than men of greater affluence. In the present bill, however, he did not think it right to take away all those emoluments, which those who had reasoned in the manner he had stated, thought so essential to remain. The noble and learned lord might be assured, he envied him none of those emoluments, nor any affluence that he could derive from office. Mr. Pulteney's amendment was negatived. After this discussion Mr. Rigby being anxious to protect the promise of a tellership which had been given to Lord Thurlow, rose up to propose a clause with that view. He reminded the House that Lord Thurlow, when he quitted the profession and accepted the office of lord chancellor, obtained from his majesty the promise of a tellership in the exchequer. This promise had been made in the year 1778; and he trusted that Lord Thurlow had a title to expect a reversion of a tellership fully and beneficially. He therefore intended to bring up a clause "to exempt the case of Edward Lord Thurlow from the operation of the bill; his majesty having, in the year 1778, promised to the said Lord Thurlow, on his accepting the office of lord high chancellor, a reversion of a tellership of the exchequer, in as large and beneficial a manner as tellerships were then enjoyed." In a Mr. Secretary Fox said, it was difficult for the mind always to discriminate between motives public and personal. question like the present, it was purely personal; and to speak on a question purely personal was certainly extremely disagreeable; he nevertheless thought it his duty to state to the House the true nature of the question, and then let the Committee adopt or reject it, as they thought proper. The right honourable gentleman who had proposed to move the clause, and his noble colleague, had declared they could not account for the noble and learned lord in question having declined to accept the offer of a tellership when it was first made him. They would forgive him, if he declared that the matter did not appear to him altogether so inexplicable. When the offer was first made, one reversion of a tellership was actually granted; was it, therefore, to be wondered at, that the noble and learned lord should not think a second reversion quite so good a thing as might possibly come within his reach? They all knew that it was an unusual thing to grant a second reversion, and for the best reason in the world, namely, because such a grant was generally deemed of little value; and, perhaps, under the peculiar circumstances under which it had been made to Lord Thurlow, (with two very young men in possession, a third young man in reversion, and the first teller at that time, to all appearance, a good life) it was of less value than at any other time it could have been. Was it to be wondered at that the noble and learned lord should have since changed his mind? Certainly it was not; circumstances had altered materially one of the possessors was dead, and another very infirm. Who could be surprised, then, as the object seemed more attainable, that the noble and learned lord should have changed his mind, and grown more willing to accept a reversion in proportion as the object approached But it had happened, that the House of Commons, in the interim, had thrown a difficulty in the way, by coming to that resolution which the right honourable gentleman had stated. All that could be done had been done by the last ministry, and a very extraordinary proceeding that was; such a proceeding, he believed, as had never been heard of before. They had introduced the royal promise into the wording of the patent, granting the noble and learned lord, what was generally termed a floating pension, being a pension to be held and enjoyed by him till such time as the tellership should fall in. But even in doing this, the late ministry (who might naturally be supposed to be as well inclined to serve Lord Thurlow as their ability would allow) had manifested, that it was their clear and decided opinion, that the royal promise must be subject to such restrictions and limitations as parliament should thereafter think fit to make respecting the tellerships of the exchequer; and, indeed, they had worded the recognition of that promise in the patent, in phrases expressly stating that such was their opinion. Mr. Fox produced an extract from the patent, and read the sentence to the committee which described the promise, and the extent in which it was intended to be fulfilled. After commenting upon the novelty of introducing the mention of any such matter in a patent, and arguing upon the conclusive argument, that Lord Thurlow's reversion was, in the sense of the late ministry, to be liable to the future restrictions and limitations of parliament, which the patent itself held out, he said he had listened with the utmost attention to what had fallen from the right honourable gentleman, and especially to the proviso he had read, with a view to discover upon what principle he meant to rest his motion. It was clear, however, that it was in that right honourable gentleman's own opinion an application grounded on no one principle whatever, nor on the smallest scintilla of a principle. The proviso expressly stated the exemption for Edward Lord Thurlow; nor was it in the right honourable gentleman's power to put it on any other ground whatever. The House, therefore, would consider, that in the present case, there was no grant of a reversion to plead upon it was submitted to their consideration whether they should go out of their way to do a favour to Edward Lord Thurlow and if they chose to adopt a proviso founded : : on no principle, but merely stated as the case of Edward Lord Thurlow, they undoubtedly had a right to do so. He meant not to press his arguments upon them, nor to urge them to reject the clause, should it be moved. It was his duty to state to them what the motion really was that they were about to have made, and having done so, he should leave it entirely to their judgment to act respecting it as they thought proper. Mr. Fox, in the course of his speech declared, that he spoke from no motive of resentment whatever. Gentlemen might imagine, that certain severe reflections personally made upon him by the noble and learned lord of late, in consequence of their having a difference in respect to political opinion, and what had passed elsewhere, might have soured his mind, and rendered him adverse to the clause. He assured the committee he spoke from no such motives; and though the noble and learned lord had thought proper to say, that when the crown was stripped of its power of reward, none but desperate and needy adventurers would accept of office, he did assure that noble lord's friends, that he by no means wished to deny him any share of that affluence which he seemed to consider as so essential a qualification for office. The proviso of Mr. Rigby was agreed to without a division. But though he was thus successful in a committee upon the bill, on the report of the Committee being presented to the House, his efforts for Lord Thurlow were less fortunate. To give the greater strength to his proviso, he had expressed it in new language, and rested it on the foundation, that in the patent for Lord Thurlow's pension, his majesty had been pleased to promise the place of a tellership of the exchequer to him when he accepted the office of lord chancellor. He did not know whether he was to call his noble friend's pretension to the exemption a promise or a bargain; but he hoped it would appear to the House, as it had convinced the Committee, that it was such a pretension as was well entitled to the protection of parliament. Mr. Secretary Fox said, he would not object to the motion, provided any of the friends of Lord Thurlow would get up and say, that they claimed this for him as a bargain, and not as a promise. He had understood that this was admitted on Friday, and it was in consequence of so understanding, that he had given up his opposition, and consented to receive the clause that had been then moved. Let him hear the same avowed now, and he would not oppose the motion; but one of two things must be cleared up; it either was a promise or a bargain. If a bargain, as he had just declared, there could be no objection to the clause passing as now proposed; if a promise, then the sense of the House must be taken. He pressed this the more urgently, because that House and the public had been so unfairly dealt with upon the subject. It had long been made a boast of as a great merit in the noble and learned lord, that he had accepted the seals unconditionally; and on Friday last his friends had declared the noble lord had made a bargain for a tellership as the price of the situation he quitted when he took the seals. Both these things could not be true; nor had the noble and learned lord any right to take all the merit of the one, and all the advantage of the other. He declared himself an enemy to all impostures, and therefore it was that he wanted to come at the fact. If the friends of the noble lord avowed it to have been a bargain, they had a right to the exemption. If they placed Lord Thurlow on superior ground, and said, it was (what he believed it to have been, and what his majesty himself described it to have been, in the patent in which he recognised it) an unsolicited and spontaneous promise on the part of his majesty, they stood upon very different grounds indeed, and it would be for the House to decide whether such an exemption should be made or not. If it was a bargain, the noble lord had an indisputable claim to it; if he claimed it as a promise, then surely he must take it in the words of his patent — " subject to such regulations as our parliament may hereafter adopt." For his part, he would not suffer any man to avail himself of the merit of having taken the great seal without any bargain or stipulation, and come afterwards to parliament to claim an exemption from certain regulations on the ground of having made a bargain. He denied that he had pledged himself to adopt the clause in the manner stated by the right honourable gentleman. He had, indeed, consented to receive the clause that night in the committee; but he had by no means bound himself down to agree to the amendment of that clause that should be proposed in the House on the report: nor was he now disposed to agree to it, but on one condition he had stated, and that was - let some friend of the noble and learned lord get up and avow, that the noble and learned lord had bargained for the tellership when he took the seals. He concluded by saying, that if the clause should be said to be founded on a bargain, he would not oppose it; but if on a promise, he would take the sense of the House upon it, as it was not worded according to the manner in which the promise was expressed in the patent. - The proviso agreed to in the committee was rejected by the House; and on Mr. Rigby's clause, declaring "That nothing in the act contained shall extend to affect any grant which may be made to Edward Lord Thurlow, of a reversion of a tellership of the exchequer," the House divided: YEAS Tellers. {Mr {Mr. Breidan} 57. So it passed in the negative. Mr. Hussey then moved the following clause, "That the officers of the exchequer shall receive no greater emoluments in time of war than in time of peace." Mr. Secretary Fox opposed the clause; he declared, that he would not touch places that had been considered as freeholds, and negotiated as personal property. Of all the influence of the crown, he knew of no species of influence so much to be dreaded as the influence of terror. Those who professed themselves the warmest and most strenuous advocates for extending the influence of the crown of another kind, were, he believed, as adverse as he was to this influence of terror, because they knew that if it were suffered to be exercised in one instance, it would be exercised in many others, and in short that it would shake the whole kingdom. He therefore was determined to resist it wherever the attempt was made to exert it. He said farther, that in all matters of reform, it was necessary and wise to begin in as broad and intelligible a manner as possible: he presumed his noble friend had chosen in the present bill to save whole and entire the rights of all those persons, now in possession of places in the exchequer, for this reason and to fix the time for the operation of the bill to commence, at the period of the lives of such persons as were in actual possession of the offices it went to affect. He thought the idea a wise one, and being persuaded, that any attempt to alter it would produce a bad effect, and the attempt now made the worst effect possible, he should give the motion for leave to bring up the clause his positive negative. The clause was negatived without a division. PUBLIC ACCOUNTANTS. July 10. IN N conformity to the order of the House, Lord John Cavendish laid before them a book containing a "List of the Public Accountants who have received Public Money by way of Imprest, and upon Account, and who have not yet accounted for the same, and of those Persons from whom Balances of declared Accounts are still due." The moment the book was laid upon the table, and ΙΣ |