§ SIR WILLIAM CODRINGTONsaid, he wished to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty by what authority the Order in Council of 1819, granting half-pay to naval officers, is set aside in regard to the captains, commanders, lieutenants, and masters of Greenwich Hospital; and why the practice does not equally affect the Governor, lieutenant governors, and commissioners of that hospital?
§ SIR CHARLES WOOD, in reply, said, that the Order in Council and the Act of Parliament founded upon it had not been set aside, because they did not grant half-pay under any circumstances. What they did, in point of fact, was to enable the Treasury to allow either the whole or a certain amount of half-pay to officers holding civil appointments. The Act was only a permissive one, and did not grant pensions. In reference to the subject before the House the officers in question had been from the first considered as retired officers of the navy and not as civil officers. At the time these offices were instituted the Order in Council was not in existence.