it were left without a _general_ limit, it might eat up the
civil list service,--if suffered to be granted in portions too great for
the fund, it might defeat its own end, and, by unlimited allowances to
some, it might disable the crown in means of providing for others. The
pension list was to be kept as a sacred fund; but it could not be kept
as a constant, open fund, sufficient for growing demands, if some
demands would wholly devour it. The tenor of the act will show that it
regarded the civil list _only_, the reduction of which to some sort of
estimate was my great object.

No other of the crown funds did I meddle with, because they had not the
same relations. This of the four and a half per cents does his Grace
imagine had escaped me, or had escaped all the men of business who acted
with me in those regulations? I knew that such a fund existed, and that
pensions had been always granted on it, before his Grace was born. This
fund was full in my eye. It was full in the eyes of those who worked
with me. It was left on principle. On principle I did what was then
done; and on principle what was left undone was omitted. I did not dare
to rob the nation of all funds to reward merit. If I pressed this point
too close, I acted contrary to the avowed principles on which I went.
Gentlemen are very fond of quoting me; but if any one thinks it worth
his while to know the rules that guided me in my plan of reform, he will
read my printed speech on that subject, at least what is contained from
page 230 to page 241 in the second volume of the collection[16] which a
friend has given himself the trouble to make of my publications. Be this
as it may, these two bills (though achieved with the greatest labor, and
management of every sort, both within and without the House) were only a
part, and but a small part, of a very large system, comprehending all
the objects I stated in opening my proposition, and, indeed, many more,
which I just hinted at in my speech to the electors of Bristol, when I
was put out of that representation. All these, in some state or other of
forwardness, I have long had by me.

But do I justify his Majesty's grace on these grounds? I think them the
least of my services. The time gave them an occasional value. What I
have done in the way of political economy was far from confined to this
body of measures. I did not come into Parliament to con my lesson. I had
earned my pension before I set my foot in St. Stephen'