age of old times, which he thought more suitable to a venerable major nut of doors, than to his right hon. friend [a laugh and cheers]. The bold and presumptuous renovators, the barons at Runnymede, had not such veneration for the olden times and the feudal monarchy. The feudal monarchy was continually attacked and stripped of some of its appendages, from William the Conqueror down to William 3rd. The Bill of Rights, and all the proud charters of our best rights, were so many attacks and encroachments on the, feudal monarchy and the practices of the olden times. His hon. and learned friend ha4 stated that since Charles 2nd the droits had not involved us in war. This he had ascribed not to morality, but to policy. He had distinctly applied his objection, not to the droits causing war, because they could not reach that; but to their influence in occasioning actual hostilities before a declaration of war. The point of objection was the manner of going to war. If even this abuse had never existed, he should still contend that it was a sufficient objection that there was a peculiar liability to this abuse. Nay, it was a sufficient objection that we were suspected and charged with this abuse in foreign countries. This suspicion excited much additional jealousy of what we could not surrender without danger—he meant our important maritime rights. It was prudence, it was wisdom, to reform what rendered us odious without making us formidable, and at a time when the reform could not be imputed to fear or force. This reform we owed, first, to a sense of justice and moderation, and next, to a sacred regard to our own conduct and reputation, which we were bound to maintain. For illustration of this point he would take the liberty of stating the conduct of another nation. In 1812, when we engaged in war with America, the American government allowed six months for all ships to leave their ports after the war commenced. A representation was made of the hardships of not having longer time: longer time was granted. In one of the courts of law in Massachusetts the question was tried, whether the government had a right to grant such time, or whether, according to common law, which was the same in America as in England, the ships had not become droits of the common-wealth there, as of the Crown in England. The courts found that the order of government was conformable to the law of nations, and the ships were enlarged. It was remarkable, that the courts held not only that the enlargement was conformable to the law of na- tions, but also to Magna Charta. When the minister of the American government, at the congress of Ghent, asked for similar indulgence for his countrymen, he did not meet with reciprocal liberality. The answer given to him was indeed the only answer which could be given to him under existing circumstances; for it informed him, that restitution of the property seized could not be made, as it was not the property of the captors, but the property of the Crown. After such a fact, he would ask them, in the first place, whether it was not natural for foreign courts to suspect that wars were sometimes made by our court with no other view than to support this fund? and, in the second, whether the House, if it consented to the measures now proposed by his majesty's ministers, would not be creating another obstacle to the destruction of it? The American government had certainly a right to expect that the English government would adhere to Magna Charta, and Magna Charta expressly declared, that no foreign merchant should suffer, either in his person or in his chattels, upon a declaration of war, though he might be compelled to wait in England until it was ascertained how Englishmen were treated in the other country. This was, however, the law in the golden times of old, but not at the time of the seizure of the Smyrna fleet. His right hon. friend, however, was so sensibly alive to the high character of his late majesty, that he had charged the learned gentleman who had brought forward this motion, with the commission of an inexpiable offence in speaking of the Smyrna fleet and his late majesty in the same breath; forgetting, however, that his learned friend had expressly stated that he did not mean to accuse any king who had reigned in England since Charles 2nd, of a similar act of folly and injustice. But his Tight hon. friend, in reply to the eloquent mover of the debate, had gone so far as to assert, that the fund in question was not so much calculated to prove an incitement to war, as a preventive of it; and had backed his assertion by alluding to the case of the Swedish convoy, in which, as lie said, restitution was made to the captured from the droits of Admiralty. He (sir J. Mackintosh) had been employed as counsel in that case, and might therefore be supposed to have some acquaintance with it; and yet it appeared to him to be to tally irrelevant. The right hon. gentle- man had alluded to it, under the idea that there were no other funds in existence from which restitution could be made; and if such had really been the case, his argument would indeed have been unanswerable. But that was by no means the fact; it was nothing more than mere supposition; and yet upon that as a foundation, the eloquent speech of his right hon. friend entirely rested. He could not indeed hope to rival the eloquence of that speech, but he would not despair of conquering it in argument. He should therefore assert, that there were other funds from which redress in case of injury might be obtained* and that the mode of arranging them was so clear, that if it were referred to a committee for half an hour they would understand its purport and perceive its utility. Indeed he had at that time in his hand a bill for that purpose, which he had prepared four years ago, whilst the Subject was then under discussion; he had not submitted it to the notice of parliament at that period, for certain reasons which it was unnecessary for him then to explain—the reasons might be good or they might be bad—he had, however, acted upon them; and if he had been mistaken in doing so, he had been misled by the ministry of the day, who declared, that though the civil list, as then constituted, was founded upon an express bargain made between his majesty and the country, and therefore could not be disturbed, a time would come when the whole subject would be open to free discussion and examination, and that then would be the period for introducing any such measure as he had contemplated [Hear!]. But now that the time for introducing some such measure was at last arrived, his right hon. friend came forward and informed them, that to enter into any such examination would be, to make a very bad return to the gracious declarations of his majesty king George 4th. His right hon. friend had told them, that his majesty had no wish to add to the burthens of the country, that he was most anxious to alleviate the distresses of the people, and that he had displayed all the sources of his revenue to his parliament; and that it was, therefore, the duty of parliament to behave as generously towards him as he had behaved graciously towards them. What was the real answer, then, which parliament ought to make to this appeal? Why, that in compliance with his majesty's desire they would take into their most serious consideration, how far they could relieve the people from their burdens without detracting from the honour and dignity of the Crown. After he had arrived at this point, his right hon. friend had shown very great eagerness to transfer the discussion to the civil list; but into the discussion of that question it would be highly improper to enter, without first entering into the investigation which his hon. and learned friend had that evening proposed to them to pursue. In the reasons which his right hon. friend had adduced for refusing an inquiry into the droits of Admiralty, there was one great and surprising fallacy: it was this, that he had spread them over the sixty years of the late reign, whereas, eight millions of them and more had been accumulated during the war which had raged during the last twenty years; the other 750,000l., which was placed at the disposal of parliament at the peace of 1763, proceeding from the capture of the French ships which were taken at the commencement of the war in 1756. Hence it appeared, that in the thirty years intervening between the years 1763 and 1793, the droits of Admiralty amounted to a very inconsiderable sum, whilst in the twenty years that afterwards ensued they increased to such an amount, as to give his majesty a clear income of more than 400,000l. a year, not voted by parliament, not recognized by parliament, or not recognizable by parliament, but to be recognized and made recognizable by it at some future period. If such a circumstance could have been foreseen in the first year of the reign of George 3rd, when the civil list was under discussion, and the sum of 800,000l. was proposed to be given to him as an annual revenue, would it have been looked upon as an indifferent circumstance? Certainly not: on the contrary, it would have formed so important a consideration, that it would have been impossible to have overlooked it. It would have occurred to the parliament then sitting, that a revenue arising from such a source was a fluctuating revenue; and that, as it was a fluctuating revenue, it would be impossible to decide what was the amount of an income, partly derived from such a source, and partly derived from a parliamentary grant. This suggestion occurred to him forcibly at present; and he therefore looked upon the motion now proposed to them as a preliminary measure, which they were bound to discuss before they determined on assigning any fixed revenue to the Crown.—Another question, in his opinion, was, whether the revenue derived from these sources was proper and decorous? and upon this point he was happy to say, that his right hon. friend had admitted, that on which he (sir J. Mackintosh) contended the whole of the case to rest. He had admitted that the island of Barbadoes had petitioned against the assignment of its colonial funds to British purposes; he had admitted that the constitution of that colony gave them power to apply those funds to their own purposes, and therefore that any other application of them was absolutely unjust. He had therefore admitted all that was requisite to show the impropriety of attaching this revenue to the Crown, though, indeed, his admission of it was not wanted. It was sufficient for his (sir J. Mackintosh) argument, that in the reign of queen Anne, both the queen and the parliament had acknowledged their error in the application which had been made of them; the fact that they had afterwards continued to be applied to the same purposes was nothing to him; he was well aware that the application of them could not be set aside in a court of law—but that was not the question at present. The question was, whether parliament would still continue to allow the funds belonging to the inhabitants of Barbadoes, who had no person to represent their interests in the House of Commons to be misapplied in the manner which they had been? In the consideration of this question his right hon. friend seemed totally to have forgotten that they then were not debating whether a smaller or a larger sum should be granted to the king, but whether the interest of the state and the honour of the Crown, would be best consulted by the continuance or the discontinuance of these sources of revenue. To this question not one of his remarks was applicable. It was true that a great part of the droits of the admiralty had been made over, voluntarily made over by the king to the public service, and that another great part had also been applied to the recompensing the meritorious, but irregular captors. He conceded that the rewards paid out of this fund had been, for the most part, judiciously bestowed; but he would ask, whether suspicions had not arisen in consequence of some officers of great merit having been overlooked, that these grants were conferred, not so much as marks of try, which merit but as marks of favour? To abolish, therefore, this method of reward, by abolishing the fund, from which the reward was taken, would also tend to abolish the idea of abuse which had arisen out of it. But then these droits of admiralty were defended as a privilege, a valuable and honourable privilege, of the sovereign. What! were they to hear the power by which the Spanish frigates were captured denominated a valuable jewel in the Crown? were they to consider the proceeds arising from the sale of them honourable to the Crown? were those proceeds to be deemed a fit source from which a parent was to bestow his bounty on his children? or were they to be accounted as proceeds equally disgraceful to the giver and receiver? For his own part, he considered them in the latter point of view—for a revenue was well-derived which was derived from the benevolence of the people: but ill derived which was derived from such an act as the seizure of the Spanish fleet—an act which had been compared as equal in atrocity to some of the worst examples of Turkish piracy. It would therefore be more honourable for the sovereign to derive his means of gratifying his paternal affection from the affection of his subjects than from the spoils of his enemies—his unarmed, his unoffending, and his defenceless enemies. But it was said that, if a compensation were to be afforded to the sovereign, it must be a liberal compensation. To this proposition, he, for one, had no objection; and he would so arrange that compensation as to take care that it was not productive to the sovereign of any extra-parliamentatary revenue. Indeed, he should consider the House dead to all sense of shame if they were not most eager, on many accounts, to grant such a compensation to their sovereign. In the first place they would by such a compensation abridge the means of corruption; in the second, they would prevent the Crown from being held up to public view, as deriving benefit from the exercise of the harshest laws of war—rights which, though they might be properly exercised in those times of feudality Which his right hon. friend had chosen as the subject of his panegyric, were now generally considered as cruel and inhuman, and, in the third place, they would protect the maritime rights of the coun- try, which future times were likely to become more difficult to protect than they were at present. Of these rights, though he would maintain some as intimately connected with the honour and safety of the country, he would give up others because they rendered us odious without rendering us formidable. With regard to prizes taken at sea, he held opinions not very different from the bulk of the country. Those opinions he held to be founded upon the law of nations; and he would have them maintained at every hazard, because they were connected with the national honour, which it was requisite to preserve untarnished, if the nation did not wish to sink into the condition of a secondary state. It was, however, these very opinions that rendered England unpopular amongst foreign nations; they were blended with our commercial wealth, and arose from the very causes which had cramped the pretensions of foreign powers; they were interwoven with our earliest history, and had existed from the treaty of Oleron, in the reign of Richard 1st, down to the present times. From a combination of causes like these, from the exertion of these harsh and disgusting rights, we had acquired the title of "tyrants of the sea." On the subject of prizes in general, he did not know that there was any subject on which his first thoughts had differed so much from his second. He had observed that on land private property was safe, but that at sea it was not safe. He thought this extraordinary at first, but he was now convinced that it was perfectly right, because ships were adapted for purposes of invasion. The droits of Admiralty had been defended on another ground—that they were applied to the relief of British subjects who suffered by seizure of their goods in a foreign country on a declaration of war. This had been the case, after the seizure of the Spanish frigates; part of their proceeds had been applied to the relief of the British subjects whose goods had been confiscated at Cadiz. But in the case of those British merchants whose property was seized in Denmark, after the attack on Copenhagen no such redress was afforded, though the Danish droits of admiralty amounted to 2,000,000l. and though the British property confiscated did not exceed a tenth part of that sum in value. The merchants had presented petitions, but in vain; they were told by a noble lord that though such relief had. been afforded in the case of Cadiz, that was a dangerous precedent, and could not be followed: so that the very point was negatived on which the advocates for the droits of admiralty contended for their continuance. And yet, if there ever was a case where relief ought to have been granted, it was to the. British merchants who lost their property in Denmark. The government of England had lulled them into security; till the very sailing of the British expedition Danish clearances were made in our ports. He did not blame government for this, because secrecy might form a part of the policy of the expedition^ but he did blame them for this—that when no British subject could have expected such measures to have been pursued, from the security into which they were lulled, the droits of admiralty had not been granted; and that refusal destroyed the argument which was founded on the application of them as an indemnity for confiscation. He was ashamed of having troubled the House so long; but he had risen to make a few observations in reply to his right hon friend, and the subject had carried him further than he originally intended.

Mr. Marryat

rose to state some facts which had come under his own knowledge respecting the droits of the Crown in conquered colonies. In Trinidad, the owners of land had been required to take out new grants for their lands, with burthens attached to which they had never before been subject. He saw by the Trinidad gazette that 4,800 acres of land were offered, to sale on the part, of the Crown, being confiscated under the new regulation. These confiscations had taken place in the only two parishes which had yet been surveyed for the purposes of the new regulation, out of the 32 parishes in the island. If the others yielded confiscations in the same proportion, there would be 155,000 acres in the whole island. What this land would sell for it was not easy to ascertain; if for 4l. an acre, the amount received by the Crown would would be nearly 700,000l. from that single island. As he could not consent that the Crown should be left in possession of a revenue thus uncertain in amount, and thus unjustly derived from the fruits of triumphs effected by national expenditure, he should vote for the motion.

Mr. Wynn

said, it was his intention to detain the House only for a few moments. His object was, to explain an allusion which had been made by the hon. and learned gentleman who opened the debate to a pension said to be enjoyed by the lady of a noble friend of his. The fact was, that noble lord had the pension on his retiring from his majesty's service, and subsequently if was granted for life to his nearest and dearest relative; but since then circumstances had. occurred from which it had been given up. He was certainly of opinion that an account should be rendered to parliament from time to time of those sources of revenue to which the motion referred; for he held that they were not intended for occasions of private gratification, or for the privy purse of the king, but for the advantage and benefit of the people, Now he conceived that this end would be completely answered by the plan of the right hon. gentleman. For if the amount of those sources, or their application, were annually submitted to the House, it would be seen whether any improper payment had been made from them, and in that case ministers would be strictly accountable for any misapplication. This, he contended, would be a better and more economical arrangement than any compensation which could be made. He saw no ground whatever for making a compensation: for in that case the compensation, whatever it was, would go to the privy purse, over which parliament had no control; but in the other case, if a large surplus should remain from those droits at particular periods, they would be carried, to, the account of the country. And this led him to what had been said, with respect to colonial revenues. It would be in the power of parliament to see the application, if those taxes were increased, or if a large surplus remained; but he could riot see how any surplus could remain; for it should go to the support of the service of the colony itself, the raising of troops, &c. Considering the subject, on these grounds, he thought that, the same end would be answered by the plan; proposed on the other side, and he should therefore vote against the resolution.

Sir J. Newport

said, that as he considered that the power which the present system would give to the Crown was open to great abuse, he should vote for the resolutions. With respect to the revenue of four-and-half per cent, it was said that it was intended for the service of the colonies, the erection of fortifica- tions, and other purposes; but he would ask whether it had been so applied? Why, then, should it be maintained nominally for purposes to which it never was really applied? With respect to the droits, he contended that they ought not to be applied for such uses and in such manner as they now were. He had witnessed the disastrous effects produced by seizures similar to those from which those droits arose, and he had seen no redress afforded. The House were told, on several occasions when this subject had been brought forward, that the period would arrive when it might be more properly discussed; and now, when that period had arrived, it was said that the subject ought not to be touched. He had always found it to be the practice of men in power to refer to some distant period any important question of reform or inquiry; but when the period arrived, there were not wanted persons to rise in their places, and lay it down as a rule almost, that such change or inquiry should not be made. He was certain that all those connected with the commerce of the country would be anxious that some arrangement should be made so as to do away with those droits, and that the purchase would be a cheap one even at a great price; for they considered them as lowering this country in the eyes of other nations, and our merchants suffered for them in foreign countries.

Mr. Macdonald

said, that after all which had been heard from time to time on the subject of economy, after the many promises which had been made, it might have been reasonably supposed that the present period would be one when something would be done for the benefit of the people. If such a supposition had been entertained, was it not, he would ask, borne out by the promises of Mr. Perceval at the commencement of the regency, and by the statements (he would not call them pledges) of the noble lord opposite, in 1816, that the demise of the Grown would be the proper period for such a measure as was now proposed? But, at the arrival of that period, it was little to be expected that the surveyor, of woods and forests, and the paymaster of the forces would be found to say that it was a matter of delicacy now, and ought not to be entered into. Nevertheless, the fact seemed to be, that at the period that those promises were given and those hopes held out, no revision or alteration was intend- ed—that all those statements were the ad captandum of the moment, and that it was then intended that the whole of the civil list should still continue involved in mystery and obscurity—and that certain anomalous and ambiguous rights should continue a disgrace on the Crown. The present moment, he should have thought, was one when this subject might have been discussed and settled with signal advantage. The spirit of his majesty was said to be favourable to it; but without the assertion of the right hon. gentleman opposite, who could for a moment doubt that his majesty, when ascending the throne of his ancestors, and contemplating the condition of the people around—who could doubt that, while viewing the misery, the protracted misery of his people, he would not rather consider what might be for their advantage than for his own aggrandizement? It appeared to him that justice had not been done by ministers to the feelings of his majesty on this subject, and particularly in the speech from the throne. The king was there made to say, and that coldly too, that the civil list would be arranged on the basis of that of 1816—of a year when he might say that a sum of 230,000l. had been added to it. But who could answer for carrying a proposition of an increase to that amount at present? Who could answer for the tranquillity of the country, he might almost say, if such a proposition were now made? Why had not his majesty been made to say, "Take the whole of the civil revenues, and of the civil list; examine it and probe it—and if there can be any saving made for the country, let it be made?" Instead of this, however, his majesty was made to say, that the civil list should rest upon, the arrangement made in 1816—an arrangement made at a time when every attempt to rescue it from the darkness and obscurity in which it had long been involved was met by the declaration, that it could only be done at the demise of the Crown, and which, notwithstanding that circumstance, was suffered to remain unexamined. It was said by the noble lord opposite at that time, that the increase had reference to war and the prices of provisions; but upon the continuance of those prices an ill calculation had been made;, which the noble; lord might have found erroneous, if he looked to the state of the currency and, of agriculture. He therefore contended, that the House was bound to go to the first principles of the civil list, and inquire what revenue was fit to be given to the Crown, and what applied for the benefit of the people; and when they had found what was best for both, the sooner they acted upon it the better. He should be glad to know what imaginary benefit was derived from the present system. Did it give an account of the whole expense of the civil government? or rather, did not every body know that it gave no such thing? The plan of his hon. and learned friend would give the full account of what was given to the royal family. It was so once: but at present the amount was uncertain and unknown. Was it not a fact that 113,000l. had been charged on the consolidated fund for certain payments to some of the royal family? but was it known how much they received besides? When parliament granted 60,000l. a-year for his majesty's privy purse, was it known that 380,000l., and upwards, would be given at different times, and in different sums, for the same purpose, without its control or sanction? This system of giving money to the sovereign held out a strong temptation to the minister to barter the public money for royal favour, and to the Crown to depend not on parliament for support, but, to a certain extent, on the corrupt obsequiousness of the minister. He would therefore contend, that no advantage to the people could be derived from this plan; and, to use the words of an honourable member, he would ask, whether in practice it worked well? It was said that the proposed arrangement would be a bargain irrevocable, and that it should last for life; but it had been found that other bargains of a similar kind had been broken nine times, and always on the safe side. In 1782, Mr. Burke said, that the arrangement of the civil list was then so guarded as to preclude excess, but still it was found that an excess accrued. At each time that a deviation was made from the bargain, it was said that that would be the last, and a promise was given that no similar demand would be made in future; but it was somewhat whimsical (if such serious occurrences could be. so called) to see how each succeeding minister threw overboard the promises of his predecessor, and in most, cases the fault lay not with the minister, but with the system itself. The whole amount of what was demanded from time to time would be too great to be asked at once, and then the plan was, not that an additional sum should be given to the civil list, but that that list should be relieved from some particular charges. It was in this manner that Mr. Pitt, in 1804, and the noble lord opposite, in 1816, had taken from that list charges to the amount of 400,000l., which charges it had originally been given to coven Thus there was no regular rule by which this department was to be governed; it was in some particular branches left to the disposition of individuals, and the whole was involved in darkness and mystery of the grossest kind. No possible advantage could accrue from the present plan; on the contrary, the whole was calculated to deceive the public, and to excite irritation. His object was, to simplify at least, if not reduce {and he did not see why reduction might not well be made); but, at all events, to simplify that which at present was so complicated and intricate. He would reduce the whole to three or four classes; he said a fourth, because he thought pensions, beyond a particular amount, ought to come under one class. In this arrangement the miscellaneous services, which were most various, would come annually before parliament, while those parts which properly belonged to the support of the crown would not. If this plan were followed, the Crown would not be placed in the humiliating situation (for he considered it as nothing less than humiliating) of coming frequently before parliament to make good deficiencies, which were only explained or known by their amount. If some such plan were not adopted, any settlement of a civil list would be of no avail, while such enormous sums might be appropriated without the sanction or control of parliament. If the House were now prevailed upon to shut their eyes upon this, and suffer such sums to pass unaccounted for, they must expect it again; but he trusted they would not. He would not now go into any historical account of the droits which had been so applied or of the 4½ per cent colonial duties; but he would maintain that the Crown had as little right to appropriate the latter, without consent of parliament, as it had to the malt tax for the same purpose. As to the droits of Admiralty, he would only say, generally, that whatever right the Crown possessed to them, they were correlative duties accompanying those rights: one of these was, that the lord high admiral (in virtue of whose office they were received by the Crown) was bound to protect the narrow seas—a duty which was now performed by the navy, paid by takes raised on the country. He wished to impress this on the House as one of many cases which might be adduced, and as showing the importance of the question they were about to decide. The constant principle which should actuate the House in regulating the civil list should be, to cut off contingency and to regulate salary; but it seemed as if this principle was altogether lost sight of. He had made these observations in the discharge of a conscientious duty; for he looked upon the question before the House as involving the dignity of the Crown. That dignity he thought would be best preserved, and the prosperity of the people best consulted, by placing the civil list within certain, regular, and fixed rules. A limited monarchy and a free people were corresponding terms. Such a government was the best calculated to secure social happiness and public prosperity He believed that it suited best the character and disposition of Englishmen. Their king was deeply rooted in the minds of the people of this country, and they would willingly contribute to grant any revenue that was necessary for the due splendor of the Crown. But that splendor, in the present state of the country, ought to be attended with due economy, and displayed without ostentation; for there were times when a diminution of splendor was an accession of dignity.

Sir Robert Wilson

concurred with his hon. and learned friend who had made the motion, that there was not an officer engaged in the capture of the Spanish vessels who did not think his professional character tarnished by the transaction. He might mention another evil arising out of these captures before a declaration of war. After the peace of Amiens an order was given to seize and detain French vessels, and the consequence was, that the French government retaliated by detaining all the English who were at the time within the dominions of France. This measure of the French government was by many justified, on the ground that it was a proper return for such previous treatment. The gallant general concluded by saying that he should vote for the motion [The cry of "Question!" became general].

Mr. Tierney

said, he would make a few observations on the state of the question, and the engagement to which voting on one side or the other would pledge the members of the House. He could assure the House and the gentlemen opposite, who were so anxious to bring this debate to a conclusion, that he should not detain them long. After the able speech of his hon. and learned friend, in which the whole facts and law of the case had been stated and supported; after the speech of the right hon. gentleman opposite, and the reply of his hon. and learned friend near him, the merits of the question required no farther discussion. He rose, therefore, not to add any thing to what had been already said on the question itself, but to set members right on the real purport of the motion. The House, then, was now called upon at the beginning of a new reign, to make a final arrangement of the civil list for the whole of that reign. On such an occasion it was necessary to make the most minute inquiry, and to exert the most scrupulous caution to make the arrangement as wise and proper as it would be lasting. When a new settlement was proposed, it was incumbent on the House to take into consideration all the funds at present at the disposal of the Crown, in order to know what charges should be made before that settlement was effected. If they now neglected to do so, another opportunity would not again occur during the reign. When a motion like this should be afterwards brought forward, it would be sufficient to say, that the matter had been already settled, and thus alt further consideration of it would be shut out. The proposed resolution went no further than this, that it was expedient to take into consideration the droits of the Admiralty, the 4½ per cent colonial duties, and other funds usually at the disposal of the Crown, with the making of such an arrangement concerning them as would be consistent with the maintenance of the dignity of the Crown, and the interests of the country. Those, therefore, who should vote for his hon. and learned friend's motion would pledge themselves to no principle on the subject—they would merely express an opinion that the system formerly acted upon, now that a new arrangement was to be made, ought to be taken into consideration. Any gentleman who voted against it would say by his vote, that parliament ought to give the subject no consideration whatever. In supporting the proposed civil list establishment, it was not asking too much, in times like the present, to know how far it was necessary, by being informed of the state of the revenues in the power of the Crown, independently of it. There was, indeed a paper on the table stating the amount of the droits during the whole of the late reign; but his hon. and learned friend had shown that the greatest portion of them had accrued within the last twenty years. Of the state of them for the last four years, since the report was drawn up the House knew nothing. Would it not be proper, therefore, to make inquiry, and to demand information as to whether there had been any increase, or what was the present state of those funds? The Grown, for the maintenance of whose splendor and dignity anew civil list was to be provided, might be in possession of revenues that would render a less liberal grant from parliament sufficient for all purposes of splendor and dignity. His hon. and learned friend who made the motion had suggested that in case the Crown could not dispense with them, and subsist on the parliamentary allowance of 850,000l. now proposed, some compensation might be granted in lieu of them. He, however, must say, that he was, in the present state of his information, against making any compensation whatever; but, at any rate, the necessity of granting such compensation could only be made apparent by the proposed inquiry. After the committee had been granted, and an examination had taken place, his hon. and learned friend and the House would be able to decide whether any and what compensation ought to be made. This was not a time to think about unnecessary expenditure or ostentatious splendor. Rapid as had been the progress of melancholy events in the royal family since 1816, the country had run as rapidly into decay. All classes were suffering privations, and obliged to make sacrifices. His majesty should have been advised to make likewise some sacrifice in consideration of the burthens and distresses of his people. He knew that his majesty's surrender of his hereditary revenues, and his acceptance of the arrangement of 1816, was called an act of grace. But it ought to be recollected, that our revenue was every year declining, that there had been a great falling off in the first quarter of this year, as compared with the corres- ponding quarter of last year. He did not wish to appear niggardly towards the Crown—he did not wish to take any thing away from its proper splendor and dignity; but he would say, that, in the present burthened state of the country, and the depression of our finances, a single farthing ought not to be wasted unnecessarily. The amount of the funds at the disposal of his majesty, within the four last years, he was anxious to know, with a view to the settlement of the civil list, on which the greatest anxiety existed in the public mind. Rumours had gone abroad at different times concerning the amount of the droits which had been applied to the purposes of the crown. While the subject was left in the dark these rumours might again become current. What could be the evil of bringing these funds under the consideration of the House? The right hon. gentleman opposite had said, that it would be derogatory to the dignity of the crown to allow such an examination. But how could that be proved, while a stronger interference in other cases was not thought to produce that effect? His hon. friend had truly stated that severe and ignorant comments had been made on the royal expenditure, and these comments could not have been made if things had been managed in a different manner. The House ought not to grant the proposed 850,000l. without knowing, the other sources of royal income. To do so, would be voting away the public money in the dark, during a season of great public pressure. No inconvenience could result from the course of inquiry recommended. His hon. and learned, friend had said, that he would agree to a compensation for these droits, if upon inquiry it should be thought proper; and the right hon. gentleman opposite, in answering him, had said that the Crown was satisfied with its present establishment, and that the course proposed by the hon. and learned mover would add to the public burthens. Now, the right hon. gentleman's argument was destroyed by the very terms used by his hon. and; learned friend; for a compensation meant an equivalent; and the nation could not be more burthened by receiving as much as it gave. If a man gives 10,000l. to receive 10,000l., he is neither richer nor poorer. The right hon. gentleman concluded with calling upon those who wished" to make an economical and rational settlement of the civil list, to vote for his hon. and learned friend's motion. It bound them to nothing but to consider the subject—it called for no opinion—it pledged to no principles—it merely called upon them to examine, and left them to determine what was proper to be done, after they had examined.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer

said, he had not intended to address the House on the question had it not been for some observations of the right hon. gentleman. The House would see, in the contrariety of the opinions of the hon. gentlemen opposite, what good a committee was likely to do. Three or four of these hon. gentlemen had spoken on this question, and none of them could be brought to see it in the same light. They all disagreed, not only, with his side of the House, but with themselves. Ministers proposed to continue a system which had been four years in operation, and which was better understood by experience than any of the new-fashioned, new-fangled plans of the gentlemen opposite. It possessed about it some of the venerable characters of antiquity. This system had been shown to be good on a four years trial. It was framed on a scale of reduction to the amount of 135,000l. below the expenditure of several years preceding 1816. The gentlemen who were members of the last parliament would recollect that the right hon. gentleman opposite was not so eager for inquiry at the conclusion of the last session, as he proposed to discuss the civil list in the course of a fortnight before the dissolution., The plan now proposed would admit of a saving of 238.000l. over the civil-list of 1816, in which there was a reduction of 135,000l. below the average of some preceding years. This large sum would be transferred to the consolidated fund. Having said thus much on the civil list, he would make an observation or two on the proper object of the present motion. The hon. and learned gentleman's objections against the continuance of these droits to the Crown were, that it afforded a motive for unnecessary wars, and a pretext to those who wished to calumniate our country. Now, both these appeared to him quite unfounded. Circumstances under which embargoes took place were subsequently examined, and, if no cause for declaring war occurred, the vessels were restored. This happened in 1801, and he might remind the House of what was the conduct of government at that time. When a coalition was formed amongst the northern powers, an embargo was laid on all Danish, Swedish, and Russian vessels in our ports. This government, meanwhile, sought to avoid a war; and, after a brilliant exploit of lord Nelson's at Copenhagen, and a happy change in Russia, that calamity was prevented, and the ships were restored. Had the Crown wished to condemn those vessels, it had nothing to do but to issue a declaration of war, and thus prevent their restitution. It ought likewise to be recollected, when speaking of the Spanish prizes, that three fourths of the proceeds of the captured vessels were given to our seamen. That the amount of this fund, however, might be made known to the public, and the uses to which it was applied, it was his intention to bring in a bill for the purpose of causing a return of its produce and application every year. A return would likewise be given of the state of all those funds since 1816.

Sir Joseph Yorke

agreed with the hon. and learned mover, in the account he had given of the Souchong and Congo expedition of a gallant admiral. He always rejoiced at an opportunity of supporting ministers; but on the present occasion, unless the chancellor of the exchequer or any of his hon. friends around him could give a better reason than had hitherto been assigned for the grant to that gallant admiral, he should vote for the motion.

Mr. W. Smith

highly approved of what had been said by his hon. and learned friend concerning the expedition of sir Home Popham. Adverting to the subject of the civil-list, the hon. gentleman observed, that he conceived it a settled custom to arrange it at the commencement of a new reign. Such an arrangement of it had been contemplated by the commit* tee of 1816. Those, therefore, who opposed on the present inquiry occasion differed from the recommendation of that committee. Nothing was proposed by the present motion but an examination which the report then made contemplated, and he therefore called upon the authors of that report to support his hon. and learned friend.

Mr. Bathurst

contended, that it was a fallacy to say that the motion of the hon. and learned gentleman was a motion merely to obtain information; The object of the motion was not merely to inquire into the amount of the droits of the Admiralty and the other funds, but to re- gulate and control them, and to take them out of the hands of the Crown. It was an innovation upon the established practice, and he could never consent to a motion which went to diminish the constitutional influence of the Crown.

Mr. Brougham

rose to reply. He said he should be the less excusable in facther trespassing on the indulgence of the House, both because he had occupied so much of their time in opening the question, and because so little had been urged on the other side; and that little had been so triumphantly answered by his hon. friend near him (sir J. Mackintosh), and on the bench behind (Mr. Macdonald). He could, not retort upon the gentlemen opposite the sarcasm of the chancellor of the exchequer, on him and his friends that they differed from one another and from themselves, each varying from his fellow, and no one consistent with himself. The minister had found out the most easy and effectual method of protecting themselves from such a sneer—at least, from the greater part of it—a method as obvious as it was simple, and as efficacious as it was obvious; it consisted in none of them speaking at all except one. Accordingly all kept silence, save the president of the board of control, and. be not being in a condition to differ with his companions, had only been able to exemplify the other branch of his friend's zeal by contradicting himself. But the silence of some gentlemen on this occasion surprised and disappointed him more than that of others. Upon a great, legal, and constitutional question—one touching the rights of the sovereign, and involving at every turn, as was said, the honour and dignity of the throne, how happened it that the House lacked the two chief law officers of the Crown, the attorney and solicitor-general—the props and pillars of the prerogative—the sworn defenders of the sanctuary—the tutamen, if not the decus, of the monarch and estate? Equally strange was it, that there had been no appearance on the same behalf, by another hon. and learned friend of his, the king's advocate, in a discussion respecting the king's right to prize, the peculiar province of that high officer, whose absence, though he might wonder at, he the less regretted, as had he come forth, the weight of his speech would have been against him. Most of all, however, did he marvel that his right hon. and learned friend (sir W. Scott) had eluded the longing eyes of the House, and only made himself manifest at a late hour, to take part in the division and decide, by his vote, points which he had abstained from enlightening by his eloquence. This was to him a matter of much wonder, that the judge of the admiralty should be absent on a discussion of all the great admiralty questions, he to whose peculiar province such matters especially appertained—in whose domain they all lay—of whose secular kingdom they were appurtenances and droits (for he was known to be a spiritual person also)—he who had them as annexed to his temporalities—that he should shun the handling of them did indeed astonish one. He also deeply regretted it, for the aid of his gravity and wisdom and impartial judgment was much wanted on the opposite bench, and he should have felt a satisfaction not to be described in addressing his legal arguments to so great a judge. His right hon. and learned friend was not, perhaps, aware how many nice points bad been made, how much law authority had been cited. He had himself produced many weighty and new ones—some he had abstained from bringing forward in his right hon. friend's absence; for instance, one from Vattell; but a most material one, never before adduced, had been cited from lord Coke's Reports, almost decisive of the question. Had he heard it, there was no saying how far it might have swayed his opinion; but at all events he took for granted that not having heard any part of the argument, he would continue his abstinence and refrain from giving his vote. He could have no doubt that his inveterate judicial habits, derived from a long course of administration on the bench, highly honourable to himself and useful to his country, would now prevail and render it impossible for him to decide on a cause which he had not chosen to hear. Thus, then, except the member for Liverpool, there was only the chancellor of the exchequer, and he, it must be owned, had distinguished himself; he had been very great indeed, and delivered a speech replete with humour, which had met with the reception appointed for efforts of merriment, by exciting general laughter. He had blamed his side of the House for being new-fangled innovators, and presented himself to them as the pattern of a real antiquated personage, a man of the true Olden time, as his friend called it. Now, it was odd, that such a character should in the next breath so far forget himself as to fall into very new-fangled modes of speech. He talked of the victory of Nelson, and the happy change of affairs in Russia—meaning the emperor Paul's murder. Not that he (Mr. B.) accused him of intending to patronize such methods of opposing ministers and turning them out; but he was very certain, that had he or any of his friends made such a slip, they never would have heard the last of it. There were persons in that House—and some not very far from the right hon. gentleman—who would instantly have charged them with all manner of enormities. He needed scarce remind the House of an adage about stealing a horse; it was taken from the olden time, but it applied to the present day and company. As a proof, only let them recollect how that right hon. gentleman had dealt by a strong expression in his (Mr. B.'s) speech. He had mentioned the United States, the gentleman instantly pounced on him and exclaimed, "What! treat our monarch like the American president;" and choosing to forget that he had expressly defended himself from such an attack with much precaution, flanking that point purposely with two sufficient outworks—two instances from antiquated monarchies, the French king and Dutch stadtholder; but the right hon. gentleman left them out, because he must have an opening through which to let in, as usual, his tirade, about ancient days—monarchical splendor—and the stability of the throne, which no man ever dreamt of shaking, and which as no man valued more highly, so none would defend more strenuously than himself; then the right hon. gentleman had maintained, that it was a gross exaggeration to suppose any government mad enough to plunge the country into a war for the sake of making money by captures. It would have been a most ridiculous exaggeration truly, and who had ever made it? He had expressly said twice over, that he supposed the thing impossible since Charles 2nd, who had done so, and had been guilty and severely punished for it. But he only contended, that the droits might make the government, as it had made them repeatedly, go to war without proclamation, to the injury of our national character; however, if he had been guilty of all the exaggeration imputed to him, it was not the thousandth part so gross as the right hon. gentleman's, who actually contended that if those funds belonged to parliament and the country, they would go to war for the sake of such profits—they on whom all the expenses and dangers of the war must fall so heavily, while the profit could never be sensibly felt by any of them. Surely, compared with so extravagant a supposition, it would have been quite a moderate use of the topic drawn from Charles 2nd's example, if he (Mr. B.) had said that the Crown, to derive a great pofit, all its own, might be tempted to undertake a war, the costs and risk of which fell chiefly on the country. But then came the right hon. gentleman's declamation against stripping the Crown of its antiquated honours, and tearing away the drapery from the throne, which was loudly cheered by those who dealt largely in that sort of sedentary and inarticulate eloquence, in various keys, of different degrees of loudness, not always very harmonious, but probably conveying a more advantageous impression of the authors than if they adopted a more articulate course of expression; and, after all, what was the meaning of the rhetoric which had opened so loud a chorus? That a proposal had been made to disperse the thick mist which surrounded the throne, and kept the people from seeing its true shape and dimensions:—That he desired such an arrangement of the accounts as might let the country know what the Crown cost, and prevent the perpetual mistakes that prevailed to the great disadvantage of both king and country. That was all, and this was represented as insulating the monarch, leaving him naked and exposed; turning him out unaccompanied by the attendants of his state, to the attacks of a merciless opposition here, and a worse—if any thing is worse—out of doors! What! said the right hon. gentleman, deprive the sovereign of the essentials of his dignity—the true concomitants of his splendor—those who share his rank and attributes, and must be near him or he is undone! What! a king of England be separated from the reverend vicar of the Tower, at twenty-five shillings salary; a keeper of wild beasts, an engraver of seals, and a master of ceremonies! The end of all things and all kings must be come, according to him, when such a project was dreamt of. Then he represented them as making the monarch his servant on board wages, to dine at a chop-house and have a stinted quantity of food, no more than he could himself devour. These were the right hon. gentleman's very decorous, respectful, and delicate expressions, applied to so sacred a subject, out of the pious affection which he cherished for the venerable relics of the olden time. Mr. B. next adverted to Mr. C. Wynne's communication to the House, that lord Grenville had so handsomely given up the pension. This was a most gratifying assurance to the House and country, and did that distinguished nobleman great honour. He (Mr. B.), however, trusted, this change, the only one he was aware of on the subject since 1812, would not deprive him of the benefit of his hon. friend's support, which he had then enjoyed. For himself, he denied that he desired to lower the dignity or trench upon the comforts, or obscure the splendor of the sovereign. He anxiously wished to see him enjoy all these attributes, for all of them were a safeguard to the constitution, the greatest blessing of the country. He never should begrudge the king an ample income—nay, he went farther, he had far rather see ten thousand a year added to his majesty's private revenue, than half the sum at the disposal of his ministers; because he knew it would be expended out of that House, and not used to bring men into it, or keep others steady who had gotten themselves in. These were his principles—he always had held them—he ever should avow them, in all situations, and in all places, where he might be called on to act or to speak. He concluded by declaring his earnest wish to see that the reign might prove long, glorious, and popular; that it would best become so by means of such measures as might win for the monarch the affections of his subjects—and that it never could make a greater advance towards this happy point than by an arrangement peculiarly adapted to a new settlement of the Crown's revenue, called for by the interests of both the prince and the people at home, and necessary to redeem and to establish the character of the country in the eyes of the world.

The question being put, "That the other order of the day be now read," the House divided: Ayes, 273. Noes 155. Majority against Mr. Brougham's motion, 118.

List of the Minority.
Abercromby, hon. J.	Althorp, viscount
Allen, John	Anson, sir G.

Aubrey, sir John	Hornby, E.
Astle, W.	Honywood, W. P.
Bennet, John	Hughes, col.
Bentinck, lord W.	Hume, Jos.
Boughton, Rouse	Hurst, R.
Boughey, sir J	Haldimand, W.
Belgrave, viscount	Jervoise, G. P.
Barham, J. F.	Kennedy, T. F.
Barham, J. F. jun	Lambton, J. G.
Baring, sir Thos.	Lemon, sir W.
Bernard, viscount	Lushington, Steph.
Barrett, S. M.	Langston, J. H.
Benyon, Benj.	Lloyd, S. J.
Bernal, Ralph	Mackintosh, sir J.
Birch, Joseph	Madocks, W. A.
Brougham, H.	Martin, John.
Bury, viscount	Milbank, Mark
Byng, G.	Mildmay, St. J. P.
Beaumont, T. W.	Milton, viscount.
Bright, Henry	Monck, J. B.
Calcraft, John	Moore, Peter.
Calcraft, J. H.	Moore, Abraham
Campbell, hon. J.	Mostyn, sir T.
Chamberlayne, W.	Maberly, John
Carter, John	Maberly, J.L.
Cavendish, lord G.	Marryat, Jas.
Cavendish, Henry	Mahon, hon. S.
Clifford, A.	Neville, hon. R.
Clifton, viscount	Newman, R. W.
Coke, T. W.	Newport, sir J.
Colburne, N. R.	Nugent, lord
Concannpn, lord.	Ord, Wm,
Coussmaker, G.	Osborne, lord E.
Crespigny, sir W. de	Ossulston, visct.
Crompton, Sam.	Palmer, C. Fysche
Calvert, N.	Pares, Thos.
Davies, T. H.	Parnell, sir H.
Denman, Thos.	Philips, G.
Dundas, C.	Philips, Geo. jun.
Duncannon, visc.	Power, Rich.
Evans, W.	Powlett, hon. W.
Ellice, Ed.	Pym, Francis
Fergusson, sir R.	Ricardo, David
Fitzgerald, Ld. W.	Ridley, sir M. W.
Fitzroy, lord J.	Robarts, Abr.
Folkestone, visc.	Robarts, G.
Frankland, R.	Robinson, sir C.
Ferrand, Robert	Rowley, sir Wm.
Finlay, Kirkman	Rumbold, C.
Folkes, sir M.	Russell, lord G. W.
Gordon, Robt.	Russell, lord John
Craham, J.R. G.	Russell, R. G.
Graham, Sandford	Rickford, Wm.
Grenfell, Pascoe	Smith, hon. R.
Griffith, J. W.	Smith Sam.
Guise, sir W. B.	Smith, John
Gurney, Hudson	Smith, George
Gurney, R. H.	Smith, Robert
Gaskell, B.	Smith, W.
Hamilton, lord A	Scarlett, James
Harbord, hon. Ed.	Scudamore, Robt.
Hervey, D. W.	Sefton, earl of
Heathcote, G. J.	Stanley, lord
Heron, sir R.	Stuart, lord J.
Hill, lord A.	Sykes; Dan.
Hobhouse J. G	Spurrier, C. H.
Howard, hon. W.	Scott, J

Tavistock, marq.	Whitbread, S. C.
Taylor, M. A.	Wilkins, Walter
Taylor C. W.	Williams, T.O.
Tierney, right hon. G.	Williams, W.
Tremayne, J. H.	Williams, sir R.
Townshend, lord C.	Wilson, sir Robt.
Warre, J. Ashley	Wood, alderman
Webbe, Ed.	TELLERS.
Western, C. C.	Bennet, hon. H. G.
Whitbread, W. H.	Macdonald, James