ve suspicion. The House seemed
fully determined to make an extensive reform; and, in truth, nothing
could have averted such a reform except the folly and violence of the
reformers. That they should have been angry is indeed not strange. The
enormous gains, direct and indirect, of the servants of the public went
on increasing, while the gains of every body else were diminishing.
Rents were falling; trade was languishing; every man who lived either on
what his ancestors had left him or on the fruits of his own industry
was forced to retrench. The placeman alone throve amidst the general
distress. "Look," cried the incensed squires, "at the Comptroller of the
Customs. Ten years ago, he walked, and we rode. Our incomes have been
curtailed; his salary has been doubled; we have sold our horses; he has
bought them; and now we go on foot, and are splashed by his coach and
six." Lowther vainly endeavoured to stand up against the storm. He
was heard with little favour by the country gentlemen who had not long
before looked up to him as one of their leaders. He had left them; he
had become a courtier; he had two good places, one in the Treasury, the
other in the household. He had recently received from the King's own
hand a gratuity of two thousand guineas. [147] It seemed perfectly
natural that he should defend abuses by which he profited. The taunts
and reproaches with which he was assailed were insupportable to his
sensitive nature. He lost his head, almost fainted away on the floor
of the House, and talked about righting himself in another place. [148]
Unfortunately no member rose at this conjuncture to propose that the
civil establishment of the kingdom should be carefully revised, that
sinecures should be abolished, that exorbitant official incomes should
be reduced, and that no servant of the State should be allowed to exact,
under any pretence, any thing beyond his known and lawful remuneration.
In this way it would have been possible to diminish the public burdens,
and at the same time to increase the efficiency of every public
department. But unfortunately those who were loudest in clamouring
against the prevailing abuses were utterly destitute of the qualities
necessary for the work of reform. On the twelfth of December, some
foolish man, whose name has not come down to us, moved that no person
employed in any civil office, the Speaker, Judges and Ambassadors
excepted, should receive more than five hundred pounds a year;