ing
as a debt of the state, contracted upon national authority. Its payment
was urged as equally pressing upon the public faith and honor; and when
the whole year's account was stated, in what is called _the budget_, the
ministry valued themselves on the payment of so much public debt, just
as if they had discharged 500,000_l._ of navy or exchequer bills.
Though, in truth, their payment, from the sinking fund, of debt which
was never contracted by Parliamentary authority, was, to all intents and
purposes, so much debt incurred. But such is the present notion of
public credit, and payment of debt. No wonder that it produces such
effects.

Nor was the House at all more attentive to a provident security against
future, than it had been to a vindictive retrospect to past
mismanagements. I should have thought indeed that a ministerial promise,
during their own continuance in office, might have been given, though
this would have been but a poor security for the public. Mr. Pelham gave
such an assurance, and he kept his word. But nothing was capable of
extorting from our ministers anything which had the least resemblance to
a promise of confining the expenses of the civil list within the limits
which had been settled by Parliament. This reserve of theirs I look upon
to be equivalent to the clearest declaration, that they were resolved
upon a contrary course.

However, to put the matter beyond all doubt, in the speech from the
throne, after thanking Parliament for the relief so liberally granted,
the ministers inform the two Houses, that they will _endeavor_ to
confine the expenses of the civil government--within what limits, think
you? those which the law had prescribed? Not in the least--"such limits
as the _honor of the crown_ can possibly admit."

Thus they established an _arbitrary_ standard for that dignity which
Parliament had defined and limited to a _legal_ standard. They gave
themselves, under the lax and indeterminate idea of the _honor of the
crown_, a full loose for all manner of dissipation, and all manner of
corruption. This arbitrary standard they were not afraid to hold out to
both Houses; while an idle and unoperative act of Parliament, estimating
the dignity of the crown at 800,000_l._ and confining it to that sum,
adds to the number of obsolete statutes which load the shelves of
libraries, without any sort of advantage to the people.

After this proceeding, I suppose that no man can be so weak as to thin