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1795, had been directed to other purposes, and still remained due on the 1st of January 1796, in open contempt and defiance of the said act."

With regard to the disposition paper, the practice of laying before the House such a document had originated in the extravagant reign of Charles 2nd, and had been adopted and established at the Revolution, when our liberties were fixed, and was intended as a real account, for the information of parliament, how the supplies were employed. This paper he now arraigned as completely false. It might be said by the minister, that his predecessors had not been very careful to render this paper an exact account of the application of the public money. This was at all times a bad defence; but what was the House to think of the present minister resorting as a justification to precedents which he had been the foremost to condemn, and abuses which he pledged himself to remedy? The paper stated that the sums voted for the army, clothing, staff, &c. had been issued and applied, when none had been issued on this account, and when that branch of the service was still in arrear. The House, indeed might be told, that this paper was merely a form; that it only contained an account of the sums issued from the exchequer and that under this form the paymaster-general received from the treasury the sums required; but were they tamely to acquiesce in such a defence? would they endure that the minister should apply the public money as he thought proper, in defiance of solemn enactments of the legislator, or that he should abolish the regulations which the wisdom of the constitution had deemed necessary to maintain the vigour of its principles, and secure the purity of its administration? Instead of thus insulting the understanding of the House, instead of imposing upon them a false and fraudulent account, the minister should have made atonement to the spirit of the constitution, had necessity driven him from the strict line of conduct which it prescribed, and by a bill of indemnity satisfied the demands of its violated laws. He would therefore move,

12. That it appears that an account is annually presented to this House, showing how the money granted for the service of the preceding year has been disposed of, distinguished under the several heads, and the parts remain

ing unsatisfied, with the deficiency thereupon.

13. "That such account was intended to be, what in its title it professes to be, a real account, showing how the money given for the service of the year had ac tually been disposed of, in order that the House of Commons might be informed of the state of the public expenditure, and satisfy themselves as to the application of the money voted to those services for which it had been granted by them.

14. "That an account of the above description has been presented to this House in each of the years 1794, 1795, and 1796, in which the money granted for the services of each year is stated to have been applied to the services for which it was voted by parliament, although it now appears, from accounts since presented to this House, that the sum of 644,1067. granted for off reckonings for the years 1794 and 1795; the sum of 146,900. granted for the pay of the general and staff officers of his majesty's forces for 1793, 1794, 1795, the sum of 34,3131. granted for the pay of the several governors, lieutenantgovernors, and other officers of his majesty's forces in Great Britain and parts beyond seas, for the year 1794 and 1795, and severally stated to have been disposed of for those services still remain unsatisfied.

15. "That, in the instances above mentioned, his majesty's ministers have been guilty of presenting false accounts, calculated to mislead the judgment of this House, of a flagrant violation of various acts of parliament, and of a gross misapplication of the public money."

Here, then, he would at present leave the consideration of the subject. He had laid before the House an important case for their decision. They were now to determine whether they would enforce the act of appropriation of the public revenue to its proper service, and preserve the spirit of their laws in the strictness of their application, or allow the dispensing power of a minister to supersede the authority of the law, and the discretion of the executive power to supplant the wisdom of the constitution.

The first resolution being put,

Mr. Pitt said, he was happy in being afforded an opportunity of discussing, regularly and precisely, certain topics which had been loosely thrown out at other times, when business of importance press

ed upon the attention of the House. However strong the points which the hon. gentleman had urged, he hoped he should prove to the satisfaction of the House, that, conceding as much as he should afterwards state of the principle, conceding also most of the facts, it would still be impossible for the House to draw that conclusion which the hon. gentleman had proposed to the House to draw, by his present resolution. If the resolution stated an indisputable truth, the question then would be, whether it were expedient to record that truth. That it was the duty of the House to superintend the expenditure of the public money, he did not deny; but that it was the duty of parliament to enforce the application of it to the letter of the act, required the command of a retrospective authority, which the House had not the means of enforcing, and this he proposed to show under the examination of the several heads of the hon. gentleman's arguments, in the manner he arranged them.

With respect to the act of appropriation, he agreed that it contained a strong clause, which passed every year, and which enjoined, that no money granted by parliament should be applied to any other purpose than that for which it had been granted. He agreed that the act did apply, in binding and specific terms, to the regulation of the payment of navy and army services; of the navy, by stating its services under the head a general fund; of the army, under various and distinct heads. He admitted also, that ministers, in the management and pay. ment of army services, did not attend to the minute subdivisions particularly mentioned in the act of appropriation; but only generally took care, that no more should be issued for the army out of the supplies in the course of the year, ! than the total amount of the sum for which general credit had been given That this was a deviation from the strict letter of that law he admitted; it was a deviation in the particular subdivisions of the army services. Gentlemen should however recollect a fact, for which he contended, namely, that the act had been precisely in the same form, in every year since it had passed in the reign of George 1st. They should recollect, that something of the same nature existed in the reign of king William; and that so early as the reign of queen Anne, it was deviated from in as strong a degree, in regard to [VOL. XXXII.]

the principle, as during the present war. This had been mentioned by Mr. Hatsell, and by him in a great measure justified, because the nation was then engaged in a war of great extent, with services in all parts of the globe, and it was impossible to foresee what might be the amount of all the various expenses.

The question, then, which the House had to consider was, whether it followed, from the particular breach of the act, which he admitted in certain instances, that the present ministers deserved the imputation of criminality which the hon. gentleman had stated; and whether their conduct called for the censure of the House? Undoubtedly, every deviation from an act of parliament was, prima facie, criminal; it did not, however, follow, that there was no palliation, or justification, of that deviation from the law. It was an easy task to make a charge of the present nature. It was only necessary for a gentleman to point the attention of the House to the letter of the law, and when the deviation from it should be admitted, he would immediately have re course to condemnation; but surely the hon. gentleman would allow the persons charged to ask, whether the deviation were wanton, or arose from necessity? Secondly, if the deviation were new and unprecedented, or whether it were founded on ancient practice? Or, thirdly, whether it were clandestine, or done with an intent to deceive the House; or whether it was wrong under its notice, and sanctioned by its decisions? He would first consider the necessity of the case. It had been admitted, that some extraordinaries could not be avoided in time of war. The hon. gentleman had said, that the question was only as to the degree; but if there was ever a time when extraordinaries were allowable to a large extent, it was the present. If extraordinary services were unavoidably incurred in the course of a war, and from their nature could not be provided for, nor foreseen in their amount nor in their time, they must, when they were performed, be paid for. How, then, was the money to be paid, but by withholding some of the payments of the services regularly estimated and voted for; which, according to the strict act of appropriation, ought to be applied to the particular services only for which they were voted? This was simply the whole of the case, as far as it related to the principle; and from the times of [32]

king William and queen Anne, a full century, there had not been a year of war in which extraordinary expenses had not been incurred, which had not been previously provided for by parliament; nay more, for near half a century past, there had not been one year of peace in which extraordinaries had not been paid, and by that means the act of appropriation violated. With respect, therefore, to principle and necessity, he had not much farther to urge: if it were possible to have only as small extraordinaries as those of former times; if it were possible to have no extraordinaries at all in time of peace; still, it was impossible that a case could be put, in time of war, when the public service could be wisely or prudently conducted consistently with the strict letter of the act of appropriation.

Thus then he had already stated the practice he had said, that in years of peace universally for half the present century extraordinaries were incurred. He was willing to allow that the practice existed formerly in sums far short, but, however, in sums not so small as the hon. gentleman stated; for instead of 200,000l. he would find, that in war in the reign of queen Anne, between 300,000l. and 400,000l. were incurred in the article of extraordinaries for the army. In the war of 1740 and 1741, which terminated in the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, extraordinaries had been also incurred to a great amount. In the German war they had considerably increased; and in the American war, that line of service had increased to a much larger extent than it had ever done before. But although the sum of 400,000l. may not, in a comparative scale, appear large; yet, if gentlemen would take into the account the comparative value of money in those times, when considered with its present value, they would perceive that there was something more to be deduced than mere precedent. During the administration of Mr. Pelham, when the finances of the war were directed by a person who had been trained for other great, eminent, and important stations, who filled with honour, dignity, and respect the chair of that House; it would be found that the expenses were paid in a way different from that which was expressly mentioned in the act of appropriation; and the ministers of that day were equally justified by the necessity of the public service. He did not, however, wish to rest upon the silent ac

quiescence of parliament in the practice of neglecting the letter of the act so often mentioned; there occurred a marked and particular instance in which he had the recorded judgment of parliament on that subject. The members of the administration of that day had a vote of censure proposed against them for the payment of an extraordinary service, and the vote was proposed in terms not very different from the resolutions of the present day. On the 19th of March 1744,* during the administration of lord Wilmington, notice was taken in the account of extraordinaries, of a sum to the amount of 40,0007. for the purpose of putting the Austrian troops in motion, under the command of the duc d'Aremberg. In the motion proposed to the House, it was stated as “a dangerous misapplication of public money, and destructive of the rights of parliament;" the merits of the motion were not then decided on, for the previous question was moved and carried on a division; but the papers were produced to prove the importance of the services performed; and on the 10th of April 1744, the motion was again urged, when an amendment was offered for leaving out the words "that the expenditure of that sum was a dangerous misapplication of the public money," and substituting the words "that it was necessary for putting the said troops in motion, and of great consequence to the common cause." The House divided upon the original question, when the Ayes were 145, and the Noes 259, and the father of the right hon. gentleman opposite (Mr. Fox) was teller for the Ayes. So it happened, that this practice, which the House was now called upon to brand as criminal, had been avowed and recognized every year. Would gentlemen pretend to say, that the extraordinary service could wait for payment until the subsequent session? extraordinaries, which consisted of bills of exchange drawn from abroad, payable at a certain time, at the expiration of which they must positively be discharged. If, therefore, for 50 or 60 years past there were extraordinaries incurred contrary to the letter of the various acts of appropri ation; if the House had been so far a party to those transactions, as to sanc

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How, then, did the question stand? He had proved it to be the practice for above a century of ministers, living and dead; and recognized by the act on which the charge was founded. Although he admitted that the successful and undeniable defence was the necessity of the case, yet there were different ways in which the practice of extraordinaries had been recognized. During the first seven years of his administration there was no subject which brought on more hostile debate than the finances; they were discussed on the side of those who attacked his opinions, with great vigilance and perseverance. In 1786 and 1791 particularly, debates arose on the peace income and expenditure, and so far was parliament from shutting its eyes to the extraordinaries of the army, that in each of the committees of those times, there was to be found an estimate of their probable amount But while he appealed to the practice of his predecessors, as a justification for incurring extraordinaries, he declared, he did not mean to deny that they had greatly exceeded their estimate: he allowed, that, partly from a fluctuation in the prices of various articles, partly from the impossibility of foreseeing many expenses which he afterwards found it necessary to incur, and partly, he was ready to allow, from errors of calculation, there were left above the estimate large and heavy extraordinaries; and he not only felt it himself as a disappointment, but it might also be stated as matter of disappointment to the House and to the public.

tion them, by their votes to make good the payment of these extraordinaries, from the accession of George 1st to that day, would the hon. gentleman condemn ministers for doing that which parliament had constantly done? Would he, instead of placing the charge upon the House, lay it on those, who merely carried measures into execution which were recognized by the legislature? It had also been the practice of individuals connected with the hon. gentleman. A right hon. gentleman near him (Mr. Fox), who had once been in office, and now made one of that formidable opposition ranged over against him, knew something of the practice of extraordinaries; he did not mean to state that the right hon. gentleman had a situation which made him particularly responsible in matters of finance; but as in the present motion the hon. gentleman thought fit to shift the charge off his shoulders as chancellor of the exchequer, and to place it conjointly on him and his colleagues in office, so the practice of extraordinaries, on the same principle, would form a charge against that right hon. gentleman whilst in administration, though he was not chancellor of the exchequer. In the general words of the present motion, there was an excess of candour for which the hon. gentleman was entitled to his thanks, as it gave him a right to bring the right hon. gentleman, not as his judge, but as a witness to bear testimony on his behalf, to prove that in 1782 and 1783, when the two persons were paymasters-general who brought in the act relating to the pay-office, there He next came to the comparison of the were extraordinaries to the amount of amount of extraordinaries unprovided for many millions voted and paid. Thus had by parliament, as incurred in the present he a living witness of the practice in the war and in the American war. The hon. person of his opponent. He had one wit- gentleman had declared them to be greater ness, however, more singular than all the than those of any other war that was ever rest, not a living, speaking authority, but known. Two reasons, the extent of the a dumb, a dead one-the act of appropri- war abroad, and the dearness of provisions ation itself. That act contained, in the at home, he had given, why they should body of it, a sum to make good deficien- be so. Certainly, the vote of credit must cies arising from the payment of extraordi- be deducted from the extraordinaries in naries. He would also recite in his vindi- the present war, because they were forecation the Pay-Office act, which was seen and provided for; that formed a great brought in by Mr. Burke after the report deduction. The taxes were also funded of the committee in 1782. The report before-hand for the loan of exchequer had stated, that the practice of incurring bills. There was another sum to be dearmy extraordinaries ought to be put an ducted. In the calculation of the peace end to; and the act stated the precise establishment by the committee, 280,000l. time and form, in which the paymaster-was the sum named as the probable exgeneral was to keep an account of the extraordinary expenses not provided for by parliament.

traordinaries; that sum, he contended, was foreseen also by parliament, and he had a right to deduct so much yearly dur

ing the war. If, therefore, subject to all those deductions, the extraordinaries were calculated fairly, they would amount to the sum of 4,600,000l. only during the present war; and as all the extraordinaries of the American war were wholly incurred without the previous consent of parliament, they might be stated to amount to 9,100,000l. exclusive of the votes of credit. There was therefore a balance in favour of the present war, and against the American war, of 4,500,000l. incurred in extraordinaries. Having taken leave of the extraordinaries of the army, he would make a few short comparisons in the other services. In the course of the present contest, it had been his practice to anticipate as much as possible all the services to their full amount. During the years of the American war, there were in navy and ordnance bills, 12,000,000l. incurred without the autho

rity of parliament, and not made good at the end of each year; whereas, the practice had been, in the present war, to anticipate as much of the expenses as possible, or to make them good at the end of the year, and not to leave them as a total deficiency at the end of the war. The total amount of the deficiency of the navy and army, and of the unprovided of the ordnance, amounted in the three years of the present war to 16 or 17,000,000l., and in the American war, the deficiencies of these three services amounted to the enormous sum of 23,000,000/. He trusted he had proved to the satisfaction of the House, that the extraordinaries could not have been defrayed by any other means than those to which it had been found necessary to have recourse. He viewed the army money in the light of a current fund; and it could not be controverted, that the demands of the current year were to be provided for in proportion as the sum for extrao dinaries came into the exchequer, and therefore he conceived, that no deviation from the principle could be implied in any instance which the hon. gentleman had mentioned farther than the constant practice warranted.

He next came to consider the act for the regulation of the pay-officers, the violation of which had been so vehemently urged: the spirit of that act related to the issuing of bills by the paymaster-general, and which the hon. gentleman contended should be issued by the bank of England. When the hon. gentleman talked of the information which he

had received from a person in office, he either could not have understood the nature of that information, or did not reason on it in a just manner. The fact was, that the warrant was strictly conformable to the letter and spirit of the act of parliament. The bank was to keep open a cash account under the direction of the paymaster-general, and it was generally understood that the bank would never charge themselves with any thing but cash. In consequence of that idea, when the exchequer bills were issued by warrant, and came into the bank, they sent one of their officers to acquaint the paymaster, that they could not, according to their system, receive them as cash. The bills were, therefore, disposed of by the paymaster-general, not for the purpose of profit, but merely as a matter of necessity. Some time after, his hon. friend near him (Mr. Steele) proposed to the bank an arrangement, by which the bank

were to take the bills as cash: to that arrangement the bank had acceded. Such was the exact state of the transaction; and he should leave it to the candour of the House to decide, with what justice any blame could attach to a measure completely unavoidable. There had been in no point of view the slightest deviation from the meaning of the act, and the vi. gilance of the paymaster was entitled to considerable praise.-He next came to another charge which went to criminate ministers for deviating from the letter of the act; but if he were to be condemned by the letter of the act, he was perfectly warranted in saying that it could not, in the least, apply to him. There was not one word to be found in it, which directed, that the payments should be made on a particular day; therefore any deviation from the strict letter could not be inferred. The act of parliament certainly directed the paymaster-general to form his memorials in the names of the persons who were interested in them, and in answer to the charge of the day of payment being omitted, as specified by the act, he should only remark, that the paymaster had no knowledge of the persons interested; it was consequently evident, that the memorials could not have been made out exactly against the day of payment, as the names of the parties were not ascertained. He would therefore submit, whether the paymaster was not under such strong and positive circumstances, at least excuseable with respect to the

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