if we were adverse parties in a suit. It would, Sir, be most dishonourable for a faithful representative of the commons to take advantage of any inartificial expression of the people's wishes, in order to frustrate their attainment of what they have an undoubted right to expect. We are under infinite obligations to our constituents, who have raised us to so distinguished a trust, and have imparted such a degree of sanctity to common characters. We ought to walk before them with purity, plainness, and integrity of heart; with possible to give a fair verdict by which he will not stand acquitted. But pleading is not our present business. His plea or his traverse may be allowed as an answer to a charge, when a charge is made. But if he puts himself in the way to obstruct reformation, then the faults of his office instantly become his own. Instead of a publick officer in an abusive department, whose province is an object to be regulated, he becomes a criminal who is to be punished. I do most seriously put it to administration, to consider the wisdom of a timely reform. Early reformations are amicable arrange-filial love, and not with slavish fear, which is always ments with a friend in power; late reformations are terms imposed upon a conquered enemy: early reformations are made in cool blood; late reformations are made under a state of inflammation. In that state of things the people behold in government nothing that is respectable. They see the abuse, and they will see nothing else-They fall into the temper of a furious populace provoked at the disorder of a house of ill fame; they never attempt to correct or regulate; they go to work by the shortest way-They abate the nuisance, they pull down the house. This is my opinion with regard to the true interest of government. But as it is the interest of government that reformation should be early, it is the interest of the people that it should be temperate. It is their interest, because a temperate reform is permanent; and because it has a principle of growth. Whenever we improve, it is right to leave room for a further improvement. It is right to consider, to look about us, to examine the effect of what we have done.-Then we can proceed with confidence, because we can proceed with intelligence. Whereas in hot reformations, in what men, more zealous than considerate, call making clear work, the whole is generally so crude, so harsh, so indigested; mixed with so much imprudence, and so much injustice; so contrary to the whole course of human nature, and human institutions, that the very people who are most eager for it are among the first to grow disgusted at what they have done. Then some part of the abdicated grievance is recalled from its exile in order to become a corrective of the correction. Then the abuse assumes all the credit and popularity of a reform. The very idea of purity and disinterestedness in politicks falls into disrepute, and is considered as a vision of hot and inexperienced men; and thus disorders become incurable, not by the virulence of their own quality, but by the unapt and violent nature of the remedies. A great part, therefore, of my idea of reform is meant to operate gradually; some benefits will come at a nearer, some at a more remote period. We must no more make haste to be rich by parsimony, than by intemperate acquisition. In my opinion, it is our duty when we have the desires of the people before us, to pursue them, not in the spirit of literal obedience, which may militate with their very principle, much less to treat them with a peevish and contentious litigation, as • Thomas Gilbert, Esq. member for Litchfield. a low and tricking thing. For my own part, in what I have meditated upon that subject, I cannot indeed take upon me to say I have the honour to follow the sense of the people. The truth is, I met it on the way, while I was pursuing their interest according to my own ideas. I am happy beyond expression to find that my intentions have so far coincided with theirs, that I have not had cause to be in the least scrupulous to sign their petition, conceiving it to express my own opinions, as nearly as general terms can express the object of particular arrangements. I am therefore satisfied to act as a fair mediator between government and the people, endeavouring to form a plan which should have both an early and a temperate operation. I mean, that it should be substantial; that it should be systematick. That it should rather strike at the first cause of prodigality and corrupt influence, than attempt to follow them in all their effects. It was to fulfil the first of these objects (the proposal of something substantial) that I found myself obliged, at the outset, to reject a plan proposed by an honourable and * attentive member of parliament, with very good intentions on his part, about a year or two ago. Sir, the plan I speak of was the tax of 25 per cent, moved upon places and pensions during the continuance of the American war.-Nothing, Sir, could have met my ideas more than such a tax if it was considered as a practical satire on that war, and as a penalty upon those who led us into it; but in any other view it appeared to me very liable to objections. I considered the scheme as neither substantial, nor permanent, nor systematical, nor likely to be a corrective of evil influence. I have always thought employments a very proper subject of regulation, but a very ill-chosen subject for a tax. An equal tax upon property is reasonable; because the object is of the same quality throughout. The species is the same, it differs only in its quantity: but a tax upon salaries is totally of a different nature; there can be no equality, and consequently no justice, in taxing them by the hundred in the gross. We have, Sir, on our establishment, several offices which perform real service-We have also places that provide large rewards for no service at all. We have stations which are made for the publick decorum; made for preserving the grace and majesty of a great people-We have likewise expensive formalities, which tend rather to the disgrace than the ornament of the state and the court. This, Sir, is the real condition of our establishments. To fall with the same severity on objects so perfectly dissimilar, is the very reverse of a reformation. I mean a reformation framed, as all serious things ought to be, in number, weight, and measure. Suppose, for instance, that two men receive a salary of 8001. a year each.-In the office of one there is nothing at all to be done; in the other, the occupier is oppressed by its duties. Strike off twenty-five per cent. from these two offices, you take from one man 2007. which in justice he ought to have, and you give in effect to the other 6007. which he ought not to receive. The publick robs the former, and the latter robs the publick; and this mode of mutual robbery is the only way in which the office and the publick can make up their accounts. But the balance, in settling the account of this double injustice, is much against the state. The result is short. You purchase a saving of two hundred pounds, by a profusion of six. Besides, Sir, whilst you leave a supply of unsecured money behind, wholly at the discretion of ministers, they make up the tax to such places as they wish to favour, or in such new places as they may choose to create. Thus the civil list becomes oppressed with debt; and the publick is obliged to repay, and to repay with a heavy interest, what it has taken by an injudicious tax. Such has been the effect of the taxes hitherto laid on pensions and employments, and it is no encouragement to recur again to the same expedient. their wants. In effect, such a scheme is not calculated to produce, but to prevent, reformation. It holds out a shadow of present gain to a greedy and necessitous publick, to divert their attention from those abuses, which in reality are the great causes of It is a composition to stay enquiry; it is a fine paid by mismanagement, for the renewal of its lease. What is worse, it is a fine paid by industry and merit, for an indemnity to the idle and the worthless. But I shall say no more upon this topick, because (whatever may be given out to the contrary) I know that the noble lord in the blue riband perfectly agrees with me in these sentiments. After all that I have said on this subject, I am so sensible, that it is our duty to try every thing which may contribute to the relief of the nation, that I do not attempt wholly to reprobate the idea even of a tax. Whenever, Sir, the incumbrance of useless office (which lies no less a dead weight upon the service of the state, than upon its revenues) shall be removed;-when the remaining offices shall be classed according to the just proportion of their rewards and services, so as to admit the application of an equal rule to their taxation; when the discretionary power over the civil list cash shall be so regulated, that a minister shall no longer have the means of repaying with a private, what is taken by a publick, hand-if after all these preliminary regulations, it should be thought that a tax on places is an object worthy of the publick Having thus, Sir, not so much absolutely rejected, as postponed, the plan of a taxation of office,-my next business was to find something which might be really substantial and effectual. I am quite clear, that if we do not go to the very origin and first ruling cause of grievances, we do nothing. What does it signify to turn abuses out of one door, if we are to let them in at another? What does it signify to promote economy upon a measure, and to suffer it to be subverted in the principle? Our ministers are far from being wholly to blame for the present ill order which prevails. Whilst institutions directly repugnant to good management are suffered to remain, no effectual or lasting reform can be introduced. I therefore thought it necessary, as soon as I conceived thoughts of submitting to you some plan of reform, to take a comprehensive view of the state of this country; to make a sort of survey of its jurisdictions, its estates, and its establishments. Something, in every one of them, seemed to me to stand in the way of all economy in their administration, and prevented every possibility of methodizing the system. But being, as I ought to be, doubtful of myself, I was resolved not to proceed in an arbitrary manner, in any particular which tended to change the settled state of things, or in any degree to affect the fortune or situation, the interest or the importance, of any individual. By an arbitrary proceeding, I mean one conducted by the private opinions, tastes, or feelings, of the man who attempts to regulate. These private measures are not standards of the exchequer, nor balances of the sanctuary. General principles cannot be debauched or corrupted by interest or caprice; and by those principles I was resolved to work. Sir, before I proceed further, I will lay these principles fairly before you, that afterwards you may be in a condition to judge whether every object of regulation, as I propose it, comes fairly under its rule. This will exceedingly shorten all discussion between us, if we are perfectly in earnest in establishing a system of good management. I therefore lay down to myself seven fundamental rules; they might indeed be reduced to two or three simple maxims; but they would be too general, and their application to the several heads of the business before us would not be so distinct and visible. I conceive then, First, That all jurisdictions, which furnish more matter of expence, more temptation to oppression, or more means and instruments of corrupt influence, than advantage to justice or political administration, ought to be abolished. Secondly, That all publick estates which are more subservient to the purposes of vexing, overawing, and influencing those who hold under them, and to the expence of perception and management, than of benefit to the revenue, ought, upon every principle both of revenue and freedom, to be disposed of. Thirdly, That all offices which bring more | charge than proportional advantage to the state; that all offices which may be engrafted on others, uniting and simplifying their duties, ought in the first case to be taken away; and in the second, to be consolidated. Fourthly, That all such offices ought to be abolished, as obstruct the prospect of the general superintendent of finance; which destroy his superintendency, which disable him from foreseeing and providing for charges as they may occur; from preventing expence in its origin, checking it in its progress, or securing its application to its proper purposes. A minister, under whom expences can be made without his knowledge, can never say what it is that he can spend, or what it is that he can save. Fifthly, That it is proper to establish an invariable order in all payments; which will prevent partiality; which will give preference to services, not according to the importunity of the demandant, but the rank and order of their utility or their justice. Sixthly, That it is right to reduce every establishment, and every part of an establishment, (as nearly as possible,) to certainty; the life of all order and good management. Seventhly, That all subordinate treasuries, as the nurseries of mismanagement, and as naturally drawing to themselves as much money as they can, keeping it as long as they can, and accounting for it as late as they can, ought to be dissolved. They have a tendency to perplex and distract the publick accounts, and to excite a suspicion of government even beyond the extent of their abuse. Under the authority and with the guidance of those principles, I proceed; wishing that nothing in any establishment may be changed, where I am not able to make a strong, direct, and solid application of those principles, or of some one of them. An economical constitution is a necessary basis for an economical administration. senting the world, or which wield the trident that commands the ocean. Cross a brook, and you lose the king of England; but you have some comfort in coming again under his majesty, though “shorn of his beams," and no more than Prince of Wales. Go to the north, and you find him dwindled to a Duke of Lancaster; turn to the west of that north, and he pops upon you in the humble character of Earl of Chester. Travel a few miles on, the Earl of Chester disappears; and the king surprises you again as Count Palatine of Lancaster. If you travel beyond Mount Edgecombe, you find him once more in his incognito, and he is Duke of Cornwall. So that, quite fatigued and satiated with this dull variety, you are infinitely refreshed when you return to the sphere of his proper splendour, and behold your amiable sovereign in his true, simple, undisguised, native character of majesty. In every one of these five principalities, duchies, palatinates, there is a regular establishment of considerable expence, and most domineering influence. As his majesty submits to appear in this state of subordination to himself, his loyal peers and faithful commons attend his royal transformations; and are not so nice as to refuse to nibble at those crumbs of emoluments, which console their pretty metamorphoses. Thus every one of those principalities has the apparatus of a kingdom, for the jurisdiction over a few private estates; and the formality and charge of the exchequer of Great Britain, for collecting the rents of a country 'squire. Cornwall is the best of them; but, when you compare the charge with the receipt, you will find that it furnishes no exception to the general rule. The duchy and county palatine of Lancaster do not yield, as I have reason to believe, on an average of twenty years, four thousand pounds a year clear to the crown. As to Wales, and the county palatine of Chester, I have my doubts, whether their productive exchequer yields any returns at all. Yet one may say, that this revenue is more faithfully applied to its purposes than any of the rest; as it exists for the sole purpose of multiplying offices, and extending influence. An attempt was lately made to improve this branch of local influence, and to transfer it to the fund of general corruption. I have on the seat behind me, the constitution of Mr. John Probert; a knight-errant dubbed by the noble lord in the blue riband, and sent to search for revenues and adventures upon the mountains of Wales. The commission is remarkable; and the event not less so. The commission sets forth, that " Upon a report of the deputy auditor (for there is a "deputy auditor) of the principality of Wales, it 66 First, with regard to the sovereign jurisdictions, I must observe, Sir, that whoever takes a view of this kingdom in a cursory manner will imagine, that he beholds a solid, compacted, uniform system of monarchy; in which all inferiour jurisdictions are but as rays diverging from one centre. But on examining it more nearly you find much eccentricity and confusion. It is not a monarchy in strictness. But, as in the Saxon times this country was an heptarchy, it is now a strange sort of pentarchy. It is divided into five several distinct principalities, besides the supreme. There is indeed this difference from the Saxon times, that as in the itinerant exhibitions of the stage, for want of a complete company, they are obliged to throw a variety of parts on their chief performer; so our majesty's land revenues, upon a memorial of sovereign condescends himself to act not only the "the auditor of his majesty's revenues, within principal, but all the subordinate, parts in the play. "the said principality, that his mines and forests He condescends to dissipate the royal character," have produced very little profit either to the and to trifle with those light, subordinate, lacquered sceptres in those hands that sustain the ball repre 66 appeared, that his majesty's land revenues in the "said principality are greatly diminished;"-and "that upon a report of the surveyor general of his 66 “publick revenue or to individuals ;”—and therefore they appoint Mr. Probert, with a pension of three hundred pounds a year from the said principality, to try whether he can make any thing more of that very little which is stated to be so greatly diminished. "A beggarly account of empty boxes." And yet, Sir, you will remarkthat this diminution from littleness (which serves only to prove the infinite divisibility of matter) was not for want of the tender and officious care (as we see) of surveyors general, and surveyors particular; of auditors and deputy auditors; not for want of memorials, and remonstrances, and reports, and commissions, and constitutions, and inquisitions, and pensions. Probert, thus armed, and accoutred-and paid, proceeded on his adventure; but he was no sooner arrived on the confines of Wales, than all Wales was in arms to meet him. That nation is brave and full of spirit. Since the invasion of King Edward, and the massacre of the bards, there never was such a tumult, and alarm, and uproar, through the region of Prestatyn. Snowden shook to its base; Cader Idris was loosened from its foundations. The fury of litigious war blew her horn on the mountains. The rocks poured down their goatherds, and the deep caverns vomited out their miners. Every thing above ground, and every thing under ground, was in arms. In short, Sir, to alight from my Welsh Pegasus, and to come to level ground; the Preux Chevalier Probert went to look for revenues like his masters upon other occasions; and, like his masters, he found rebellion. But we were grown cautious by experience. A civil war of paper might end in a more serious war; for now remonstrance met remonstrance, and memorial was opposed to memorial. The wise Britons thought it more reasonable that the poor, wasted, decrepid revenue of the principality should die a natural, than a violent death. In truth, Sir, the attempt was no less an affront upon the understanding of that respectable people, than it was an attack on their property. They chose rather that their ancient, mossgrown castles should moulder into decay, under the silent touches of time, and the slow formality of an oblivious and drowsy exchequer, than that they should be battered down all at once, by the lively efforts of a pensioned engineer. As it is the fortune of the noble lord, to whom the auspices of this campaign belonged, frequently to provoke resistance, so it is his rule and nature to yield to that resistance in all cases whatsoever. He was true to himself on this occasion. He submitted with spirit to the spirited remonstrances of the Welsh. Mr. Probert gave up this adventure, and keeps his pension-and so ends " the famous history of the revenue adventures of the bold baron North, and the good knight Probert, upon the "mountains of Venodotia." 66 In such a state is the exchequer of Wales at present, that upon the report of the treasury itself, its little revenue is greatly diminished; and we Here Lord North shook his head, and told those who sat near him, that Mr. Probert's pension was to depend on his success. It may be so. Mr. Probert's pension was, however, no essential part of the question; nor did Mr. B. care whether he still possessed it | see, by the whole of this strange transaction, that an attempt to improve it produces resistance; the resistance produces submission; and the whole ends in pension.* It is nearly the same with the revenues of the duchy of Lancaster. To do nothing with them is extinction; to improve them is oppression. Indeed, the whole of the estates, which support these minor principalities, is made up, not of revenues, and rents, and profitable fines, but of claims, of pretensions, of vexations, of litigations. They are exchequers of unfrequent receipt, and constant charge; a system of finances not fit for an economist who would be rich; not fit for a prince who would govern his subjects with equity and justice. It is not only between prince and subject, that these mock jurisdictions, and mimick revenues, produce great mischief. They excite among the people a spirit of informing and delating; a spirit of supplanting and undermining one another. So that many, in such circumstances, conceive it advantageous to them rather to continue subject to vexation themselves, than to give up the means and chance of vexing others. It is exceedingly common for men to contract their love to their country into an attachment to its petty subdivisions; and they sometimes even cling to their provincial abuses, as if they were franchises and local privileges. Accordingly, in places where there is much of this kind of estate, persons will be always found, who would rather trust to their talents in recommending themselves to power for the renewal of their interests, than to incumber their purses, though never so lightly, in order to transmit independence to their posterity. It is a great mistake, that the desire of securing property is universal among mankind. Gaming is a principle inherent in human nature. It belongs to us all. I would therefore break those tables: I would furnish no evil occupation for that spirit. I would make every man look every where, except to the intrigue of a court, for the improvement of his circumstances, or the security of his fortune. I have in my eye a very strong case in the duchy of Lancaster (which lately occupied Westminsterhall, and the house of lords) as my voucher for many of these reflections.† For what plausible reason are these principalities suffered to exist? When a government is rendered complex (which in itself is no desirable thing) it ought to be for some political end which cannot be answered otherwise. Subdivisions in government are only admissible in favour of the dignity of inferiour princes, and high nobility; or for the support of an aristocratick confederacy under some head; or for the conservation of the franchises of the people in some privileged province. For the two former of these ends, such are the subdivisions in favour of the electoral and other princes in the empire; for the latter of these purposes are the or not. His point was, to shew the folly of attempting an improvement of the Welsh revenue under its present establishment. † Case of Richard Lee, Esq. appellant, against George Venables Lord Vernon, respondent, in the year 1776. jurisdiction of the imperial cities, and the Hanse | dangerous and expensive amusement; and one of towns. For the latter of these ends are also the the king's menus plaisirs, which ought to be recountries of the States [Pais d'Etats] and certain formed. This duchy, which is not worth four cities, and orders in France. These are all regu-thousand pounds a year at best to revenue, is worth lations with an object, and some of them with a forty or fifty thousand to influence. very good object. But how are the principles of any of these subdivisions applicable in the case before us? 66 66 66 66 Do they answer any purpose to the king? The principality of Wales was given by patent to Edward the Black Prince, on the ground on which it has since stood.-Lord Coke sagaciously observes upon it, "That in the charter of creating the "Black Prince Edward prince of Wales, there is a great mystery-for less than an estate of in"heritance, so great a prince could not have, and an absolute estate of inheritance in so great a principality as Wales (this principality being so "dear to him) he should not have; and therefore "it was made, sibi et heredibus suis regibus Angliæ, that by his decease, or attaining to the crown, it might be extinguished in the crown." For the sake of this foolish mystery, of what a great prince could not have less, and should not have so much, of a principality which was too dear to be given, and too great to be kept-and for no other cause that ever I could find-this form and shadow of a principality, without any substance, has been maintained. That you may judge in this instance (and it serves for the rest) of the difference between a great and a little economy, you will please to recollect, Sir, that Wales may be about the tenth part of England in size and population; and certainly not an hundredth part in opulence. Twelve judges perform the whole of the business, both of the stationary and itinerant justice of this kingdom; but for Wales there are eight judges. There is in Wales an exchequer, as well as in all the duchies, according to the very best and most authentick absurdity of form. There are, in all of them, a hundred more difficult trifles and laborious fooleries, which serve no other purpose than to keep alive corrupt hope and servile dependence. The duchy of Lancaster and the county palatine of Lancaster answered, I admit, some purpose in their original creation. They tended to make a subject imitate a prince. When Henry the Fourth from that stair ascended the throne, high-minded as he was, he was not willing to kick away the ladder. To prevent that principality from being extinguished in the crown, he severed it by act of parliament. He had a motive, such as it was: he thought his title to the crown unsound, and his possession insecure. He therefore managed a retreat in his duchy; which Lord Coke calls (I do not know why) par multis regnis. He flattered himself that it was practicable to make a projecting point half way down, to break his fall from the precipice of royalty; as if it were possible for one who had lost a kingdom to keep any thing else. However, it is evident that he thought so. When Henry the Fifth united, by act of parliament, the estates of his mother to the duchy, he had the same predilection with his father to the root of his family honours, and the same policy in enlarging the sphere of a possible retreat from the slippery royalty of the two great crowns he held. All this was changed by Edward the Fourth. He had no such family partialities, and his policy was the reverse of that of Henry the Fourth and Henry the Fifth. He accordingly again united the duchy of Lancaster to the crown. But when Henry the Seventh, who chose to consider himself as of the house of Lancaster, came to the throne, he brought with him the old pretensions, and the old politicks of that house. A new act of parliament, à second time, dissevered the duchy of Lancaster from the crown; and in that line things continued until the subversion of the monarchy, when principalities and powers fell along with the throne. The duchy of Lancaster must have been extinguished, if Cromwell, who began to form ideas of aggrandizThese principalities are so far from contributing ing his house, and raising the several branches of to the ease of the king, to his wealth, or his dig-it, had not caused the duchy to be again separated nity, that they render both his supreme and his from the commonwealth, by an act of the parsubordinate authority perfectly ridiculous. It was liament of those times. but the other day, that that pert, factious fellow, the Duke of Lancaster, presumed to fly in the face of his liege lord, our gracious sovereign; and, associating with a parcel of lawyers as factious as himself, to the destruction of all law and order, and in committees leading directly to rebellionpresumed to go to law with the king. The object is neither your business nor mine. Which of the parties got the better, I really forget. I think it was (as it ought to be) the king. The material point is, that the suit cost about fifteen thousand pounds. But as the Duke of Lancaster is but a sort of Duke Humphrey, and not worth a groat, our sovereign was obliged to pay the costs of both. Indeed this art of converting a great monarch into a little prince, this royal masquerading, is a very What partiality, what objects of the politicks of the house of Lancaster, or of Cromwell, has his present majesty, or his majesty's family? What power have they within any of these principalities, which they have not within their kingdom? In what manner is the dignity of the nobility concerned in these principalities? What rights have the subject there, which they have not at least equally in every other part of the nation? These distinctions exist for no good end to the king, to the nobility, or to the people. They ought not to exist at all. If the crown (contrary to its nature, but most conformably to the whole tenour of the advice that has been lately given) should so far forget its dignity as to contend, that these jurisdictions and revenues are estates of private |