we wish to have them taken from you; we wish you to be a king after a new fashion; we require your allowances to be limited to your physical wants; we desire you to rival the President of America.'

Sir James Mackintosh expressed his sense of the disadvantage under which he spoke, after the great and powerful speech of the statesman and lawyer who had introduced the subject, and after the eloquence, which he could not hope to rival, of his right honourable friend who had just sat down. He did not despair, however, of replying to its arguments. He could see no ground for that derived from the reverence for feudal monarchy and Gothic government, the charge of stripping the Crown of its trappings, and the Monarch of his dignity. His right honourable 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 Wards and Liveries. This was the olden time so warmly eulogised! This was an attempt at celebrating the golden age of old times, which he thought more suitable to a venerable major out of doors, than to his right honourable friend. The objection of Mr B. was not to the droits causing war, but an improper manner of going to war. If even this abuse had never existed, he should still contend that it was 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. These droits, he insisted, had been the direct cause of a want of liberality in deal ing with the demand made by the American minister of the Congress of Ghent. If this fund had sometimes given the means of conciliating peace, by affording restitution to in

jured parties, as in the case of the Swedish convoy, the honourablemember conceived, that other funds might be found to serve the same purpose. In the reasons which his right hcnourable 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 sixty years, whereas eight millions of them and more had been accumulated during the war which had raged during the last 20 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 30 years intervening between the years 1763 and 1793, the droits of Admiralty amounted to a very inconsiderable sum, whilst in the 20 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. 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 recompensing 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 merit, but as marks of favour? But then these droits of Admiralty were defended as a privilege, a valuable and honourable privilege, of the Sove

reign. 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 Orown? It would be more honourable for the Sovereign to derive his means of gratifying his paternal affection from the affection of his sub.jects, than from the spoils of his enemies-his unarmed, his unoffending, and his defenceless enemies.

The motion was supported by Sir John Newport, Mr J. Macdonald, and Mr Tierney, and shortly opposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer; but after the ample discussion which it had already received, there could be little room for material novelty. Mr Tierney, in one point, went farther than Mr Brougham. He 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 honourable and learned friend would be able to decide whether any and what compensation ought to be made. Mr Brougham, in a short reply, particularly repelled Mr Canning's charge, that he wished to make a stipendiary king, with only as much meat as he could devour-a monarch who should live on board-wages, and dine every day at a chop-house. He denied that such an inference could fairly be drawn from any sentiments that he had uttered. He had no wish to diminish either the dignity or the comfort of the Crown; nay, he would grudge less 10,000l. applied in promoting the Monarch's comfort, than half that sum to be spent in corruption by the Minister to be spent in getting members into that House, or

in keeping them steady when placed there.

A division being now called for, the motion was negatived by a majority of 118; there being for it, 155; against it, 273.

These preliminary measures being decided, the question of the civil list was, on the 8th May, brought fully under the consideration of Parliament. The Chancellor of the Exchequer observed, that there was room for very few observations on his part, as there was no deficiency to be accounted for, no new arrangement to be proposed, and the Crown asked merely the continuance of that amount which it had received during the four years preceding. He gave, however, a short summary of the proceedings which had been held relative to the civil list during the present reign. In 1782, some permanent rules were laid down for its future regulation, and some of its departments were divided into classes, and so arranged as that payments could be made in no one class until the claims on the one preceding it were satisfied. This was considered by the able man who then conducted the arrangement as sufficient to guard against future claims, or any irregularity; but there was one great defect, that although all the branches of the civil list were regularly classed, yet occasional payments were allowed; and as the sum granted was not sufficient to cover the whole of the expenditure, the consequence was, that many of the departments got considerably in arrear. From that period to the time of the French Revolution a great arrear had accumu lated, and then the subject was laid before Parliament, together with extensive accounts of the application of the different sums, and the causes of the arrears. On the report of the committee the deficiencies were made good, and an additional sum voted.

From that time the expenses were still found to exceed the provision made, but the House was not called upon for any additional grants, as the droits were productive of large sums, which, as the House knew, were applied to supply some of the deficiencies without recurring to Parliament. The authority of Parliament was, however, again called in, and in 1804 a plan was adopted which continued till 1812. At that period the subject was again brought before the House; and upon examination it was found, that the excess which circumstances required above the Parliamentary allowances, was 124,000l. per annum. In 1815, another arrangement was made. The subject went again under investigation, and it was found that, in that and the preceding years, there was an increase of expenditure, which particular circumstances had called for, and which were not likely to occur again. A Committee sat upon the subject at that time, and in the next year it was arranged that the civil list should be relieved from various charges which until then were fixed upon particular branches of it. Among the advantages of this arrangement was to be reckoned that of enabling the branches of the household department to pay in ready money, or what was nearly tantamount to it, and thereby prevent those large arrears which had accrued before. This was in itself a principle which led to economy. The same was observed with respect to the small pensions chargeable on some branches of the civil list, which was a relief to those who were not able to bear long arrears. It was in both cases a relief to the Crown and to the public. The whole sum was less than that of 1815 by 139,000l., and 150,000l. less than the average of the three preceding years. In this there was an advantage which had not occurred in the

former arrangements which were proposed, that the present was tried by the experience of three years, and it was found to prevent the recurrence of any arrear of debt. The establishment of 1816 was, in the first class, 298,000l., including the Windsor establishment, the establishment of her late Majesty, and the privy purse of the Regent. In the present arrangement this class was reduced to 60,000l. being his present Majesty's privy purse.

Lord John Russell stated, that he rose with pain to propose a delay in the consideration of this subject, with the view of its being referred to a select committee. The question to which he wished to call the attention of the House was simply this: whether they, the representatives of the people, just returned from the people, with their professions and promises still on their lips, would, in a new Parliament, take estimates into which they had made no inquiry, on which they had given no opinion, and agree to those estimates without looking either to the necessities of the Sovereign or the distresses of the people. He thought that a mature and due examination into those estimates would be more grateful to the Monarch, more beneficial to the people, and more satisfactory to the House itself, than the plan which was proposed on the other side. If the arrangement of 1816 were as economical as the establishment of the President of the American Republic, still it ought not to be adopted without due consideration. His late Majesty had a groom of the stole, an office which might be reduced without any derogation from the due support of the royal dignity. At least there were many offices of that kind which might be spared, without derogating in any respect from the dignity of the Crown. That such an office as that of master of the

hawks belonged to olden times, and had once contributed to the splendour and dignity of the Crown, was surely no reason for continuing it at the present day, when it was entirely useless. If such situations were to be upheld from respect to ancient usage, and without any regard to their utility, the King ought still, on the same principle, to have his fool, and be allowed straw for his beds, and litter for his chambers. Mr Canning had deprecated the idea of inspecting the household accounts of the King, as a degradation fatal to the dignity of the monarchy. But who, he would ask, had brought before the House the accounts of the civil list? Why, ministers themselves. Those very papers from which the right honourable gentleman had read a list of charges for bread, butter, cheese, &c., by way of exemplifying the degradation to which such an inspection would subject the Crown, had been brought down by ministers, in order to shew the debts on the civil list. He conceived that there was no ground to impute either to his friends or to the country, any desire to detract from the respect due to the Crown; but he thought that sufficient reasons had been given to induce the House to go into an inquiry on the subject.

Mr Huskisson maintained, that there was, in the practice of former reigns, no precedent for such an inquiry, nor any thing in the circumstances which could be urged as a reason for going out of the ordinary course. If no change had taken place from the situation of Regent to that of Sovereign, the noble lord might have had some cause to complain, and some grounds for demanding inquiry. But when it was proposed to give back the whole of that establishment which had been made for the late Sovereign, neither the one nor the other of the noble lord's propositions could be sus

tained. All the particulars of the application of the civil list were before the House in the report of 1815, in details so minute as to be almost unbecoming the dignity of the Crown; so that any gentleman, if he thought there was an instance of unnecessary expenditure, might be able to point it out without any further inquiry. The office of master of the hawks had been laid hold of, and held up to ridicule, as one that added nothing to the dignity or safety of the Crown, and that ought therefore to be abolished. But when he stated that this office was a freehold, granted by a former monarch, and as much property as any grant of lands made by Henry VIII., he thought he had satisfactorily answered all that had been said about it. The very same might be said of many other trifling salaries which had been made the subject of ridicule. He would appeal to all who recollected the state of the country in 1816, the price of commodities, and the state of the exchanges, whether the currency was not then as valuable, and the prices of commodities as low, as at present. He would assert positively that this was the case. He thought the arrangement of 1816 one which was calculated to allow all those proper expenses which were necessary to support the becoming splendour and dignity of the Crown, subject only to the advice and suggestions of its responsible advisers. The benefit of this system had been seen from this circumstance that, during the four years for which it had now existed, not one single shilling of debt accrued-a circumstance before unknown and unheard of in the history of the civil lists.

Mr Brougham made a short speech, chiefly in explanation of some observations formerly made in treating of the droits of Admiralty.

Mr Tierney took a decided part in

support of the motion for inquiry. He said this discussion came on under circumstances of a nature perfectly unparalleled. It regarded the appropriation of a sum of 850,000l. at a period of public distress entirely unprecedented. He addressed the House at a period when distress, he regretted to say, had broken out into acts of violence in several parts of the country. He addressed them at a time immediately following a general election,-when, whatever had been the differences of political opinions which had prevailed from one end of the empire to the other, upon whatever topic, among whatever descriptions of men, there had been but one general cry, in which all parties had joined a demand for the exercise of a most rigid inquiry. He at once declared his dissent from the proposition of Mr Huskisson, that inquiry was without precedent, and ought not to be entered upon. That gentleman in the same breath had appealed to the inquiry in 1815; but Mr Tierney could never be satisfied with an investigation which consisted merely in the production of certain papers, which those who presented them had an interest in preparing. The Windsor establishment,-the household of a dying King, was made the subject of real inquiry, and a large reduction had been recommended. He wished Ministers to make this their precedent. If only a thousand pounds could be saved, it would shew to the country their real desire to observe a strict economy. Now, he begged not to be understood as at all stating that such saving could, or could not be made. That was to appear by the report of such a committee as he wished to see appointed. He could not see why the estimate of Mr Pitt, made in 1804, should not now have been taken. Gentlemen on the other side had made this extraordinary as

sumption, that the estimate of 1804 was one which Mr Pitt never intended to carry into effect-one never meant to have operation-in short, a mere random shot. For his part, he never, in all his life, was any great Pittite, but he would not see Mr Pitt treated in this way. They said they could not find upon what grounds this estimate was made. Why not? All the gentlemen who made it, except Mr Pitt and Mr Rose, were, he believed, still alive. Here, then, was the estimate of Mr Pitt; but, instead of adopting it, instead of considering it, they said, "Let us put every thing aside; Mr Pitt never meant to carry this into effect, and therefore let us say no more about it." He did not conceive that the expenditure of the late King could be taken as a fair test of what was necessary for the royal dignity. He would beg them to consider, that his late Majesty was liable to very heavy demands, by reason of his very large family. He would beg them to consider the charges of the Board of Works, and what had been the cost, not for the repairs, but for the improvements of that stupendous pile, Windsor-castle: next, for the decoration, furnishing, &c., of apartments in the palaces for the princesses, and of the apartments in Kensington palace for the Princess of Wales. He would beg them to consider the heavy expences of removing the princesses to and from Windsor, stated at 20,000l.

and further, the removals of the Royal Family to Weymouth; and, putting all these heavy costs together, were they to be told that the last seven years were the proper criterion upon which the estimate for the expenses of the civil list at the present day were to be framed? He considered it as most extraordinary, that no express provision was made in this Bill for the Queen of England. He must say, that he never expected to be call