soundest, and the
most recent dents should be put into instalments, for the mutual benefit
of the accountant and the public.

In proportion, however, as I am tender of the past, I would be provident
of the future. All money that was formerly imprested to the two great
_pay offices_ I would have imprested in future to the _Bank of England_.
These offices should in future receive no more than cash sufficient for
small payments. Their other payments ought to be made by drafts on the
Bank, expressing the service. A check account from both offices, of
drafts and receipts, should be annually made up in the
Exchequer,--charging the Bank in account with the cash balance, but not
demanding the payment until there is an order from the Treasury, in
consequence of a vote of Parliament.

As I did not, Sir, deny to the paymaster the natural profits of the bank
that was in his hands, so neither would I to the Bank of England. A
share of that profit might be derived to the public in various ways. My
favorite mode is this: that, in compensation for the use of this money,
the bank may take upon themselves, first, _the charge of the Mint_, to
which they are already, by their charter, obliged to bring in a great
deal of bullion annually to be coined. In the next place, I mean that
they should take upon themselves the charge of _remittances to our
troops abroad_. This is a species of dealing from which, by the same
charter, they are not debarred. One and a quarter per cent will be saved
instantly thereby to the public on very large sums of money. This will
be at once a matter of economy and a considerable reduction of
influence, by taking away a private contract of an expensive nature. If
the Bank, which is a great corporation, and of course receives the least
profits from the money in their custody, should of itself refuse or be
persuaded to refuse this offer upon those terms, I can speak with some
confidence that one at least, if not both parts of the condition would
be received, and gratefully received, by several bankers of eminence.
There is no banker who will not be at least as good security as any
paymaster of the forces, or any treasurer of the navy, that have ever
been bankers to the public: as rich at least as my Lord Chatham, or my
Lord Holland, or either of the honorable gentlemen who now hold the
offices, were at the time that they entered into them; or as ever the
whole establishment of the Mint has been at any period.

Th