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their opinion that great temptation and opportunity to the commission of similar offences are afforded, by the very loose, inaccurate, and ir. regular manner in which the accounts were audited. This naturally directed their attention to the constitution, the duties, and the practice of the board of commissioners, who were appointed to audit the public accounts, and to examine them in a speedy,regular, and cifectual manner.

In the second part of the fifth report, the committee proceed to point out the principal defects which appear to them to exist in the mode of examining and auditing accounts in the audit office. They justly remark, that as much inconvenience and injury to the public service and interests, as well as hardship to individuals, had arisen from the examination and audit of the accounts by a variety of separate and unconnected offices, without any superintending and controlling board, it is obviously just and necessary that every practicable improvement should be introduced into these offices, to remedy as much as possible this radical defect; and especially that the principal office-the office of the commissioners for auditing the public accounts-should be put upon the best and most useful footing in every respect.

The principal defects they state, in their opinion, to be the three following:

1st, The adherence to forms tending to no useful purpose, but evidently productive of great inconvenience. While, in the common business of the me: chant, every practice which impeded the progress of business has given way to more expeditious, and at the same time to more clear and satisfactory

methods, in the public offices the old forms are still adhered to; and a dislike to innovation has been allowed to operate, where it could operate only to the disadvantage of the community. Forms, it may be said, are absolutely necessary:

they are so, however, merely because by adhering to them the reality is obtained and secured; but where they retard and perplex, instead of expediting and simplifying business, they should be given up. In the mode of transacting business which our merchants follow, there is no want of order; no disregard to any necessary or useful form; every thing is clear and orderly, and works together to one end. In our public offices, as far as forms are concerned, the same observation may be made; but there is much reason to apprehend the parallel will not hold in other respects.

2dly, The limited nature of the powers vested in the commissioners of audits, in consequence of restrictions, imposed upon them by the legislature and the executive government, tending to confine the exercise of their discretion within rules more rigid than any other great department intrusted with similar duties.

Sdly, In the imperfect constitution of the office, and the nature of the regulations by which it has continued to be governed.

On this last point, the committee notice the very great number of commissioners and officers of a higher description, and the deficiency of inferior clerks. By this constitution, the audit office cannot admit any speedy or great im provement, while it is evident that its progress must be very tardy, and by no means such as can keep up with the constant accession of

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new accounts, much less such as - can materially reduce the number of those which have accumulated. - Another obvious and material defect in its constitution arises from the want of an efficient and superintending authority: and this defect is so completely inherent in the audit office, as at present constituted, that to remove it the office must be entirely new modelled. This the committee strongly recommend to the attention of the house of commons: and as the bene-, fit which the nation ought to derive from the audit office must be very partial and confined, and very inadequate to the expense at which it is maintained, while it remains on its present footing,-while the losses the nation may sustain may be very serious, it is to be hoped that parliament will attend to the suggestions of the committee. But it is a lamentable truth, that committees are appointed for objects of the highest importance; that the members do their duty with all diligence and impartiality; and that they lay the result of their inquiries and deliberations before parliament in the most explicit and full manner ;-but here the matter ends. The report is printed, laid on the table of the house, and given to such members as choose to apply for it; and it is forgotten and never acted upon. How popular and beneficial to the nation would not that minister be, who should adopt all the wise and practicable plans for conducting public business, and saving the public money, which lie hidden and neglected in the various reports of the committees of both houses of parliament !

The sessions of parliament, upon some of the proceedings of which we have remarked at considerable length, will principally be distin

guished and remembered by its decision on the expedition to Walcheren; and by the opinions that were expressed, and the measures that were proposed or adopted, respecting the privileges of the house of commons, in the cases of Mr. Gale Jones and sir Francis Burdett. In the former instance, the opposition entertained the most sanguine expectations that the ministers would be left in a minority, and that their disgrace and retirement from office would inevitably and naturally follow. But Mr. Perceval has given a lesson to future ministers, by which from his example and success they will learn not to be appalled by being left in a minority, nor from that cause to throw up their situations. On more than one point, connected with the inquiry into the expedition to Walcheren, he was in this predicament: the opposition almost fancied themselves in power: but he possessed too much firmness and reliance on his own strength, and the adherence of his political friends, to be dismayed; and when the main- and decisive question came to the vote, the issue proved that he had not reckoned in vain. Mr. Perceval, however, appears to have judged the trial, to which the stability of his power was about to be put, to be so perilous and doubtful, that he applied to lord Melville, who since his impeachment had never been brought publicly forward, for his support, offering to advance him in the peerage, but stating his opinion that the prejudice of the people was still 200 strong against him to make it prudent or proper that he should be placed in any official situation. His lordship declined the proffered rank; and from the tenour of his conduct when he afterwards appeared in the house, he seems

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not to have forgiven the minister for alleging the existence of popular prejudice as a reason for not reinstating him in office.

When the letter of sir Francis Burdett to his constituents was first brought before the notice of the house of commons, many of the whig party, from fear or principle, deemed it proper to rally round the ministers. Afterwards the leading members of that party pursued a singular line of conduct: they contended that ministers had acted inconsistently in not follow ing up to their full and natural consequences the doctrines they had maintained respecting the pri vileges of the house of commons. They blamed them for not committing for breach of privilege every person connected with the action which sir Francis Burdett brought against the speaker. It is extremely difficult to ascertain the motives and object of the whig party in adopting this line of conduct: in common and ordinary cases they might have injured ministers in the public estimation, by pointing out inconsistencies in their opinions or conduct; but in this case, by urging them to consistency they rendered themselves unpopular--they might perhaps convince the nation that ministers were inconsistent only because they were afraid; but by the method they took to do this, they undoubtedly proved, either that, for the sake of a plausible ground of attack on their opponents, they proclaimed doctrines and principles they did not believe, and recommended a line of conduct they themselves would not have followed; or that they actually thought it right to carry the privileges of parliament to a greater extent, and support them with a more determined and a higher hand,

than those who were branded with tory principles. It is possible indeed that, in all they did and recom mended, the whig party may have had no wish to embarrass ministers, and that they really were convinced that the welfare of the nation would be secured by the measures they proposed:-the first of these suppositions few will be disposed to credit, who know to what shifts party will have recourse, in order to gain even a momentary triumph over its opponents; and the other supposition will hardly gain credit, when the general complexion of the doctrines they are known to espouse is considered. In another point of view their behaviour on this occasion merits remark :—if their parliamentary conduct be traced since they retired from power, certainly with much less of popular confidence and reputation than they possessed when they entered into of fice, it will be found, that sometimes they have appeared desirous of presenting themselves to the people as the friends and fellow-labourers of sir Francis Burdett, as if by these means they might regain what they had lost; while at other times they attacked his principles and opposed his measures, as if they hated him because he had advocated the cause they had deserted, obtained the favour they had lost, and thus at once reminded them of their apo stasy and its consequences.

Of the behaviour and conduct of sir Francis Burdett and the small band who usually support his measures, during this session of parliament, it may be proper to say a few words. The most suspicious, or, to speak more candidly, the most blameable trait in their public character is, that they are too fond of laying hold only of those abuses which admit of popular declama

tion, and which have a tendency rather to irritate both the public and those who are accused of having perpetrated or protected them, than to bring about any radical and permanent good. It is no doubt proper that abuse of every kind should be exposed, in order that it may be remedied, and a stop put to it in future: but a calm and cool exposition is much more likely to answer both the particular and general object, than violent and in temperate language: and it ought never to be forgotten by those who are real patriots, who aim at bene fiting their country without the aid or intervention of popular in dignation and tumult, that the worst abuses are those which are not calculated to catch the attention or rouse the clamour of the multitude. Sir Francis Burdett deserves great praise for his exertions in the case of Jeffrey the seaman, and he probably has prevented the repetition of such shocking cruelty; but why was he silent and withholding of his support when sir Samuel Romilly brought in his bill to amend the criminal law? Was it because the one was a subject calculated to catch the multitude; while the latter would have secured him only the calm and untumultuous applause of the thinking few?

During this session of parliament Mr. Windham died, a man whose name, in the history of literature and politics, will be joined with those of Johnson, Burke, Fox, and

The following character, drawn with considerable force and skill, with a little softening or withdrawing of those features which were not so popular, is given by one who knew him only as a member of parliament; who often differed from the opinions he enter.

tained; who had no personal habits with him, and who therefore could not be influenced by those amiable private qualities which gave so much delight to those who enjoyed his society.

"The loss of Mr. Windham to the public is the more to be deplo red, as the formation of such a character requires the concurrence of so many contingencies beyond the common course of nature, that its re-appearance is more to be wished than shortly expected. In addition to an organization of mind which penetrated into the abstruser re gions of human science, and at the same time embraced all its ornamental parts, nature endowed him with a retentive memory, quickness of conception, and a readiness of expression, which enabled him to draw from such a store whatever was applicable to his purpose. She gave to him also a robust and active frame of body, which made him equal to any mental or corporeal exertion, and inclined him to feats of manly hardihood. He came into the world, the eldest son of an ancient family, and heir to a considerable landed property, handed down through many generations. Son of a father enlightened by education, and distinguished in his country, his dawning talents were cultivated with care and skill. Heir to such a patrimony, he was not bred to any profession, but was educated for the attainment of all human accomplishment; and, in consequence, acquired an expansion of mind which would probably have been fettered by professional habits. Had he been a younger son, or had his fortune been inconsiderable, he must have been distinguished in whatever line he adopted; but he would not have been the Mr. Windham, who, by the ingenuity of his arguments,

arguments, and the illustrations of the subject he handled, drawn from an intimate knowledge of all the liberal and mechanic arts, delighted the house of commons. These qualifications form the ornamental part of his character. As an official and as a party-man, from a chivalry of sentiment inseparable from his nature, he occasionally let out a dissonance of opinion from those with whom he acted, but his intentions were always pure. He was not made to belong to any set of men: he moved in his own orbit. Nor was he made for office: more refined than practical, and not having an adequate tact of the various arts of men, (his own nature being artless,) he was perhaps sometimes their dupe. By no word or act of his life did he court popularity. Amidst the storms which agitated the public mind, and the ardor civium prava jubentium,' during his parliamentary life, he shrunk from no unpopularity or personal risk to which the declaration of his opinions exposed him. His unshaken mind was influenced only by what he conceived to be the spirit of the British constitution;

and, amidst the wreck, he would have been found erect and at his post. Having no personal views, no man was in his way; and he waged war against opinions-not against persons; in consequence of which, those whom he opposed gave him credit for his good intentions; and admired, though they were not convinced by, his ingenuity. The nice shades which distinguished his character from the eminent men of his time, may be attributed to the concurrence of fortunate circumstances which nature accumulated on him. If he had had a fortune to make, and a family to provide for, he probably would not haye been the man he was. Born to a fortune which made a further pur suit of it unnecessary, his high mind was not to be gratified by an addition of wealth, or by titles. The civic crown, to be conferred on him by the reflection of his countrymen, seems to have been his object. In this he certainly has suc ceeded; and he must live adorned in their recollection, as long as genius, erudition, and disinterested patriotism retain their value in the minds of the British nation."

CHAPTER XIII.

Commercial and financial History of Britain during 1810-Introductory Observations-Commerce at the Close of the American War-its Increase till the Beginning of the French War-checked at that time—revives and extends -Circumstances in the War which were advantageous and prejudicial to it-Causes which produced a speculative Turn among our MerchantsLicenses-The Opening to Trade in South America-Discounts at the Bank-Effects of these Speculations-Bonaparte's Enmity to our Commerce

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