e
sinecures; they are always executed by deputy; the duty of the principal
is as nothing. They differ, however, from the pensions on the list in
some particulars. They are held for life. I think, with the public, that
the profits of those places are grown enormous; the magnitude of those
profits, and the nature of them, both call for reformation. The nature
of their profits, which grow out of the public distress, is itself
invidious and grievous. But I fear that reform cannot be immediate. I
find myself under a restriction. These places, and others of the same
kind, which are held for life, have been considered as property. They
have been given as a provision for children; they have been the subject
of family settlements; they have been the security of creditors. What
the law respects shall be sacred to me. If the barriers of law should be
broken down, upon ideas of convenience, even of public convenience, we
shall have no longer anything certain among us. If the discretion of
power is once let loose upon property, we can be at no loss to determine
whose power and what discretion it is that will prevail at last. It
would be wise to attend upon the order of things, and not to attempt to
outrun the slow, but smooth and even course of Nature. There are
occasions, I admit, of public necessity, so vast, so clear, so evident,
that they supersede all laws. Law, being only made for the benefit of
the community, cannot in any one of its parts resist a demand which may
comprehend the total of the public interest. To be sure, no law can set
itself up against the cause and reason of all law; but such a case very
rarely happens, and this most certainly is not such a case. The mere
time of the reform is by no means worth the sacrifice of a principle of
law. Individuals pass like shadows; but the commonwealth is fixed and
stable. The difference, therefore, of to-day and to-morrow, which to
private people is immense, to the state is nothing. At any rate, it is
better, if possible, to reconcile our economy with our laws than to set
them at variance,--a quarrel which in the end must be destructive to
both.

My idea, therefore, is, to reduce those offices to fixed salaries, as
the present lives and reversions shall successively fall. I mean, that
the office of the great auditor (the auditor of the receipt) shall be
reduced to 3000_l._ a year; and the auditors of the imprest, and the
rest of the principal officers, to fixed appointments of