t of the
Crown; the interests of which we have already touched. Independent of
that greatness which a King possesses merely by being a representative of
the national dignity, the things in which he may have an individual
interest seem to be these: wealth accumulated; wealth spent in
magnificence, pleasure, or beneficence; personal respect and attention;
and above all, private ease and repose of mind. These compose the
inventory of prosperous circumstances, whether they regard a Prince or a
subject; their enjoyments differing only in the scale upon which they are
formed.

Suppose then we were to ask, whether the King has been richer than his
predecessors in accumulated wealth, since the establishment of the plan
of Favouritism? I believe it will be found that the picture of royal
indigence which our Court has presented until this year, has been truly
humiliating. Nor has it been relieved from this unseemly distress, but
by means which have hazarded the affection of the people, and shaken
their confidence in Parliament. If the public treasures had been
exhausted in magnificence and splendour, this distress would have been
accounted for, and in some measure justified. Nothing would be more
unworthy of this nation, than with a mean and mechanical rule, to mete
out the splendour of the Crown. Indeed, I have found very few persons
disposed to so ungenerous a procedure. But the generality of people, it
must be confessed, do feel a good deal mortified, when they compare the
wants of the Court with its expenses. They do not behold the cause of
this distress in any part of the apparatus of Royal magnificence. In all
this, they see nothing but the operations of parsimony, attended with all
the consequences of profusion. Nothing expended, nothing saved. Their
wonder is increased by their knowledge, that besides the revenue settled
on his Majesty's Civil List to the amount of 800,000 pounds a year, he
has a farther aid, from a large pension list, near 90,000 pounds a year,
in Ireland; from the produce of the Duchy of Lancaster (which we are told
has been greatly improved); from the revenue of the Duchy of Cornwall;
from the American quit-rents; from the four and a half per cent. duty in
the Leeward Islands; this last worth to be sure considerably more than
40,000 pounds a year. The whole is certainly not much short of a million
annually.

These are revenues within the knowledge and cognizance of our national
Councils.