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 there were many other cases; and Mr B. from his own side of the House instanced Lady Grenville, where a minister deemed it more advisable to screw a pension out of some fund over which Parliament had no control, rather than bring it under the consideration of the House. Mr B. then instanced with derision the case of Sir Home Popham, who, tiring of the inactivity of peace, had engaged in an immense smuggling transaction. His vessel, however, was taken by Commodore Robinson, and condemned in a competent court. Yet Sir Home had received, first 25,000l., and then 50,000l., out of these droits, as expenses of suit, and to console him under the disappointment. If these droits were dangerous in their application, their origin appeared to him ten times worse. They offered a temptation to the Crown to embark in wars, and though he did not believe that any Sovereign since Charles II. would be covertly swayed to engage in war by this motive, yet his aversion to it might be mitigated. But the chief danger appeared to him to arise from the regulation, that every prize made before a declaration of war became a droit of the Crown. 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. These vessels were the purchase-money of the honour, the good faith, the pure and unsullied name of England.

He had only to refer to the Dutch war in the time of Charles II.; 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. At all events, every pretence would thus be taken from their enemies for slandering the nation upon this ground. As to the 4 per cent on the native commodities of Barbadoes and the Leeward Islands, it had been granted originally for the building of forts, a prison, session-house, and other public charges. In Queen Anne's time, it appeared that a complaint was made to Parliament which that body listened to, and petitioned the Queen to restore the fund to its proper uses. Here it was lost sight of, till it was strangely found to have become the absolute property of the Crown, which now made it a fund for obscure pensioners of all descriptions. Upon the whole, Mr Brougham concluded, that 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.

Mr Canning stood up to oppose the motion. Any one who had merely heard the vehement close of the speech of the honourable gentleman, would have supposed it directed against some new assault of arbitrary power-some sudden encroachment of ministerial rapacity; but a person would have been much surprised to learn that the object was to propose an innovation, which, instead of relieving, tended to levy a new burden on the people. He could answer, however, both for the crown and for ministers, that they would reject the boon offered for selling the royal prerogatives. The proposition from the throne stated that no new burden was contemplated for the support of the civil government and of the splendour of the crown. 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. The honourable 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 burdens on the people. With regard to the 4 per cent duties, there was indeed some obscurity in their origin; but the usage of four reigns, during upwards of a century, established the existence of the property, and the custom and power of granting pensions on it. But it was said to be the evil of those uncontrolled funds,

VOL. XII. PART I.

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. Without discussing at present the right of the Crown to the droits of Admiralty, he would merely state the mode in which they 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 for various law expences 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 44 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, and partly in entertainments to foreign sovereigns. The expenditure, however, of the whole, had been communicated to Parliament. 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. It was admitted that there had been no remarkable abuse of the fund in question: still it was urged, that Parliament would make a better application. "The honourable and learned gentleman," said Mr Canning, "states truly 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

D

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 canvass can do. Setting on the one side the chances of favour, canvass, party, and inadvertency; on the other, the chances of extravagance, I do think the Crown the better trustee. 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 60 years the honourable and learned gentleman has hit upon only one questionable case, and that case questionable only in the view which he has taken of it. I entreat of the learned and honourable gentleman not to concede anything to the moral character of the administration. I entreat of him not to concede anything to the character of the existing Sovereign; and, in a constitutional view, nothing of this kind ought to be conceded. The honourable and learned gentleman spoke properly of Charles II., for a king once departed from life is fair subject of animadversion. But I ask him 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 proceedings, 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-I do not say the sovereign-I do not say his ministersbut whether the vilest mind that ever meddled with public affairs, or contemplated public administration, could recommend a wanton and unjustifiable war?" The only other argument

that could be employed was, that every vestige of feudal monarchy would thus be removed. But though a plausible constitution might be established, and one that would look well upon paper, he could not consent to see the monarch thus stripped naked, and every trace of antiquity done away with. Even this would not satisfy a certain class of politicians. Mr B. himself admitted 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 honourable 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. When he had entered that House, he had expected something more practicable from the honourable and learned gentleman than a proposal to strip the crown, at one sweep, of all that 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. 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 into the country-what was the return? "Ay, but you have other funds, and

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 Crown? It would 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.

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 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.

of