counts. They were however much pleased, at the point now unexpectedly gained; and the gentleman who had introduced the bufinefs gave notice, that he would prepare and bring in propofitions for the purpose.

On the following day, Sir George Saville moved, That an account of all places held by patent from the crown, with the amount of the falaries annexed to them, and a lift of the perfons at prefent holding them, thould be laid before the houfe. By this account, he faid, the house, and of courfe his conftituents, would be enabled to judge, of the fervices done to the fate in return for the falaries paid by it; and then it would be in the judgment of the houfe to decide, what offices were efficient and neceílary, and the number that were merely tinccures, and their emoJuments a burthen to the people, without any return of service.

The motion being agreed to, he moved, That an account of all fubfifting pentions, granted by the crown, during pleature or otherwife, fpecifying the amount of foch pentions respectively, and the times when, and the perfons to whom, fuch penfions were granted, thould be laid before the house. He obferved, that his honourable friend, Mr. Burke, with that liberality peculiar to his nature, had foregone, in his plan, an enquiry into fubjects of that fort; but however landable the motives of tenderness upon which he acted certainly were, the people being rouzed by their feelings and neceflities to a clofe examination of the ftate of their own affairs, and into the causes of those evils

which they experienced, demanded a more ftrict and rigid mode of conduct. That the enquiry propofed by his motion formed a principal object, not only with his conftituents, but with the county meetings in general; and was neceflarily become a part of the plan for affording fatisfaction to the people which he thought himfelf bound to adopt. Whether it answered their expectation, in the whole, in part, or not at all, was not the queftion; the enquiry, and confequent knowledge of the fact, would afford the fatisfaction which he defired.

2. ft.

A ftrong and determined oppofition to this motion was immediately apparent; but the debate was broken off by the fudden illnefs of the fpeaker, and the bufinets lay over to the following week. On its revival, the minifter moved an amendment, reftricting the account to thofe penfions only which were paid at the exchequer; but this he afterwards enlarged, to the giving the general amount of all penfions, but without any specification of names, or particularity of fums, excepting in the first inftance.

The propofed amendments brought out very long, and exceedingly warm debates; in the courfe of which the minifter had the mortification of difcovering much matter of apprehenfion and alarm; and of meeting fach an oppofition as he had never before encountered. He grounded his oppofition to the motion, in the firit inftance, on a principle of delicacy. To expofe the neceflities of antient and noble families, whose fortunes were too narrow for the fupport

fupport of their rank, to the prying eye of malignant curiofity, he faid, would be not only wanton, but cruel. To expofe the man who had a penfion, to the envy and detraction of him who had none, and by whom he was therefore hated; to hold him up as an object for the gratification of private malice and the malevolence of party, merely as a price for the favour conferred on him by the crown, would furely be a proceeding, in its nature, equally odious and contemptible. Yet there were the certain effects which muft proceed from an indifcriminate difclofure of the penfion lift; along with, he faid, the furnishing out matter for a feast to newspaper and party writers, to be by them dreft up in their own manner for the entertainment of the public, at the expence of the nobleft, perhaps the worthieft and moft deferving members of the state. Such were the ill effects; and the noble lord declared himself incapable of difcovering any good which the motion, if carried, would inevitably produce.

The minifter farther faid, that he had very fufficient reafons for believing, that the true ftate of the penfion lift was very little known and understood. That all was not, properly speaking, penfion, that appeared on that lift. Several large falaries were, in exchequer language, claffed under that denomination; and accordingly fwelled the payments in that lift, to which they did not properly belong. And if thefe were deducted, along with the four fhillings in the pound tax on places and penfions, the remaining penfion lift would be found not to ex

ceed 50,000l. a year; which would be 10,000l. a a year lefs than Mr. Burke, in his plan of reform, thought reasonable to be allotted to that article of public expence. He therefore thought, that the county meetings must be very ill informed, when they made the fuppofed excefs in that department a leading article in their list of grievances. And he was certain, that if the people of England only knew that all that could be gotten by expofing the names of feveral honourable persons on the penfion lift, would amount to no more, under the moft rigid economy, than the faving of a few thousand pounds a year, their hearts would revolt at the idea of such a motion.

He concluded by drawing a diftinction, between the money granted exprefsly to government for the other public fervices of the ftate, and that allotted to the support of the civil lift establishment. The firft was to be fpecifically applied; and the proper officers were anfwerable for the difpofal, as well as accountable for the amount. But the money granted to the king for his civil lift, was granted freely and without controul; it was then his perfonal property; was liable to no restriction whatever; and was as fully under his direction, and as entirely at his difpofal, as the rents of a private eftate could be to the owner.

The minifier's principle of de licacy was laughed at on the other fide. Penfions granted for honourable fervice, they faid, were marks of honour, and not of difgrace. Nor did thofe granted for fupporting the rank of antient and noble families, whofe poverty proceeded

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from the fault of their anceflors, and not their own, convey the fmalleft degree of reproach. Po verty was no difgrace, where it was not brought on by perfonal vice or folly. As little did the people with to fupprefs fuch liberality, or to retrench the means of it, when properly and honourably ap plied, in the crown. Ireland afforded a living proof within their knowledge, that fuch notions of fuppofed delicacy were entirely ideal and unfounded. The holders of penfions in that country were to the full as proud and as delicate, as thofe under the fame circumftances in this. Yet the penfion lift in that kingdom was every fecond year laid before parliament, and published in all their news-papers, without its producing any degree of that difgrace and uneafinels to individuals, and without opening any of thofe fources of detraction and malevolence, of which the minifter now pretends to be fo apprehenfive. Not a fingle lord or lady, however antient their families, or however proud of their rank, whether English or Irish, was ever yet known to throw up or to refufe a penfion, upon the account of that publication.

The noble lord, they said, had endeavoured, with his ufual. art, but with uncommon induftry, to render, by the minifterial juggle of his calculations, and by fhewing it through the wrong end of the perfpective, the object of the motion fo apparently diminutive, as to be unworthy the attention of the people, and the confideration of parliament. But even taking it, they faid, upon his own word, and fuppofing for a moment his representation to be as fair, as it was

directly calculated to impose and mislead, although it would be acknowledged, that forty or fifty thousand pounds a year was not fimply, and immediately in itself, an object of great national attention, yet, as every thing great muft be done by detail to become fo, it was ridiculous to contend, that fuch, and leffer fums, were not fit objects to be attended to, and included, in any fcheme which took in a reform of the national expenditure.

But money, they faid, was only a fecondary confideration, whether with the petitioners, or with themselves. The firft and great object of both, was the deftruction of that undue and corrupt influ ence, which was the fatal fource of all our evils, calamities, dangers, and of the greater part of that ruinous expence, under which the nation was finking. If by cutting off forty or fifty thousand pounds a year from the means of that corruption, forty or fifty voters could be cut off from that impenetrable parliamentary phalanx, on whom no reafon, argument, or affection for their country, was ever capable of making an impreffion, nor of deterring from an adherence to the minifter of the day, whoever he may be, and in whatever predicament he might ftand, it would be gaining an object of no fmall importance; and prove, in its effect, the faving of infinitely greater fums. Had fuch favings taken place in time, Ame¬ rica would ftill have been a part of our ftrength and glory.

They treated farcaftically the liberality and candour, with which, they faid, the noble minifter had fo generously offered to gratify parliament

to fix fuch specific charges. The great object of the motion was to obtain that very evidence which is now demanded. This the minifter abfolutely refuses to grant; and at the very inftant that they fee he withholds the means, his advocates boldly challenge us to bring forward our proofs.

The comparifon drawn by the minifter between the civil lift revenues, and the rents of a private eftate, was not at all allowed to hold. Various parts of that vaft establishment, the oppofition faid, were applied to great national purpofes; to thofe of public dignity and utility, as well as to the fupport and fplendour of the crown. Parliament had a right, and was in the practice, of enquiring and feeing into the appropriation of that money. If it were otherwise, and that great revenue to be confidered merely as perfonal property, the whole of it might be drawn off from its original purpofes, and applied to those of the moft dangerous nature. The pofition was therefore to be totally exploded, as equally fallacious and dangerous.

parliament with an account of thofe penfions, which were regularly paid at the public offices of the exchequer; a degree of information which every man in the kingdom, whether native or foreigner, might, by a proper application, obtain to as full an extent, as it was poffeffed by the noble lord himfelf. But it happened unluckily that this liberality was thrown away, as the offer did not at all reach to the objects intended by the people, or propofed by the mover of the prefent motion. Their enquiries were directed to pénfions of another nature than thofe that were paid at public offices. They were directed to temporary penfions; to pentions during pleafure; to penfions for the purpofe of parliamentary corruption. So unqualified were the charges upon this ground, that a gentleman declared as a fact, founded upon authority, he faid, which he could not doubt, that the minifter, at the clofe of every feffion, had a fettlement of fuch penfions to make; that a private lift of names, with the feveral fums apportioned to their respective fervices or merits, was then produced; and that as foon as the money was paid, the paper was immediately burnt, and no memorial of the tranfaction preferved. This occafioned a call on the oppofition from one of the law officers, to come forward with their proofs, to name and point out the delinquents; but not to throw about charges of fuch a nature at random, if they were not able to fupport and establish them. To this it was replied, that the learned gentleman well knew, that they could not poffibly poffefs the fpecies of evidence, which the rules of that houfe rendered neceffary, in order

It was not a little remarkable, that almoft the whole weight of this very long debate lay upon the minifter; who, excepting the af fiftance of fome of the crown lawyers, was left alone to endure the heat and brunt of the day. He was of courfe fo exceedingly hard pushed, that he was frequently forced to fhift or abandon his ground; whilft every change of pofition afforded fome new opening for the feverities of his antagonifts. In thefe circumftances, which were aggravated by the nature of the conteft, and the apparent doubtfulness of the iffue, it

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is not to be wondered at, if he could not perfectly preferve his equanimity of temper; and if he could not even entirely refrain from fhewing fome appearances of vexation and peevithness.

The queftion being at length put, at half an hour after one o'clock in the morning, the minif ter's amendments were carried, and but just carried, upon a divifion, by a majority of two only; the numbers being 188 to 186.

Sir George Saville then declared, that as the motion, in its prefent fiate, was totally changed from that which he had propofed, and was rendered utterly incapable of obtaining that information for the people, which it was both his wifh and his duty to lay before them, he thould therefore give the matter entirely up, and fhould no longer give himself or his friends any trouble, by fruitlessly oppofing minifters in any point which they were determined to carry.

This was, however, an extraordinary divifion. But the lofs of the queftion was the more vexatious to the oppofition, as they conceived they had ftrength in town fully fufficient to have carried it; and even attributed the disappointment to the accidental abfence of fome particular friends. On former occafions this would have been matter of triumph; but they were grown more difficult fince their late increase of ftrength; and complained bitterly, that volunteer troops can never be brought to pay that itrict attention to duty, which is practifed by trained and difciplined bands, who have been long habituated to the punctual obfervance of a regular command.

The popular priuts, however,

triumphed, not only in the clofenefs of the divifion, but in an affertion which they repeatedly echoed, that not a fingle English gentleman, however he might afterwards vote, had opened his lips on the fide of the minifter, in the courfe of fo long a debate. It was made no less a matter of exultation, that of the knights of the thire, or reprefentatives of English and Welsh counties, who were then prefent, only eleven supported the minifter by their votes; while no less than fifty-feven voted for Sir George Saville's original motion. Such, and fo powerful, was the effect of that spirit which was now prevalent.

It was on the fame day of Sir George Saville's motion, that the Marquis of Rockingham brought the Jamaica business forward in the Houfe of Lords; where he prefented a petition fimilar to that, and fubfcribed by the fame names, which we have already seen a fubject of animadverfion in the House of Commons. He went over the whole ground of complaint, and, in a speech of a confiderable length, fupported and enforced the feveral matters of charge, in a manner which fhewed a very full knowledge of his fubject; in doing which, he endeavoured particularly to eftablish the following points:-The great importance and inestimable value of the island

The fatal confequences, with refpe&t to all our remaining American and Weft Indian poffeffions, which must be the immediate and inevitable refult, of its becoming the property of the enemy, but more efpecially of France-The criminal conduct of minifters in neglecting all proper and rational provision,