maiden ladies in circumstances of indi- | country, the preserving the constitution gence. The noble lord has objected to the inviolate, for the good of the community. exposition of respectable names to the By public economy, we mean not to prying eye of malignant curiosity. It weaken, but to strengthen the hands of would be a pity, that through any of our the crown, not to impede, but to facilitate public measures, the names of pensioners the movements of the wheels of government. We wish, indeed, to take away should be inserted in magazines and newspapers, in which their characters would be that grease from them, which is exacted traduced, their services depreciated, and from the marrow of the people, while they a thousand little circumstances magnified are driving on in a wild career of folly and or misrepresented! Is the noble lord aware madness that must inevitably terminate in of the severity of this censure on ministry? destruction; but we will restore it to soften or has he spoken these words in the hurry and smooth their hinges, whenever they of debate? If the list of pensioners is shall be entrusted to hands that will guide such as the noble lord needs not to be them in the paths that lead to glory and ashamed of, it would be his interest to peace. It is a storm, says the minister of have it published in all the magazines and the day; all hands to work! but remember news-papers in Great Britain. He ought that I and my adherents are the ship; immediately to employ his hireling scribes do not meddle with us, for if you remove to insert it in their pamphlets, to lecture, us from the helm, down sinks the ship. to comment upon it, and to shew the world, Sir, I am not one of those who love to fish that the jealousies and surmises with which in muddy waters, or that seek to establish The we had been deafened concerning the pen- my fortune on the ruins of the state. sion list, are entirely without foundation. noble lord talks of gentlemen envying and But, says the noble lord, there are many hating placemen and pensioners, because persons on the pension list, that I know they want places and pensions to themnothing about; their pensions had been selves. But what place will the noble lord bestowed on them in former days, and it give me that I will accept? I know that would be inhuman to take them from them speeches in parliament have little weight if now. This I will readily grant, and it is professions are belied by public or private not against those obscure and forgotten conduct. But I appeal to my public and pensioners that we would direct our at- private life for the sincerity of my sentitacks, but against your flourishing andments, when I declare that I believe, that well known pensioners, pensioners obsequious to the nod of the noble lord and devoted to his will. The merit of the obscure and forgotten pensioners, though it is nothing to the public, is greater than that of those who are so well known to the noble lord. The influence of the crown, said the noble lord, on a former occasion, is not, in the opinion of some gentlemen, any wise excessive or formidable. It is for that reason, it is because the noble lord and so many gentlemen think the influence of the crown no wise formidable, that it appears so formidable to me. They feel its comfortable influence, and good reason they have to cry out, It is no wise formidable, but on the contrary, very agreeable, very much suited to our wishes. But, says the noble lord, this is not a time to think of plans of reformation in the will weaken the hands of administration, you will stop the wheels of government. This language goes abroad among ignorant and weak people, and they are deluded by the sound without examining the sense. Sir, what is government, but the execution of the laws of the state, you public economy, and that only, will retard the state of this downfalling nation. The arguments of the noble lord appear to me to be so absurd, that they are unworthy of him. This is not parliamentary debate, this is not reasoning we have now got into. Ministry flatly deny that white is white, or that black is black, and we as flatly affirm it. Matters are now, as is said in the language of hostility, at issue, between us. But whatever that issue may be, my conscience bears me witness, that I neither wish to be rewarded for taking any share in the salvage; nor participate in the wrecks of the state. I only wish to see the vessel sailing gaily and pleasantly, as in former times, and bound to friendly and propitious havens. Lord North denied he had said it was a new motion, insisting upon it, that he had only quoted sir George Savile's words, and that he had said no more, than that the motion was an unusual one. Mr. Dunning affirmed that the minister had said the motion was new. Sir George Savile, in the strongest terms of disgust, and appearance of indignation, reproved the noble lord for the disingenuous manner in which he had acted, for, though he might have said the motion was new, as the noble lord knew otherwise, he ought to have set him right, and not have used his words, making them his own and building such a superstructure of exultation upon them. With respect to the pension list, the hon. baronet admitted, that he did not know what pensioners he and the House should think ought to be struck off, till the list called for should be produced. But, whatever the pension list might term it, such a character of it had gone forth, that it was become necessary the ministers should produce it for their own sakes. When that should be done, the worthy baronet said he would run his nose into every article of it, and such unmerited pensions as he could scent out, he certainly would endeavour to have discontinued. Mr. Dunning considered the motion as the most important that ever came before the House, and would therefore prove that it was supported, not only by reason and justice, but by precedent. In pursuance of which, the Clerk read the entries of the 8th and 17th of January, 1710, when a similar motion was agreed to. Col. Barré instanced another precedent of the 23rd of May 1679; when sir Stephen Fox being brought to the bar, was ordered home with three members of the House who had charge of him, to fetch his accounts, and was compelled to give the names of all the members of parliament that had pensions given them. Another precedent was also read, dated the 18th and 22nd of December 1703. Mr. Byng called upon the minister to get up and declare like an honest man, if there were not pensions paid besides those received at the office of the Paymaster General, or the Exchequer; for he had very good information, that divers members of parliament, of both Houses, at the end of every session, received pensions; that a list was privately made out for that purpose, and burnt the instant after the pensions were paid according to it. Mr. Dundas was for rejecting the motion in toto. There was no part of it fit to be complied with; and if the opposition knew any pensioners unworthy their pensions, why did they not point them out? The learned gentleman did not, in his conscience, believe there were any members of parliament that received part of the 48,000l. He was of opinion that the mo tion ought not to be agreed to, because to lessen the pension list was not amongst the propositions for a general reform of the public expenditure; and he verily believed, if the petitioners could be brought to the bar of the House, they would one and all declare they did not wish any enquiry at all into the list of pensions. Mr. Burke said, it was not in the power of any language he was master of, to thank the noble lord (North) for the effusion of compliments he had poured upon the plan he had submitted to the House. The noble lord admired it prodigiously, it had riveted his panegyric, but when any part of it came under consideration, the noble lord himself was the first to condemn it. He liked the whole of the propositions, but when they were divided, he was sure to condemn them. The hon. gentleman was severe on the noble lord s account of the exchequer pensions, telling the House they were salaries, instead of pensions, though no proof whatever was given that they were salaries, and as to the minister's pretended delicacy, on account of this lady and that lady, the hon. gentleman believed there was no lady Betty, nor lady Jane, that would care a fig for the minister's exposing their names, if the pension were to be continued. Mr. Goodricke supported the motion, with some very judicious and pertinent observations, and went fully into a justification of the petitions and the motives of the petitioners. Mr. T. Townshend spoke in support of the motion, and ridiculed the pretext set up by the minister, that it would be meddling with the Civil List. The hon. member also opened a new matter respecting the 4 per cent. on the West India ceded islands; and attacked the minister severely, for suffering the pensions of the duke of Gloucester and lord Chatham, which had been paid out of those duties, to be neglected, because those duties no longer continued. Mr. Fox followed Mr. Townshend, in arraigning the conduct of the minister respecting the duke of Gloucester and lord Chatham, whose pensions were now seven years in arrear. With regard to the question, he agreed with his learned friend before him (Mr. Dunning) that it was the most important that could be brought before the House. The hon. gentleman severely reprobated the assertion of another learned gentleman (Mr. Dundas) that the petitioners, if at the bar, would 'disap his prerogative, and yet no one would say he might not abuse it, or that the House could not, on a suspicion of it, enquire into the fact. It was now incumbent on the minister to produce the list called for, for he challenged him to find any six and declare his belief that the pension list was not abused, or that persons were not hired for attacking the constitution, and vilifying its best friends; that all the abuses were not to be laid to the charge of the noble lord had so refined upon them as to have made them almost his own. Some well-directed strictures were then applied by the hon. gentleman to the pensions, or salaries paid at the exchequer to the commissioners of the police in Scot prove of the motion; an assertion which was monstrous and too gross for any one to use, but the person who used it; because, to strike off all unnecessary and unmerited pensions, was certainly going directly to the two objects of the petition, which were, a reduction of the public ex-members of the House that would get up pences, and a decrease of the influence of the crown. The hon. gentleman, in terms the most poignant and expressive, displayed in a thousand different shapes the disingenuous conduct of the minister in adopting sir George Savile's expres-present minister he would allow, but the sion, and taking it upon himself, declaring to the House, over and over again, that the motion ought to be rejected, because it was a new one, though he knew at the same time, that it was not a new one, and there were precedents for it. The noble lord shaked his head, but he would ap-land, and said it now cost the nation as peal to the House for the truth of what much to keep the Scotch in good humour, he had said, and for the pitiful subterfuge as it had to suppress the late rebellion. of the noble lord, when detected of shel- The hon. gentleman here entering into tering himself under the word unusual. the nature of that rebellion, denied it had If the opposition had been guilty of such failed, as was the language so familiar a meanness, such a baseness, they would with many. It had, indeed, failed on the never have heard the last of it. part of the Pretender; but his adherents He next adverted to the minister's fix-had gained their point; they had got an ing the motion to the pensions paid at the influence here by the event, and from exchequer, and by the paymaster general, time to time improved it, he feared, to as if he did not know there were other the utter destruction of the British empensions the House wanted to get at. As pire. The hon. gentleman then touched to pretending it was indelicate to give upon America, and said, it had cost the the pension list, it was to the last degree public ten thousand times more to lose ridiculous, for the pension list of Ireland America, than it had to get it. He called was every year given. A learned gentle- upon the minister in the most pressing man too, had called upon opposition, to manner, to give the people satisfaction, name the person they suspected unde- for they believed the majority of the House serving the pension he received, and was to be under the influence of the crown, determined to keep back the pension list, and he entreated the members to do their which was the only thing that could ena-duty, and enforce justice, to consider who ble them to do it, and as all great things were only to be done by detail, it was preposterous for the noble lord to reject this and that branch of the intended reform, because it would not make any great saving to the public. Yet it had been said, that a total abolition of the pension list would save the people but 48,000l. as if a number of such savings (and a number of them might be made) would not make up a very great sum total. With regard to the denying the pension list, because it would be interfering with the civil allowance given to the King, the hon. gentleman was of opinion it ought to be exploded as fallacious, for though the money was given for the use of the crown, the House were competent to see if it was properly expended. The King had T they were, and from whence they came, for that the people made them, and would certainly unmake them when they found they could no longer confide in them. The hon. gentleman, with some pleasantry and a great deal of satire, adverted to the speech made by Mr. Smelt, at York, and vindicated him from the suspicion of being a bad man. The hon. gentleman understood and believed him to be a good character; but he had less prudence than some men. He came to the York meeting warm with the prerogative of the crown, and he could not help betraying those sentiments of loyalty he always heard amongst those he associated with. He excused him from having any greater dislike to the liberties of the people than other creatures of the court; all that could be said was, that he had been weak enough to disclose what others were prudent enough to keep to themselves. With respect to the influence of the crown, the people, he knew, would have it lessened, however it might be resisted; and, for his part, he was of opinion it ought to be entirely destroyed. The hon. gentleman next indulged himself in pointing out, with infinite ingenuity and humour, the characteristic versatility of the minister. In the course of the present debate he had said and unsaid a hundred times: sometimes the motion was new, and sometimes it was unusual: the noble lord was so adroit at this kind of tergiversation, that there was no one, however watchful, that would not be foiled in the attempt to detect him. The petitions, for instance, his lordship approved of exceedingly; but he liked the protests nevertheless, though they decried these petitions as libellous. As to Mr. Burke's plan, he gave the whole of it his sincere approbation; but there was no part of it he did not in reality dissent from. Who, too, was there in the House, that had not oftentimes been led to think, from the noble lord's words, that peace was upon the point of being made with America, though after the debate ended, they presently understood that nothing but war was meant? The learned gentleman (Mr. Dundas) had declared it high time every gentleman spoke out, and the hon. gentleman wished he himself had done it, and plainly told the House what the ministers really intended. If any thing of his opinion could be collected, it was that the petititions tended to subvert the constitution, which was as much as to say, that the constitution was corruption, for the petitions only prayed for removing abuses. But no sooner were petitions presented for abolishing pensions and sinecure places, than strait a hue and cry was raised, and the constitution was said to be in danger, as if pensions and sinecure places were actually the constitution. This, the hon. gentleman pronounced a damnable doctrine; it was an hypothesis that was not true, and he trusted the constitution of his country would not be found to stand upon such a basis of mud and dirt. The hon. gentleman further justified the petitioner by drawing an analogy between the state and an individual. The petitioner, he said, came to government, and argued thus: You are engaged in a heavy and expensive law-suit, and we beseech you to make every saving you can, to enable you to defray the expences of it, and go through it with effect. Upon the whole, he insisted upon it, that ministers were bound to grant the pension list, otherwise they were insulting the people of England, and had acted ridiculously in bringing up their petitions. Mr. Attorney General Wedderburn* rose to answer Mr. Fox as to a fact that he had mistaken relative to the pensions paid out of the duty of 4 per cent. Having satisfied the House upon that head, he went on to the general question, namely, whether the names of the pensioners should be granted on all the pension lists, or whether the particulars of lord Gage's pension list should be withheld, and the sum total only laid before the House. This subject he discussed with such a variety of argument, irony, eloquence, and knowledge, that it will be difficult to convey an adequate idea of it. He stated the propriety of giving all due attention to the petitions, but the great impropriety of granting without examination, all their requests. He said, he believed the motives of far the greatest part of the petitioners were perfectly pure, but to suppose the motives of all of them so, was absurd; that there were persons who signed the petitions, who, if he should gravely state to them, that he believed they entered implicitly from conviction into the measure, would laugh at his folly, would ridicule his understanding, and would tell him he made an idle attempt to impose upon them. He therefore would fairly declare, that he believed that class of petitioners were incited by motives of a higher cast, and of a more extensive nature. But, said he, the hon. gentleman (Mr. Burke) who laid before this House an extensive plan of political reform, in a great and masterly speech, has ably and elegantly expressed my sentiments on the subject. That what the petitioners expressed rudely, what they asked ignorantly, we were to mould into form, to explain accurately, and grant wisely. He said the petitioners prayed for many things that ought to be granted, but that in some things they were mistaken and misinformed. In such case it was the business of parliament to inform them. That nothing *This Speech is taken from the Political Magazine, Vol. 1, p. 204. could prove their misinformation stronger | than what had passed in this debate. The hon. gentleman, (Mr. Burke) in his plan of reformation, had allowed 60,000l. a year as a fit sum for the royal bounty to grant in pensions, unenquirable into by parliament. Whereas, the noble lord nearing one branch of the legislative body, as influence of the crown, here I must pause, and pay some attention to the kind of influence in question. If by this influence is meant that which is naturally vested in the king of this country, as the great executive magistrate of the kingdom, as form the fountain of honour and mercy, the rewarder of indigent and honest merit; to the impairing of that truly just and constitutional influence I cannot subscribe. But when the hon. gentleman who spoke last, talks not only of diminishing but of to influence the epithet of corrupt, and then, with all the warmth of his imagination, and all the force of his abilities, he denounces vengeance against corrupt influence. Who differs upon that subject? But the fair, the constitutional influence of the crown, arising from its situation, and tending to preserve it in its due place in the constitution, in my opinion ought not to be destroyed. I do not care by what nickname you call that opinion, but it appears to me solid and just, and therefore I adopt it; but were I to give it a name, I should call it a Whig opinion, an opinion adopted at the Revolution, and continued from that time, with the approbation of every Whig administration, and every Whig opposition. him, (lord North) had shewn that only 48,000l. per annum was so bestowed, 12,000l. a year less than that gentleman, in his love of œconomy, had thought proper. That consequently the present question traversed the path the hon. gentleman had chalked out for himself, destroy-extinguishing that influence, he prefixes ed the land marks he had set up, and placed thorns where he had strewed flowers. If the annual sum of pensions had been known, he said, it would not in his opinion, have formed a subject of complaint, and it was therefore fit for parliament, in this case, to correct the error of the petitions, and according to the hon. gentleman (Mr. Burke) to explain accurately how the fact stood, and not to grant blindly what they ignorantly, and for want of information, demanded. But there are many parts of the petitions, and many parts of the hon. gentleman's plan, that meet with my hearty approbation. For instance, nothing has been so constant and so invariable a principle of parliament, as that of preserving a landed revenue in the crown. The history of parliament shews it almost in every page. In my opinion it is an unwise principle, it is burthensome to the subject, and unprofitable to the crown, therefore I shall certainly go along with the hon. gentleman in that opinion. And though every particular regulation may not meet my idea, the general principle I perfectly adopt. The method of accounting for the public money, this too I agree in. Old establishlishments, very unfit for the present situation of this country, have been the cause of exorbitant emoluments; those ought to be reduced and the establishments altered. The same circumstances, too, have been the cause of great arrears remaining, useless to the public, in the hands of great public accountants; when a nation is pressed by war, when the people are burthened with taxes, the cry of unaccounted millions is just and natural, and it is the duty of parliament to listen to the people, and grant them relief. Here, then, I agree with the hon. gentleman, here I adopt the just and solid prayer of the petitions, and here I will go all lengths to grant their request. But with respect to reducing the [VOL. XXI.] The same hon. gentleman talks of corruption being an improper foundation for a free government, and in order to maintain the freedom of this country, corruption must be destroyed. I agree with him, that no free government ever has stood, or ever can stand, upon corruption, and it was only the lowest Grub-street writers who propagated that idea, falsely and injuriously to the respectable character of sir Robert Walpole, who could ever conceive that it could form the basis of this government, and this idea wickedly invented by them, has been idly and ignorantly adopted by foreign writers; it has been held forth, too, for the purposes of faction, but was never seriously believed but by the ignorant and misled. But the hon. gentleman has attacked the noble lord in the blue ribbon for disingenuity in using the word 'new,' which his hon. friend (sir G. Savile) made use of in moving the question, as applicable to the motion, and when facts have been stated and precedents brought forward to shew it was not new. The noble lord has endeavoured to save himself by substituting another epithet, and calling the motion unusual. [H] |