_l._ applicable to the service of the civil list of his present
Majesty. So that, if this reign commenced with a greater charge than
usual, there was enough and more than enough, abundantly to supply all
the extraordinary expense. That the civil list should have been exceeded
in the two former reigns, especially in the reign of George the First,
was not at all surprising. His revenue was but 700,000_l._ annually; if
it ever produced so much clear. The prodigious and dangerous
disaffection to the very being of the establishment, and the cause of a
pretender then powerfully abetted from abroad, produced many demands of
an extraordinary nature both abroad and at home. Much management and
great expenses were necessary. But the throne of no prince has stood
upon more unshaken foundations than that of his present Majesty.

To have exceeded the sum given for the civil list, and to have incurred
a debt without special authority of Parliament, was _prima facie_, a
criminal act: as such, ministers ought naturally rather to have
withdrawn it from the inspection, than to have exposed it to the
scrutiny of Parliament. Certainly they ought, of themselves, officially
to have come armed with every sort of argument, which, by explaining,
could excuse, a matter in itself of presumptive guilt. But the terrors
of the House of Commons are no longer for ministers.

On the other hand, the peculiar character of the House of Commons, as
trustee of the public purse, would have led them to call with a
punctilious solicitude for every public account, and to have examined
into them with the most rigorous accuracy.

The capital use of an account is, that the reality of the charge, the
reason of incurring it, and the justice and necessity of discharging it,
should all appear antecedent to the payment. No man ever pays first, and
calls for his account afterwards; because he would thereby let out of
his hands the principal, and indeed only effectual, means of compelling
a full and fair one. But, in national business, there is an additional
reason for a previous production of every account. It is a check,
perhaps the only one, upon a corrupt and prodigal use of public money.
An account after payment is to no rational purpose an account. However,
the House of Commons thought all these to be antiquated principles:
they were of opinion, that the most Parliamentary way of proceeding was,
to pay first what the court thought proper to demand, and to take its