count as far as it goes. A final acquittance (or a
_quietus_, as they term it) is scarcely ever to be obtained. Terrors and
ghosts of unlaid accountants haunt the houses of their children from
generation to generation. Families, in the course of succession, fall
into minorities; the inheritance comes into the hands of females; and
very perplexed affairs are often delivered over into the hands of
negligent guardians and faithless stewards. So that the demand remains,
when the advantage of the money is gone,--if ever any advantage at all
has been made of it. This is a cause of infinite distress to families,
and becomes a source of influence to an extent that can scarcely be
imagined, but by those who have taken some pains to trace it. The
mildness of government, in the employment of useless and dangerous
powers, furnishes no reason for their continuance.

As things stand, can you in justice (except perhaps in that over-perfect
kind of justice which has obtained by its merits the title of the
opposite vice[39]) insist that any man should, by the course of his
office, keep a _bank_ from whence he is to derive no advantage? that a
man should be subject to demands below and be in a manner refused an
acquittance above, that he should transmit an original sin and
inheritance of vexation to his posterity, without a power of
compensating himself in some way or other for so perilous a situation?
We know, that, if the paymaster should deny himself the advantages of
his bank, the public, as things stand, is not the richer for it by a
single shilling. This I thought it necessary to say as to the offensive
magnitude of the profits of this office, that we may proceed in
reformation on the principles of reason, and not on the feelings of
envy.

The treasurer of the navy is, _mutatis mutandis_, in the same
circumstances. Indeed, all accountants are. Instead of the present mode,
which is troublesome to the officer and unprofitable to the public, I
propose to substitute something more effectual than rigor, which is the
worst exactor in the world. I mean to remove the very temptations to
delay; to facilitate the account; and to transfer this bank, now of
private emolument, to the public. The crown will suffer no wrong at
least from the pay offices; and its terrors will no longer reign over
the families of those who hold or have held them. I propose that these
offices should be no longer _banks_ or _treasuries_, but mere _offices
of admini