for any invidious purpose. It is in order to excite in us the spirit of a noble emulation. Let the nations make war upon each other (since we must make war) not with a low and vulgar malignity, but by a competition of virtues. This is the only way by which both parties can gain by war. The French have imitated us; let us, through them, imitate ourselves; ourselves in our better and happier days. If public frugality, under whatever men, or in whatever mode of government, is national strength, it is a strength which our enemies are in possession of before us.

Sir, I am well aware, that the state and the result of the French œconomy which I have laid before you, are even now lightly treated by some, who ought never to speak ⚫ but from information. Pains have not been spared to represent them as impositions on the public. Let me tell you, Sir, that the creation of a navy, and a two years war without taxing, are a very singular species of imposture. But be it so. For what end does Neckar carry on this delusion? Is it to lower the estimation of the crown he serves, and to render his own

LOUIS, &c.-Having reflected, that, without essential alterations in the direction of the expences of our houshold, we should hardly be able to establish a permanent improvement in the conducting of them, we have begun by reducing the great number of coffers and treasuries to one only. We have, by our edict of this day, united all the offices of our household with the casual revenues; and now, to render the plan we have prescribed to ourselves more complete, we have thought proper to suppress the offices of comptroller-general of our houshold, and of the money-chamber; that of the lieutenant-comptroller-general of the furniture belonging to the crown; the of fices of lieutenants and comptrollers-general of our stables, those of lieutenants and comptrollers general of the plate, the houshold amusements, and affairs of our chamber; the two offices of comptrollers-general to the queen's houshold, our dearest wife and companion; and we will that all these offices shall be paid in ready money after their liquidation. At the same time we have thought proper to establish a general office for the expences of our houshold, which shall be composed of two magistrates taken from our chamber of accounts, and five commissioners-general which shall be thrown out by this arrangement, and who, in uniting their different knowledge, will be very capable of conducting, with spirit and uniformity, the whole expences of our housebold. This office is to be immediately employed in a full examination of every part of it, in order to produce the greatest perspicuity,

administration contemptible? No! No! He is conscious, that the sense of mankind is so clear and decided in favour of conomy, and of the weight and value of its resources, that he turns himself to every species of fraud and artifice, to obtain the mere reputation of it. Men do not affect a conduct that tends to their discredit. Let us, then, get the better of M. Neckar in his own way-Let us do in reality what he does only in pretence.-Let us turn his French tinsel into English gold. Is then the mere opinion and appearance of frugality and good management of such use to France, and is the substance to be so mischievous to England? Is the very constitution of nature so altered by a sea of 20 miles, that œconomy should give power on the continent, and that profusion should give it here? For God's sake let not this be the only fashion of France which we refuse to copy.

To the last kind of necessity, the desires of the people, I have but a very few words to say. The ministers seem to contest this point; and affect to doubt, whether the people do really desire a plan of

for

for the purpose of introducing all the improvements of every kind, which the business is capable of; and shall render an exact account of their operations both to the minister of our houshold, and that of finances, for the better introducing in this establishment every alteration which shall be found useful, and to the execution of which there yet remains every obstacle; that they may thus be immediately known and removed, and that our general administration being thus drawn into one common office, may receive all the lights necessary accomplishing the plan we have approved. We keep our high and chief officers in the honourable situation of receiving our orders immediately from us, transmitting them, and watching that they are put into execution.-But they being called out on our service in our provinces and armies, and not having time to spare in inspecting the particulars of finance and œconomy, which require continual assiduity and watchfulness, we imagine they will behold, without pain, this part of our administration separated from their noble offices near our person; and we have too much experienced their zeal and attachment not to be convinced that they will eagerly second the general plan for the establishment of regularity in our finances, and to prove more and more to our faithful subjects, how much it is our desire to avoid having recourse to new taxes, till we have estimated all the resources arising from this system of order and œconomy. For these causes, &c.' This edict consists of 16 articles.

œconomy in the civil government. Sir, this is too ridiculous. It is impossible that they should not desire it. It is impossible that a prodigality which draws its resources from their indigence, should be pleasing to them. Little factions of pensioners, and their dependents, may talk another language. But the voice of nature is against them; and it will be heard. The people of England will not, they cannot, take it kindly, that representatives should refuse to their constituents, what an absolute sovereign voluntarily offers to his subjects. The expression of the petition is, that" before any new burthens are laid upon this country, effectual measures be taken by this House, to enquire into, and correct, the gross abuses in the expenditure of public money."

This has been treated by the noble lord in the blue ribbon, as a wild factious language. It happens, however, that the people in their address to us, use almost word for word the same terms as the king of France uses in addressing himself to his people; and it differs only, as it falls short of the French king's idea of what is due to his subjects. "To convince," says he, "our faithful subjects of the desire we entertain not to recur to new impositions, until we have first exhausted all the resources which order and economy can possibly supply," &c. &c.

These desires of the people of England, which come far short of the voluntary concessions of the king of France, are moderate indeed. They only contend that we should interweave some œconomy with the taxes with which we have chosen to begin the war. They request, not that you should rely upon economy exclusively, but that you should give it rank and precedence, in the order of the ways and means of this single session.

But if it were possible, that the desires of our constituents, desires which are at once so natural, and so very much tempered and subdued, should have no weight with a House of Commons, which has its eye elsewhere; I would turn my eyes to the very quarter to which theirs are directed. I would reason this matter with the House, on the mere policy of the question; and I would undertake to prove, that an early dereliction of abuse, is the direct interest of government; of government taken abstractedly from its duties, and considered merely as a system intending its own conservation.

If there is any one eminent criterion,

which, above all the rest, distinguishes a wise government from an administration weak and improvident, it is this:-"well to know the best time and manner of yielding, what it is impossible to keep."There have been, Sir, and there are, many who choose to chicane with their situation, rather than be instructed by it. Those gentlemen argue against every desire of reformation, upon the principles of a criminal prosecution. It is enough for them to justify their adherence to a pernicious system, that it is not of their contrivance; that it is an inheritance of absurdity, derived to them from their ancestors; that they can make out a long and unbroken pedigree of mismanagers that have gone before them. They are proud of the antiquity of their house; and they defend their errors, as if they were defending their inheritance: afraid of derogating from their nobility; and carefully avoiding a sort of blot in their scutcheon, which they think would degrade them for ever.

It was thus that the unfortunate Charles the 1st defended himself on the practice of the Stuart who went before him, and of all the Tudors; his partizans might have gone to the Plantagenets.-They might have found bad examples enough, both abroad and at home, that could have shewn an ancient and illustrious descent. But there is a time, when men will not suffer bad things because their ancestors have suffered worse. There is a time, when the hoary head of inveterate abuse will neither draw reverence nor obtain protection. If the noble lord in the blue ribbon pleads "Not guilty," to the charges brought against the present system of public œconomy, it is not 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 public 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 arrangements 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

knowledge, can never say what it is that he can spend, or what it is that he can

save.

ticular 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 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 maximis, 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,

1st, 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.

2ndly, That all public 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 of freedom, to be disposed of.

3dly, 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.

4thly, That all such offices ought to be abolished, as obstruct the prospect of the general superintendant 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 [VOL. XXI.]

5thly, 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.

6thly, 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.

7thly, 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 public 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.

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 inferior 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 sovereign condescends himself to act, not only the principal but all the subordinate parts in the play. He condescends to dissipate the royal character, and to trifle with those light subordinate lacquered sceptres in those hands that sustain the ball repre[C]