MARQUIS CAMDEN'S TELLERSHIP BILL. (Hansard, 10 June 1819)

The Earl of Liverpool

said, he should not think that he discharged his duty to the public, if he moved the second reading of this bill without saying a few words to call their lordships' attention to its nature. The office, their lordships knew, had been given to the father of the noble marquis, as a reward for eminent services he had performed to his country. Whether, in the exercise of the prerogative of the Crown the granting of such an office was the best way in which rewards for public services could be given, was not a question now to be discussed. Though at the time the grant was made, it could not have been contemplated that the emoluments would prove so great, it was unquestionable, that the noble mar- 1032 quis had a full right to all the income of the office, and all the contingent profits derivable from it. This was not the only sacrifice the noble marquis had made. He relinquished a considerable part of the emoluments from the year 1798 to the peace of Amiens. From the year 1813 to the conclusion, of the late war, he made a further sacrifice, and the whole amount of the interests he had given up could not be less than 100,000l. On the present occasion he need not call to their lordships' recollection a sacrifice which had been made by another noble marquis (Buckingham) now no more; but it perhaps was not known to all who heard him, that the noble marquis, to whom he alluded had made application to have his office put on the footing of the regulated tellerships of the exchequer. He would not now enter into the circumstances which had prevented this arrangement from taking place. It was sufficient to state, that it was in the power of the Treasury to have accomplished it. The sacrifices made by the marquis of Buckingham, amounted, however, to at least 42,000l.