the Peninsula ought to be made the subject of inquiry. He did not mean to cast the slightest suspicion on the Government, but it was impossible for any member to understand the accounts before the House; all they could make out would be, that so many millions were drawn by different individuals. If a committee were ap pointed, they would see that the manner in which our Commissariat system had been carried on in Spain was the most absurd commissariat system on which any country had ever carried on war. The immense expenditure in the Peninsula called loudly for inquiry. The persons who furnished the means of transport to our army were chiefly of the lowest classes of the people in Spain; and they ought to have dealt with such a description of persons in a way which would have been intelligible to them. But instead of this, the mules and services were paid to them by bits of paper, or draughts of the deputy commissary on the commissary-general in Lisbon. When an ignorant man in the mountains got one of these pieces of paper, from being used to the currency of his own government, he attached but little value to it, and it was generally purchased by persons in the suite of the Commissariat at an enormous discount. He could bring persons before the committee who had made 50 and 60 per cent. by buying up this paper, and who had not even had it at first hand; and at every intermediate stage a great profit must have been made on the same paper. If the London dealer got 50 per cent, profit, the sum actually received by the Spanish muleteers could not have been one-fourth part of the sum paid by Government. This was not a system of a day, but a system of several years. He should be answered, that there was a difficulty in getting specie; but in the first place he would observe, that there was no plan of getting specie, which could be compared with the discount on the bills to these poor people, who only got onefourth of them. Paper in Europe seldom went beyond 25 or 30 per cent. discount; but here was a discount of 75 per cent. This mode of paying, in what might be comparatively termed a savage country, created the very difficulty which was felt; for it forced Government to spend twenty millions where only five millions was wanted; it created the very scarcity; and Government were obliged to pay for it at Jast. All this originated in a completely false system of commissariat. But the deception to the poor people did not stop there. Bills were given -on the commissary at Lisbon, and the people had no means of knowing good from bad bills. At this day bills at Lisbon could be bought at 20 per cent. discount. What possible benefit could be derived from thus hating a mass of floating paper which must at last be paid off at par? The consequence of all this had been the grossest peculation. A person by getting the ear of the Commissariat, knew what bills were likely to be first paid. One gentleman in a house at Lisbon had made an enormous fortune, and many persons had enriched themselves by the same means. Government must pay for all the discredit attached to this paper. He hoped, that now that we were on the point of entering on a new war, this system would be inquired into; and he trusted that the suggestion of his right hon. friend for the appointment of a committee up stairs would be agreed to, The Chancellor of the Exchequer did not think that a committee up stairs could be productive of such advantage as a committee on the spot, armed with power to examine on oath. He did not deny the facts stated by the hon. gentleman, but they had not come to his knowledge. Those gentlemen of the committee in the Penin sula having for years been exclusively employed in this work, must necessarily prosecute the investigation with greater advantage than gentlemen who had other avocations could be supposed to do; upon the whole, therefore, he thought that it would be better that the substance of this investigation, when completed, should be laid before Parliament. He wished that any gentleman possessed of information with respect to any peculation would furnish it to those commissioners, who would avail themselves of it. Mr. Baring thought the right hon. gentleman had quite mistaken him in the kind of inquiry he wished to be instituted. He had nothing to state against those who were attached to the Commissariat, but against the system pursued by the commissaries under the sanction of Government. Any person might remit money to Lisbon to morrow, and buy up the government paper; and this might be done with service to the country, as the discredit of that paper should not be suffered to exist. The commissaries had issued a paper discredited to the amount of 75 per cent.; and he had heard, that the lower classes of commissaries were followed by persons who bought up their paper as it was issued. The country ought to understand the system under which the Commissariat had been carried on and sanctioned by Government during so many years. A commission on the spot could only see that there was a regular discharge by voucher of the person who was to receive the money; it could not know in what manner the person who received the paper disposed of it. That was a case for parliamentary inquiry; and a committee should be appointed, in order that the House might devise the means of stopping such a waste of money. On the subject of a regular account, the right hon. gentleman could not say that a single account in the Peninsula had been audited; certainly not, up to last year. What he (Mr. B.) complained of was, not any individual peculation, but that system on the part of the Government which had proved so wasteful to the country. The Chancellor of the Exchequer thanked the hon. gentleman for explaining that it was not by any connivance between the Commissaries that any sum of money had been lost to the public. He was aware of the fact, that much loss had been sustained by the depreciation of the paper, and he did not wish to disguise it. The bills, however, must be paid at the value for which they were given, otherwise it would be a complete robbery. Respecting the concluding remark of the hon. gentleman, he apprehended that the whole of the outstanding debts had been verified, and they only remained to be paid. From the interruption of our commercial intercourse with the Continent, at the time of the Peninsular war, we had not the means of paying for what was required by the Commissariat in money. But he trusted that there was no prospect of our ever being again excluded from all foreign trade, but that in the unfortunate case of any new war, we should be able to exert all our resources to the best possible advantage. the items, particularly upon that which regarded lord Aberdeen, against whose name was placed the large sum of 25,000l. "for a particular service." For the service of Spain still larger amounts were charged, a part of which had no doubt been appropriated to that expedition which she had sent out to her devoted colonies, but which the hon. member hoped would never reach its destination. The troops at home, on the contrary, remained unpaid, with the exception of the corps of General Whittingham, which had placed the usurper Ferdinand upon the throne at Madrid. He recommended that ministers should narrowly watch the communications between the inhabitants of New Spain and Buonaparte. The hon. member required explanation from ministers regarding the sum of 10,6501. paid to lord William Bentinck, who had been employed against the King of Naples, whom the noble lord termed Marshal Murat. The expenses of lord Cathcart had been enormous, both in his military and diplomatic capacity. From the Army Extraordinaries in the course of 1814, he received 11,405l.; and from the Civil List, as Ambassador, 19,8441. In the last three quarters, the charge on his lordship's account was 12,401l.; so that in the space of a year and three quarters he had received nearly 44,000l. of the public money. Lord Stewart had received from the Army Extraordinaries in the year 1814, 15,347., and from the Civil List, 10,7261., and within the last three quarters a sum that made the whole charge no less than 37,700l. The hon. member professed the highest respect for his lordship, and regretted that his name appeared to these unsatisfactory details. He thought these were charges which, from their extraordinary magnitude, demanded the fullest explanation; and he hoped the noble lord (Castlereagh) would be enabled to make them appear satisfactory to the House The next sum which attracted his attention, was one of 7,550l. to the Elector of Hesse; and this he could not but view with some astonishment, for it was stated to be for expenses incurred by loss of field equipage, &c. in 1793, 94, and 95. was impossible for the House not to recol lect, that since that period a peace had It Mr. Bennet lamented that it appeared from the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the nation was so near the end of its resources. It behoved the House, therefore, to examine the more minutely into the accounts that were laid before it. The charges for the Army Extraordinaries were enormous, and the pub-intervened, and that all such accounts lic money seemed to have been squandered without any consideration of the pockets of those from whom it was drained. He wished for explanation upon many of ought long since to have been settled; their introduction now, therefore, was the more extraordinary. He remembered a story of a will made by George the First, which was destroyed by George the Second, and of which copies were in the possession of the two Electors of Hesse. Horace Walpole stated, that he had seen a letter in which these Electors had agreed to deliver up these copies, upon the payment of certain subsidies. Now he knew not whether these copies had been eventually given up, or whether there were any such grounds for the payment to which he had just now alluded, but he certainly thought the subject required a distinct explanation. In conclusion, the hon. gentleman entreated the House to look with the utmost jealousy into the payments connected with a war which the noble lord seemed to contemplate with so much pleasure. as Lord Castlereagh said, he was happy that the hon. gentleman had given him an opportunity of explaining those items in the accounts before the House, which he seemed to regard as so objectionable. The first to which the hon. gentleman alluded, was the sum standing in the name of lord Aberdeen. He begged to state, that, although this sum stood as if issued for the use of lord Aberdeen alone, yet that noble Jord only received it as a public accountant, and was answerable for its disbursement in that light. In fact, the law of the land had provided the best check upon the expenditure of such sums; inasmuch an officer was established who was sworn, and who had full power to trace the application of every sum in detail. This 25,000l. had been issued for political purposes, while lord Aberdeen was resident at the Court of Austria, and was at first given to Mr. Johnstone, with the view of being applied in aid of a spirit which had manifested itself in the Low Countries, and in Holland, towards throwing off the French yoke. Not more than 3 or 4,000l. however had been devoted in this way, and the remainder was paid into the hands of the Commissaries towards defraying the expenses of lord Lynedock's army. With respect to the 10,000l. issued to lord William Bentinck, it was only necessary to state that it was for the purpose of being applied to the Italian levy. The next material point which occurred was the sum paid to the Elector of Hesse; and here he begged to assure the hon. gentleman, that he had raised a ghost without the slightest foundation. The old story of the Elector of Hesse, had nothing to do with the sum in question, which was neither more nor less than the amount of (VOL. XXX.) some old arrears, which had been regularly established before the Auditors of Army Accounts, and was not at all a matter of discretion with his Majesty's ministers. Respecting the payment of the duke of Wellington, the reason why the hon. member did not find it in the accounts before him was, that it had nothing to do with them. In Hereafter it would be found in the Civil List Accounts. The essential part of the accounts to which he should allude, was that which related to the expenditures of military officers who were envoys abroad. The hon. member should take into his consideration that these officers had a double sum, in their civil and military capacities. Out of the sums which these public officers did receive, they were taxed to the amount of onefourth, by the difference in the course of exchange, being from 25 to 30 per cent., and when the armies were at a greater distance from large towns, they were obliged to submit to a loss of 40 per cent.; and therefore to represent these gentlemen as receiving the full value or amount of their salaries was wrong. It would be more fair to say, that they had not onehalf of the amount against their respective names. The sums standing against them not only covered their own expenses, but the whole expenses of the missions. lord Stewart's account of 12,6351. only 2,8951. ought to be considered as his personal expenses. And here he must declare, in justice to the nobleman in question, that the most painful part of his duty was to see the servants of the country abroad exposed to the utmost difficulties to keep within their incomes. In fact, it was absolutely ruinous to a man's private fortune, to be employed in a diplomatic capacity. The military officers who formed the subject of the hon. gentleman's remarks, were in situations peculiarly expensive. They had to keep a table at head-quarters of the most expensive description. As far as he had been able to look into the accounts of lord Stewart, he had no occasion to complain of the result of his accounts, for he had reason to know the great expense he was put to for horses and other incidents. As to lord Cathcart's accounts, he had not been in possession of them long enough to investigate them; but they had not the same causes to regulate them, as operated upon the others. On the whole, he must declare, that if this country had not instruments enough abroad to understand what (21) miral Fremantle, for entertaining persons of distinction in the Adriatic, and the sum of 600l. was mentioned as the charge for conveying marshal Blucher and other officers merely from Dover to Calais. On the other hand, so small a sum, he understood, was offered to captain Usher for the expenses of conveying Buonaparté to Elba, that that officer had thought proper to refuse it. The hon. gentleman also wished for an explanation of the sum of 3,000l. stated to be paid to the captors of Demerara and Essequibo, for slaves delivered over to the use of Government. Also, a sum paid to colonel Bloomfield, for extraordinary services. This last sum, as well as the sum voted to lord Burghersh, for extraordinary services, which were of a political nature, came, he thought, improperly under the head of Army Extraordinaries. As to the expenses of our ambas was going on, her interests must inevitably suffer. He could speak a little to the expenses necessarily incurred by the ambassadors, from his own experience at Vienna. In that capital, from so many Sovereigns and their Courts being assembled, a complete revolution had taken place in the prices of things, and the expense of living was in consequence inconceivably great. He mentioned this, not from a wish to prevent the items in question from being inquired into, but to prove that it was a delusion to suppose the sums which appeared in the estimates against the names of the persons so employed in the service of the country were really received by them for their own emolument. A plenipotentiary or ambassador at a foreign Court, nominally receiving a salary of 5,2001. per annum, reduced by taxation 5s. in the pound, and further diminished by the loss on the exchange, frequently found his in-sadors at Vienna, he thought these persons come brought down to a sum on which, where they were, a gentleman could hardly live in the most complete obscurity. Lord Proby agreed with the hon. gentleman on the floor, as to the great degree of confusion which prevailed in the Commissariat department. As illustrative of this remark, he instanced the fact of a dollar per day being charged by the commissaries for mules, when an ordinary traveller would not pay more than half a dollar for the same animal, out of which the muleteer would provide for himself Lord Castlereagh said, the ambassadors and his mule, while the commissaries being assembled at Vienna, the country provided both for the one and the other, had a claim to any services they could at an enormous expense. He considered perform. Lord Cathcart was the ambasthe whole system as abominable and ex-sador to Russia, lord Aberdeen to Austria, travagantly profuse. No man could have lord Wellington to the Congress; and lord an idea of the profusion with which the Clancarty having performed the high public money was lavished in that depart- mission on which he was sent out with ment, who had not served in the armies to great honour to himself and advantage to witness it. Indeed he had heard one com- the public service, was the only ambassamissary declare, in a public manner, that dor who was not there in the regular dishe thought economy was the ruin of the charge of his duty. He could assure the public service in his department. He hon. gentleman, that there had not been begged not to be understood as reflecting one too many there, while he (lord Castleon the conduct of any particular indivi- reagh) was at Vienna. Their presence had dual by these remarks; his observations afforded him much assistance while the went to the system, and not to the men, negociations of the Congress were going and that system he thought called most on, and had been found of much importloudly for correction. ance in the discussions which had taken place on the numerous topics which were there to be taken into consideration. should be enabled to live in a manner suitable to their dignity, without injury to their private fortunes; but it remained to be explained why we had at the Congress four or five ambassadors instead of one. It might be said that they were ambassadors to the several Courts whose sovereigns were at the Congress; but this supposition was contradicted by the fact that they had all signed the Declaration of the Allies of the 13th March, which, but as ministers at the Congress, they could not have signed. Mr. Gordon remarked on the extraordinary difference in amount of the charges on the transport of persons of distinction, Mr. Croker, in answer to the questions on the face of the estimates, and wished to respecting the sums paid to naval officers know whether there was any established in the instances which had been referred scheme, according to which those charges to, said these matters were regulated by a were paid; 2,000l. had been paid to ad-scale which it had been thought wise to adopt in 1812, which had been printed, and which was in the hands of every naval officer. In this scale, in one column, the regulations were set forth, showing the remuneration to be made to the officer according to the length of the voyage, and in the other the sum to be paid on account of the rank of the party to be conveyed. This scale, if any thing, he was inclined to think, was fixed at too low a rate, but it was understood the officers were to have no profit; all that was to be secured to them was, that they should not be ruined. From looking at this, every commander so employed could tell as well what he was to receive, as the Board of Admiralty could, by whom it was to be paid. The sum paid to rear-admiral Fremantle had not been paid till after the minutest investigation. The 2,000l. he had received was less than he ought to have been paid; and had he not had that sum advanced to him, he would have lost by the service 2 or 3,000l. of his own private property. In the case of captain Usher, who for convey. ing Buonaparte to Elba, was said to have been offered so small a sum that he had not thought proper to accept of it, the proceedings of the Admiralty had been regulated by the scale of which he had spoken. That scale did not provide for a case like that which had occurred (he did not expect for this it would be censured for improvidence), but by that it was settled that for the conveyance of a crowned head, where the voyage was performed within a week, 100l. should be paid to the captain. The title of Buonaparté having been recognised in the Treaty of Fontainbleau, captain Usher had been directed to receive him as a crowned head. Captain Usher had, when he came home, been directed to make what charge he thought proper, but had declined making any, and under such circumstances the Admiralty could do no more than give directions for him to be remunerated according to the scale of regulations which had been adopted. With respect to a charge which had been preferred against the Admiralty for not suffering sailors who had returned from a long voyage to have sufficient time on shore to spend their money, he admitted, that in some instances this might have occurred; but the established rule was, when a ship returned from three years service, to pay the men a third of the money due to them, and allow them from a fortnight to a month's leave of absence to see their friends. This practice, which it was feared would promote desertion, he was happy to say had produced a contrary effect. It had greatly tended to prevent that enormous desertion which was formerly common. The men almost always returned when their leave of absence expired, to claim the remainder of their money, and after they came back, they were generally allowed some days to be on shore before they sailed again. Mr. Whitbread said, that in respect to what the hon. secretary had stated regarding admiral Fremantle, he had no doubt but that gallant officer was deserving the remuneration he had received; but he thought the case of captain Usher, one of the most distinguished names in the English navy, was a very hard one. He was stationed in the Mediterranean, and his ship lying at anchor near the place where Napoleon Buonaparté was to embark for the island of Elba. He was ordered to take him on board with his whole suite, which he accordingly did, and furnished him with all his necessary stores and provisions to a considerable amount, He was obliged to keep seven tables on board, to give up the wardroom, and to expose both himself and his officers to many inconveniences for six or seven days. On arriving at Elba, Buonaparté sent an officer to captain Usher, to pay the whole of the expenses of the passage. Captain Usher thought his Government would be offended if he accepted such payment, and, as he (Mr. Whitbread) thought he ought to have done, civilly declined receiving the proffered remuneration. It was proper to stale that when Napoleon landed in Elba he was destitute of wines and stores; captain Usher supplied him with what he had on board his ship; and when he returned and applied to the Admiralty for the expenses, he received for answer, that it was supposed Napoleon had paid for himself and his whole suite. Indignant at this, as it seemed to accuse him of endeavouring to obtain money under false pretences, capt. Usher inquired whence this information was obtained, which was finally traced to a memorandum written by the hon. gentleman opposite (Mr. Croker), and proved to be a mere supposition of his, founded on some hearsay or newspaper report. The captain was then told to make out an account of his expenses. He replied, that he could not, and left the case to the consideration of the Admiralty, who had directed 100l. to be paid to him. The expense of conveying Buonaparte to Elba |