The method which
I propose would hinder him from the necessity of
such a broken staff to lean on, or such a miserable
weapon for repulsing the demands of worthless suitors, who, the noble lord in the blue ribbon knows, will bear many hard blows on the head, and many other
?
I propose would hinder him from the necessity of
such a broken staff to lean on, or such a miserable
weapon for repulsing the demands of worthless suitors, who, the noble lord in the blue ribbon knows, will bear many hard blows on the head, and many other
?
Edmund Burke
having toiled so long
in that inferior, laborious department.
I have known that board, off and on, for a great
number of years. Both of its pretended objects have
been much the objects of my study, if I have a right
to call any pursuits of mine by so respectable a name.
I can assure the House, (and I hope they will not
think that I risk my little credit lightly,) that, without
meaning to convey the least reflection upon any one
of its members, past or present, it is a board which,
if not. mischievous, is of no use at all.
You will be convinced, Sir, that I am not mistaken,
if you reflect how generally it is true, that commerce,
the principal object of that office, flourishes most
when it is left to itself. Interest, the great guide of
commerce, is not a blind one. It is very well able to
find its own way; and its necessities are its best laws.
But if it were possible, in the nature of things,. that
the - young should direct the old, and the inexperienced
instruct the knowing, - if a board in the state was the
best tutor for the counting-house, - if the desk ought
to read lectures to the anvil, and the pen to usurp the
place of the shuttle, -yet in any matter of regulation
we know that board must act with as little authority
as skill. The prerogative of the crown is utterly inadequate to the object; because all regulations are, in their nature, restrictive of some liberty. In the reign,
indeed, of Charles the First, the Council, or Committees of Council, were never a moment unoccupied with affairs of trade. But even where they had no ill intention, (which was sometimes the case,) trade and manufacture suffered infinitely from their injudicious
? ? ? ? 342 SPEECH ON THE PLAN
tampering. But since that period, whenever regulation is wanting, (for I do not deny that sometimes
it may be wanting,) Parliament constantly sits; and
Parliament alone is competent to such regulation.
We want no instruction from boards of trade, or
from any other board; and God forbid we should give
the least attention to their reports! Parliamentary
inquiry is the only mode of obtaining Parliamentary
information. There is more real knowledge to be obtained by attending the detail of business in the committees above stairs than ever did come, or ever will come, from any board in this kingdom, or from all of
them together. An assiduous member of Parliament
will not be the worse instructed there for not being
paid a thousand a year for learning his lesson. And
now that I speak of the committees above stairs, I
must say, that, having till lately attended them a good
deal, I have observed that no description of members
give so little attendance, either to communicate or to
obtain instruction upon matters of commerce, as the
honorable members of the grave Board of Trade. I
really do not recollect that I have ever seen one of
them in that sort of business. , Possibly some members may have better memories, and may call to
mind some job that may have accidentally brought
one or other of them, at one time or other, to attend
a matter of commerce.
This board, Sir, has had both its original formation
and its regeneration in a job. In a job it was conceived, and in a -job its mother brought it forth. It
made one among those showy and specious impositions which one of the experiment-making administrations of Charlis the Second held out to delude the people, and to be substituted in the place of the real
? ? ? ? FOR ECONOMICAL REFORM. 343
service which they might expect from a Parliament
annually sitting. It was intended, also, to corrupt
that body, whenever it should be permitted to sit. It
was projected in the year 1668, and it continued in
a tottering and rickety childhood for about three or
four years: for it died in the year 1673, a babe of as
little hopes as ever swelled the bills of mortality in
the article of convulsed or overlaid children who have
hardly stepped over the threshold of life.
It was buried with little ceremony, and never more
thought of until the reign of King William, when, in
the strange vicissitude of neglect and vigor, of good
and ill success that attended his wars, in the year
1695, the trade was distressed beyond all example of
former sufferings by the piracies of the French cruisers. This suffering incensed, and, as it should seem, very justly incensed, the House of Commons. In this
ferment, they struck, not only at the administration,
but at the very constitution of the executive government. They attempted to form in Parliament a board for the protection of trade, which, as they planned it,
was to draw to itself a great part, if not the whole, of
the functions and powers both of the Admiralty and
of the Treasury; and thus, by a Parliamentary delegation of office and officers, they threatened absolutely to separate these departments from the whole system
of-the executive government, and of course to vest
the most leading and essential of its attributes in this
board. As the executive government was in a manner convicted of a dereliction of its functions, it was with infinite difficulty that this blow was warded off
in that session. There was a threat to renew the
same attempt in the next. To prev'ent the effect of
this manoeuvre, the court opposed another manceuvre
? ? ? ? 344 SPEECH. ON THEI PLAN
to it, and, in the yesr 1696, called into life this
Board of Trade, which had slept since 1673.
This, in a few words, is the history of the regeneration of the Board of Trade. It has perfectly answered
its purposes. It was intended to quiet the minds of
the people, and to compose the ferment that was then
strongly working in Parliament. The courtiers were
too happy to be able to substitute a board which they
knew would be useless in the place of one that they
feared would be dangerous. Thus the Board of Trade
was reproduced in a job; and perhaps it is the only
instance of a public body which has never degenerated, but to this hour preserves all the health and
vigor of its primitive institution.
This Board of Trade and Plantations has not been
of any use to the colonies, as colonies: so little of
use, that the flourishing settlements of New' England,
of Virginia, and of Maryland, and all our wealthy
colonies in, the West Inips, Were of a date prior to
the first bo~d 6'f Charles thie eondd. Pennsylvania
and Carolina were settled during its dark quarter, in
the interval between the extinction of the first and the
formation of the second board. - Two colonies alone
owe their origin to that board. Georgia, which, till
lately, has made a very slow progress, - and never did
make any progress at all, until it had wholly got rid
of all the regulations which the Board of Trade had
moulded into its original constitution. That colony
has cost the nation very great sums of money; whereas the colonies which have had the fortune of not
being godfathered by the Board of Trade never cost
the nation a shilling, except what has been so properly spent in losing them. But the colony of Georgia, weak as it was, carried with it to the last hour,
? ? ? ? FOR ECONOMICAL REFORM. 345
and carries, even in its present dead, pallid visage,
the perfect resemblance of its parents. It always had,
and it now has, an establishment, paid by the public of
England, for the sake of the influence of the crown:
that colony having. never been able or willing to take
upon itself the expense of its proper government or
its own appropriated jobs.
The province of Nova Scotia was -the youngest and
the favorite child of the Board. Good God! what
sums the nursing of that ill-thriven, hard-visaged,
and ill-favored brat has cost to this wittol nation!
Sir, this colony has stood us in a sum of not less than
seven hundred thousand pounds. To this day it has
made no repayment, - it does not even support those
offices of expense which are miscalled its government; the whole of that job still lies upon the patient, callous shoulders of the people of England.
Sir, I am going to state a fact to you that will
serve to set in full sunshine the real value of formality and official. superintendence. There was -in'the province of Nova Scotia one little neglected corner, the country of the neutral French; which, having the good-fortune td escape the fostering care of both France and England, and to have been shut out
from the protection and regulation of councils of
commerce and of boards of trade, did, in silence,
without notice, and without assistance, increase to
a considerable degree. But it seems our nation had
more skill and ability in destroying than in settling
a colony. In the last war, we did, in my opinion,
most inhumanly, and upon pretences that in the eye
of an honest man are not worth a farthing, iroot out
this poor, innocent, deserving people, whom our utter
inability to govern, or to reconcile, gave us no sort
? ? ? ? -346 SPEECH ON THE PLAN
of right to extirpate. Whatever the merits of that
extirpation might have been, it was on the footsteps
of a neglected people, it was on the fund of unconstrained poverty, it was on the acquisitions of unregulated industry, that anything which deserves the name of a colony in that province has been formed.
It has been formed by overflowings from the exuberant population of Now England, and by emigration
from other parts of Nova Scotia of fugitives from the
protection of the Board of Trade.
But if all of these things were not more than sufficient to prove to you the inutility of that expensive
establishment, I would desire you to recollect, Sir,
that those who may be very ready to defend it are
very cautious how they employ it, - cautious how,they employ it even in appearance and pretence.
They are afraid they should lose the benefit of its
influence in Parliament, if they seemed to keep it up
for any other purpose. If ever there were commercial points of great weight, and most closely con,
nected with our dependencies, they are those which
have been agitated and decided in Parliament since I
came into it. Which of the innumerable regulations
since made had their origin or their improvement in
the Board of Trade? Did any of the several East
India bills which have been successively produced
since 1767 originate there? Did any one dream of
referring them, or any part of them, thither? Was
anybody so ridiculous as even to think of it? If ever
there was an occasion on which the Board was fit to
be consulted, it was with regard to the acts that were
preludes' to the American war, or attendant on. its
commencement. Those acts were full of commercial
regulations, such as they were: the Intercourse Bill;
? ? ? ? FOR ECONOMICAL REFORM. 347
tile Prohibitory Bill; the Fishery Bill. If the Board
was not concerned in such things, in what particular
was it thought fit that it should be concerned? In
the course of all these bills through the House, I observed the members of that board to be remarkably cautious of intermeddling. They understood decorum
better; they know that matters of trade and plantations are no business of theirs.
There were two very recent occasions, which, if the
idea of any use for the Board had not been extinguished by prescription,- appeared loudly to call for their interference.
When commissioners were sent to pay his Majesty's and our dutiful respects to the Congress of
the United States, a part of their powers under the
commission were, it seems, of a commercial nature.
They were authorized, in the most ample and undefined manner, to form a commercial treaty with America on the spot. This was no trivial object. As
the formation of such a treaty would necessarily have
been no less than the breaking up of our whole commercial system, and the giving it an entire new form, one would imagine that the Board of Trade
would have sat day and night to model propositions,
which, on our side, might serve as a basis to that
treaty. No such thing. Their learned leisure was
not in the least interrupted, though one of the members of the Board was a commissioner, and might, in mere compliment to his office, have been supposed to
make a show of deliberation on the subject. But he
knew that his colleagues would have thought he
laughed in their faces, had he attempted to bring
anything the most distantly relating to commerce or
colonies before them. A noble person, engaged in
? ? ? ? 348 SPEECH ON THE PLAN
the same commission, and sent to learn his commercial rudiments in New York, (then under the operation of an act for the universal prohibition of trade,) was soon after put at the head of that board. This
contempt from the present ministers of all the pretended functions of that board, and their manner of
breathing into its very soul, of inspiring it with its
animating and presiding principle, puts an end to all
dispute concerning their opinion of the clay it was
made of. But I will give them heaped measure.
It was but the other day, that the noble lord in
the blue ribbon carried up to the House of Peers two
acts, altering, I think much for the better, but altering in a great degree, our whole commercial system:
those acts, I mean, for giving a free trade to Ireland
in woollens, and in all things else, with independent
nations, and giving them an equal trade to our own
colonies. Here, too, the novelty of this great, but
arduous and critical improvement of system, would
make you conceive that the anxious solicitude of the
noble lord in the blue ribbon would have wholly
destroyed the plan of summer recreation of that
board, by references to examine, compare, and digest
matters for Parliament. You would imagine that
Irish commissioners of customs, and English commissioners of customs, and commissioners of excise,
that merchants and manufacturers of every denomination, had daily crowded their outer rooms. Nil
horumrn. The perpetual virtual adjournment, and the
unbroken sitting vacation of that board, was no more
disturbed by the Irish than by the plantation commerce, or any other commerce. The same matter
made a large part of the business which occupied the
House for two sessions before; and as our ministers
? ? ? ? FOR ECONOMICAL REFORM. 349
were not then mellowed by the mild, emollient, and
engaging blandishments of our dear sister into all
the tenderness of unqualified surrender, the bounds
and limits of a restrained benefit naturally required
much detailed management and positive regulation.
But neither the qualified propositions which were
received, nor those other qualified propositions which
were rejected by ministers, were the least concern of
theirs, or were they ever thought of in the business.
It is therefore, Sir, on the opinion of Parliament,
on the opinion of the ministers, and even on their
own opinion of their inutility, that I shall propose to
you to suppress the Board of Trade and Plantations,
and to recommit all its business to the Council, from
whence it was very improvidently taken; and which
business (whatever it might be) was much better
done, and without any expense; and, indeed, where
in effect it may all come at last. Almost all that deserves the name of business there is the reference of the plantation acts to the opinion of gentlemen of the
law. But all this may be done, as the Irish business
of the same nature has always been done, by the
Council, and with a reference to the Attorney and
Solicitor General.
There are some regulations in the household, relative to the officers of the yeomen of the guards, and the officers and band of gentlemen pensioners, which
I shall likewise submit to your consideration, for the
purpose of regulating establishments which at present are much abused.
I have now finished all that for the present I shall
trouble you with on the plan of reduction. I mean
next to propose to you the plan of arrangement, by.
which I mean to appropriate and fix the civil list
? ? ? ? '350 SPEECH ON THE PLAN
money to its several services according to their nature: for I am thoroughly sensible, that, if a discretion wholly arbitrary can be exercised over the civil list revenue, although the most effectual methods
may be taken to prevent the inferior departments
from exceeding their bounds, the plan of reformation
will still be left very imperfect. It will not, in my
opinion, be safe to permit an entirely arbitrary discretion even in the First Lord of the Treasury himself; it will not be safe to leave with him a power of diverting the public money from its proper objects, of
paying it in an irregular course, or of inverting perhaps the order of time, dictated by the proportion of.
value, which ought to regulate his application of payment to service.
I am sensible, too, that the very operation of a plan
of economy which tends to exonerate the civil list of
expensive establishments may in some sort defeat the
capital end we have in view, -- the independence of
Parliament; and that, in removing the public and
ostensible means of influence, we may increase the
fund of' private corruption. I have thought of some
methods to prevent an abuse of surplus cash under
discretionary application, - I mean the heads of secret
service, special service, variousspayments, and the like, -
which I hope will answer, and which in due time I
shall lay before you. Where I am unable to limit
the quantity of the sums to be applied, by reason of
the uncertain quantity of the service, I endeavor to
confine it to its line, to secure an indefinite application to the definite service to which it belongs, - not
to stop the progress of expense in its-line, but to confine it to that line in which it professes to move.
But that part of my plan, Sir, upon which I prin
? ? ? ? FOR ECONOMICAL REFORM. 351,
cipally rest, that on which I rely for the purpose of
binding up and securing the whole, is to establish a
fixed and invariable order in all its payments, which it
shall not be permitted to the First Lord of the Treasury, upon any pretence whatsoever, to depart from.
I therefore divide the civil list payments into nine
classes, putting each class forward according to thp
importance or justice of the demand, and to the inability of the persons entitled to enforce their pretensions: that is, to put those first who have the most efficient offices, or claim the justest debts, and at the
same time, from the character of that description of:
men, from the retiredness or the remoteness of their
situation, or from their want of weight'and power to
enforce their pretensions, or from their being entirely
subject to the power of a minister, without any reciprocal power of awing, ought to be the most considered,
and are the most likely to be neglected, - all these I
place in the highest classes; I place in the lowest
those whose functions are of the least importance, but
whose persons or rank are often of the greatest power
and influence.
In the first class I place the judges, as of the first
importance. It is the public justice that holds the
community together; the ease, therefore, and independence of the judges ought to supersede all other
considerations, and they ought to be the very last to
feel the necessities of the state, or to be obliged either
to court or bully a minister for their right; they ought
to be as weak solicitors on their own demands as strenuous assertors of the rights and liberties of others.
The judges are, or ought to be, of a reserved and retired character, and wholly unconnected with the
political world.
? ? ? ? 352 SPEECH ON THE PLAN
In the second class I place the foreign ministers.
The judges are the links of our connections with one
another; the foreign ministers are the links of our
connection with other nations. They are not upon
the spot to demand payment, and are therefore the
most likely to be, as in fact they have sometimes been,
entirely neglected, to the great disgrace and perhaps
the great detriment of the nation.
In the third class I would bring all the tradesmen
who supply the crown by contractor otherwise.
In the fourth class I place all the domestic servants of the king, and all persons in efficient offices whose salaries do-not exceed two hundred pounds a
year.
In the fifth, upon account of honor, which ought to
give place to nothing but charity and rigid justice, I
would place the pensions and allowances of his Majesty's royal family, comprehending of course the queen, together with the stated allowance of the
privy purse.
In the sixth class I place those efficient offices of
duty whose salaries may exceed, the sum of two hundred pounds a year.
In the seventh class, that mixed mass, the whole
pension list.
In the eighth, the offices of honor about the king.
In the ninth, and the last of all, the salaries and
pensions of the First Lord of the Treasury himself,
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the other Commissioners of the Treasury.
If, by any possible mismanagement of that part
of the revenue which is left at discretion, or by any
other mode of prodigality, cash should be deficient for
the payment of the lowest classes, I propose that the
? ? ? ? FOR ECONOMICAL REFORM. 353
amount of those salaries where the deficiency may
happen to fall shall not be carried as debt to the account of the succeeding year, but that it shall be entirely lapsed, sunk, and lost; so that government will be enabled to start in the race of every new year
wholly unloaded, fresh in wind and in vigor. Hereafter no civil list debt can ever come upon the public.
And those who do not consider this as saving, because
it is not a certain sum, do not ground their calculations of the future on their experience of the past.
I know of no mode of preserving the effectual execution of any duty, but to make it the direct interest
of the executive officer that it shall be faithfully performed. Assuming, then, that the present vast allowance to the civil list is perfectly adequate to all its purposes, if there should be any failure, it must be
from the mismanagement or neglect of the First Commissioner of the Treasury; since, upon the proposed
plan, there can be no expense of any consequence
which he is not himself previously to authorize and
finally to control. It is therefore just, as well as
politic, that the loss should attach upon the delinquency.
If the failure from the delinquency should be very
considerable, it will fall on the class directly above
the First Lord of the Treasury, as well as upon himself
and his board. It will fall, as it ought to fall, upon
offices of no primary importance in the state; but
then it will fall upon persons whom it will be a matter of no slight importance for a minister to provoke:
it will fall upon persons of the first rank and consequence in the kingdom, -- upon those who are nearest to the king, and frequently have a more interior credit with him than the minister himself. It will
VOL. II. 23
? ? ? ? 854 SPEECH ON THE PLAN
fall upon masters of the horse, upon lord chamberlains, upon lord stewards, upon grooms of the stole, and lords of the bedchamber. The household troops
form an army, who will be ready to mutiny for want
of pay, and whose mutiny will be really dreadful to a
commander-in-chief. A rebellion of the thirteen lords
of the bedchamber would be far more terrible to a
minister, and would probably affect his power more
to the quick, than a revolt of thirteen colonies. What
an uproar such an event would create at court! What
petitions, and committees, and associations, would it not
produce! Bless me! what a clattering of white sticks
and yellow sticks would be about his head! what a
storm of gold keys would fly about the ears of the minister! what a shower of Georges, and thistles, and medals, and collars of S. S. would assail him at his
first entrance into the antechamber, after an insolvent Christmas quarter! -- a tumult which could not
be appeased by all the harmony of the new year's ode.
Rebellion it is certain there would be; and rebellion
may not now, indeed, be so critical an event to those
who engage in it, since its price is so correctly ascertained at just a thousand pound.
Sir, this classing, in my opinion, is a serious and
solid secu'rity for the performance of a minister's
duty. Lord Coke says, that the staff was put into the
Treasurer's hand to enable him to support himself
when there was no money in the Exchequer, and to
beat away importunate solicitors.
The method which
I propose would hinder him from the necessity of
such a broken staff to lean on, or such a miserable
weapon for repulsing the demands of worthless suitors, who, the noble lord in the blue ribbon knows, will bear many hard blows on the head, and many other
? ? ? ? FOR ECONOMICAL REFORM. 355
indignities, before they are driven from the Treasury.
In this plan, he is furnished with an answer to all
their importunity, - an answer far more conclusive
than if he had knocked them down with his staff: -
"Sir, (or my Lord,) you are calling for my own salary, - Sir, you are calling for the appointments of my
colleagues whlo sit about me in office, - Sir, you are
going to excite a mutiny at court against me, - you
are going to estrange his Majesty's confidence from
me, through the chamberlain, or the master of the
horse, or the groom of the stole. "
As things now stand, every man, in proportion to
his consequence at court, tends to add to the expenses
of the civil list, by all manner of jobs, if not for himself, yet for his dependants. When the new plan is
established, those who are now suitors for jobs will
become the most strenuous opposers of them. They
will have a common interest with the minister in public economy. Every class, as it stands low, will become security for the payment of the preceding class; and thus the persons whose insignificant services
defraud those that are useful would then become
interested in their payment. Then the powerful,
instead of oppressing, would be obliged to support
the weak; and idleness would become concerned in
the reward of industry. The whole fabric of the civil
economy would become compact and connected in all
its parts; it would be formed into a well-organized
body, where every member contributes to the support
of the whole, and where even the lazy stomach secures the vigor of the active arm.
This plan, I really flatter myself, is laid, not in official formality, nor in airy speculation, but in real life,
and in human nature, in what "comes home" (as
? ? ? ? 356 SPEECH ON THE PLAN
Bacon says) " to the business and bosoms of men. '!
You have now, Sir, before you, the whole of my
scheme, as far as I have digested it into a form that
might be in any respect worthy of your consideration. I intend to lay it before you in five bills. *
The plan consists, indeed, of many parts; but they
stand upon a few plain principles. It is a plan which
takes nothing from the civil list without discharging
it of a burden equal to the sum carried to the public
service. It weakens no one function necessary to
government; but, on the contrary, by appropriating
supply to service, it gives it greater vigor. It provides the meahs of order and foresight to a minister of finance, which may always keep all the objects of
his office, and their state, condition, and relations,
distinctly before him. It brings forward accounts
without hurrying and distressing the accountants:
whilst it provides for public convenience, it regards
private rights. It extinguishes secret corruption almost to the possibility of its existence. It destroys direct and visible influence equal to the offices of at
least fifty members of Parliament. Lastly, it prevents
tile provision for his Majesty's children from being
diverted to the political purposes of his minister.
These are the points on which I rely for the merit
of the plan. I pursue economy in a secondary view,
and only as it is connected with these great objects.
I am persuaded, that even for supply this scheme will
be far from unfruitful, if it be executed to the extent
I propose it. I think it will give to the public, at its
periods, two or three hundred thousand pounds a
year; if not, it will give them a system of economy,
which is itself a great revenue. It gives me no little
* Titles of the bills read.
? ? ? ? FOR ECONOMICAL iEFORM. 357
pride and satisfaction to find that the principles of
my proceedings are in many respects the very same
with those which are now pursued in the plans of the
French minister of finance. I am sure that I lay
before you a scheme easy and practicable in all its
parts. I know it is common at once to applaud and
to reject all attempts of this nature. I know it is common for men to say, that such and such things are perfectly right, very desirable, -but that, unfortunately, they are not practicable. Oh, no, Sir! no!
Those things which are not practicable are not desirable. There is nothing in the world really beneficial that does not lie within the reach of an informed
understanding and a well-directed pursuit. There is
nothing that God has judged good for us that He has
not given us the means to accomplish, both in the
natural and the moral world. If we cry, like children, for the moon, like children we must cry on.
We must follow the nature of our affairs, and conform ourselves to our situation. If we do, our objects are plain and compassable. Why should we resolve
to do nothing, because what I propose to you may not
be the exact demand of the petition, when we are far
from resolved to comply even with what evidently is
so? Does this sort of chicanery become us? The
people are the masters. They have only to express
their wants at large and in gross. We are the expert
artists, we are the skilful workmen, to shape their
desires into perfect form, and to fit the utensil to the
use. They are the sufferers, they tell the symptoms
of the complaint; but we know the exact seat of the
disease, and how to apply the remedy according to
the rules of art. How shocking would it be to see
us pervert our skill into a sinister and servile dexter
? ? ? ? 858 SPEECH ON THE PLAN
ity, for the purpose of evading our duty, and defrauding our employers, who are our natural lords, of the
object of their just expectations! I think the whole
not only practicable, but practicable in a very short
time. If we are in earnest about it, and if we exert
that industry and those talents in forwarding the
work, which, I am afraid, may be exerted in impeding it, I engage that the whole may be put in complete execution within a year. For my own part, I have very little to recommend me for this or for any
task, but a kind of earnest and anxious perseverance
of mind, which, with all its good and all its evil effects,
is moulded into my constitution. I faithfully engage
to the House, if they choose to appoint me to any par)
in the execution of this work, (which, when they have
made it theirs by the improvements of their wisdom,
will be worthy of the able assistance they may give me,)
that by night and by day, in town or in country, at
the desk or in the forest, I will, without regard to
convenience, ease, or pleasure, devote myself to their
service, not expecting or admitting any reward whatsoever. I owe to this country my labor, which is my
all; and I owe to it ten times more industry, if ten
times more I could exert. After all, I shall be an
unprofitable servant.
~ At the same time, if I am able, and if I shall be
permitted, I will lend an humble helping hand to
any other good work which is going on. I have not,
Sir, the frantic presumption to suppose that this plan
contains in it the whole of what the public has a right
to expect in the great work of reformation they call
for. Indeed, it falls infinitely short of it. It falls
short even of my own ideas. I have some thoughts,
not yet fully ripened, relative to a reform in the cus
? ? ? ? FOR ECONOMICAL REFORM. 359
toms and excise, as well as in some other branches
of financial administration. There are other things,
too, which form essential parts in a great plan for the
purpose of restoring the independence of Parliament.
The contractors' bill of last year it is fit to revive;
and I rejoice that it is in better hands than mine.
The bill for suspending the votes of custom-house
officers, brought into Parliament several years ago by
one of our worthiest and wisest members,* - would to
God we could along with the plan revive the person
who designed it! but a man of, very real integrity,
honor, and ability will be found to take his place,
and to carry his idea into full execution. You all
see how necessary it is to review our military expenses
for some years past, and, if possible, to bind up and
close that bleeding artery of profusion; but that business also, I have reason to hope, will be undertaken
by abilities that are fully adequate to it. Something
must be devised (if possible) to check the ruinous
expense of elections.
Sir, all or most of these things must be done.
Every one must take his part. If we should be'able, by dexterity, or power, or intrigue, to disappoint the expectations of our constituents, what will it avail us? We shall never be strong or artful
enough to parry, or to put by, the irresistible de.
mands of our situation. That situation calls upon
tis, and upon our constituents too, with a voice which
will be heard. I am sure no man is more zealously
attached than I am to the privileges of this House,
particularly in regard to the exclusive management
of money. The Lords have no right to the disposition,
in any sense, of the public purse; but they have gone
* W. D)wdeswell, Esq. , Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1765.
? ? ? ? 360 SPEECH ON THE PLAN
further in self-denial * than our utmost jealousy could
have required. A power of examining accounts, to
censure, correct, and punish, we never, that I know
of, have thought of denying to the House of Lords. It
is something more than a century since we voted that
body useless: they have now voted themselves so.
The whole hope of reformation is at length cast upon
us; and let us not deceive the nation, which does us
the honor to hope everything from our virtue. If all
the nation are not equally forward to press this duty
upon us, yet be assured that they all equally expect
we should perform it. The respectful silence of those
who wait upon your pleasure ought to be as powerful
with you as the call of those who require your service
as their right. Some, without doors, affect to feel hurt
for your dignity, because they suppose that menaces
are held out to you. Justify'their good opinion by
showing that no menaces are necessary to stimulate
you to your duty. But, Sir, whilst we may sympathize with them in one point who sympathize with
us in another, we ought to attend no less to those who
approach us like men, and who, in the guise of petitioners, speak to us in the tone of a concealed author-'
ity. It is not wise to force them to speak out more
plainly what they plainly mean. -But the petitioners are violent. Be it so. Those who are least anxious about your conduct are not those that love you most. Moderate affection and satiated enjoyment
are cold and respectful; but an ardent and injured
passion is tempered up with wrath, and grief, and
shame, and conscious worth, and the maddening
sense of violated right. A jealous love lights his
torch from the firebrands of the furies. They who
* Rejection of Lord Shelburne's motion in the House of Lords.
? ? ? ? FOR ECONOMICAL REFORM. 361
call. upon you to belong wholly to the people are those
who wish you to return to your proper home, - to the
sphere of your duty, to the post of your honor, to the
mansion-house of all genuine, serene, and'solid satisfaction. We have furnished to the people of England
(indeed we have) some real cause of jealousy. Let
us leave that sort of company which, if it does not
destroy our innocence, pollutes our honor; let us
free ourselves at once from everything that can increase their suspicions and inflame their just resentment; let us cast away from us, with a generous scorn, all the love-tokens and symbols that we have
been vain and light enough to accept, - all the bracelets, and snuff-boxes, and miniature pictures, and hair
devices, and all the other adulterous trinkets that are
the pledges of our alienation and the monuments of
our shame. Let us return to our legitimate home,
and all jars and all quarrels will be lost in embraces.
Let the commons in Parliament assembled be one and
the same thing with the commons at large. The distinctions that are made to separate us are unnatural
and wicked contrivances. Let us identify, let us incorporate ourselves with the people. Let us cut all
the cables and snap the chains which tie us to an
unfaithful shore, and enter the friendly harbor that
shoots far out into the main its moles and jetties to
receive us. "War with the world, and peace with
our constituents. " Be this our motto, and our principle. Then, indeed, we shall be truly great. Respecting ourselves, we shall be respected by the world. At present all is troubled, and cloudy, and distracted,
and full of anger and turbulence, both abroad and at
home; but the air may be cleared by this storm, and
light and fertility may follow it. Let us give a faith
? ? ? ? 362 SPEECH ON THE PLAN
ful pledge to the people, that we honor, indeed, the
crown, but that we belong to them; that we are their
auxiliaries, and not theii task-masters,- the fellowlaborers in' the same vineyard, not lording over their
rights, but helpers of their joy; that to tax them is -a
grievance to ourselves, but to cut off from our enjoyments to forward theirs is the highest gratification we
are capable of receiving. I feel, with comfort, that
we are all warmed -with these sentiments, and while
we are thus warm, I wish we may go directly and
with a cheerful heart to this salutary work.
Sir, I move for leave to bring in a bill, "For
the better regulation of his Majesty's civil establishments, and of certain public offices; for the limitation of pensions, and the suppression of sundry useless, expensive, and inconvenient places, and for applying the moneys saved thereby to the public service. " X Lord North stated, that there was a difference
between this bill for regulating the establishments
and some of the others, as they affected the ancient
patrimony of the crown, and therefore wished them
to be postponed till the king's consent could be obtained. This distinction was strongly controverted;
but when it was insisted on as a point of decorum
only, it was agreed to postpone them to another day.
Accordingly, on the Monday following, viz. Feb. 14,
leave was given, on the motion of Mr. Burke, without
opposition, to bring in -
1st, "A bill for the sale of the forest and other
crown lands, rents, and hereditaments, with certain
exceptions, and for applying the produce thereof to
* The motion was seconded by Mr. Fox.
? ? ? ? FOR ECONOMICAL REFORM. 363
the public service; and for securing, ascertaining,
and satisfying tenant rights, and common and other
rights. "
2nd, "A bill for the more perfectly uniting to the
crown the Principality of Wales and the County
Palatine of Chester, and for the more commodious
administration of justice within the same; as also for
abolishing certain offices now appertaining thereto,
for quieting dormant claims, ascertaining and securing tenant rights, and for the sale of all forest lands, and other lands, tenements, and hereditaments, held
by his Majesty in right of the said Principality, or
County Palatine of Chester, and for applying the
produce thereof to the public service. "
3rd, "A bill for uniting to the crown the Duchy
and County Palatine of Lancaster, for the suppression of unnecessary offices now belonging thereto,
for the ascertainment and security of tenant and other
rights, and for the sale of all rents, lands, tenements,
and hereditaments, and forests, within the said Duchy
and County Palatine, or either of them, and for applying the produce thereof to the poublic service. " And it was ordered that Mr. Burke, Mr. Fox, Lord
John Cavendish, Sir George Savile, Colonel Barr6,
Mr. Thomas Townshend, Mr. Byng, Mr. Dunning,
Sir Joseph Mawbey, Mr. Recorder of London, Sir
Robert Clayton, Mr. Frederick Montagu, the Earl of
Upper Ossory, Sir William Guise, and Mr. Gilbert do
prepare and bring in the same.
At the same time, Mr. Burke moved for leave to
bring in4th, "A bill for uniting the Duchy of Cornwall to
the crown; for the suppression of certain unnecessary
offices now belonging thereto; for the ascertainment
? ? ? ? 364 SPEECH ON ECONOMICAL REFORM.
and security of tenant and other rights; and for the
sale of certain rents, lands, and tenements, within or
belonging to the said Duchy; and for applying the
produce thereof to the public service. "
But some objections being made by the SurveyorGeneral of the Duchy concerning the rights of the Prince of Wales, now in his minority, and Lord North
remaining perfectly silent, Mr. Burke, at length,
though he strongly contended against the principle
of the objection, consented to withdraw this last motion for the present, to be renewed upon an early occasion.
? ? ? ? SPEECH
AT THE
GUILDHALL IN BRISTOL, PREVIOUS TO THE
LATE ELECTION IN THAT CITY,
UPON
CERTAIN POINTS RELATIVE TO HIS PARLIAMENTARY CONDUCT. 178o.
? ? ? ? SPEECH.
M R. MAYOR, AND GENTLEMEN,- I am extremely pleased at the appearance of this large
and respectable meeting. The steps I may be obliged
to take will want the sanction of a considerable authority; and in explaining anything which may appear doubtful in my public conduct, I must naturally desire a very full audience.
I have been backward to begin my canvass. The
dissolution of the Parliament was uncertain; and it
did not become me, by an unseasonable importunity,
to appear diffident of the effect of my six years' endeavors to please you. I had served the city of Bristol honorably, and the city of Bristol had no reason to think that the means of honorable service to the
public were become indifferent to me.
I found, on my arrival here, that three gentlemen
had been long in eager pursuit of an object which but
two of us can obtain. I found that they had all met
with encouragement. A contested election in such a
city as this is no light thing. I paused on the brink
of the precipice. These three gentlemen, by various
merits, and on various titles, I made no doubt were
worthy of your favor. I shall never attempt to raise
myself by depreciating the merits of my competitors.
In the complexity and confusion of these cross pursuits, I wished to take the authentic public sense of
my friends upon a business of so much delicacy. I
? ? ? ?
in that inferior, laborious department.
I have known that board, off and on, for a great
number of years. Both of its pretended objects have
been much the objects of my study, if I have a right
to call any pursuits of mine by so respectable a name.
I can assure the House, (and I hope they will not
think that I risk my little credit lightly,) that, without
meaning to convey the least reflection upon any one
of its members, past or present, it is a board which,
if not. mischievous, is of no use at all.
You will be convinced, Sir, that I am not mistaken,
if you reflect how generally it is true, that commerce,
the principal object of that office, flourishes most
when it is left to itself. Interest, the great guide of
commerce, is not a blind one. It is very well able to
find its own way; and its necessities are its best laws.
But if it were possible, in the nature of things,. that
the - young should direct the old, and the inexperienced
instruct the knowing, - if a board in the state was the
best tutor for the counting-house, - if the desk ought
to read lectures to the anvil, and the pen to usurp the
place of the shuttle, -yet in any matter of regulation
we know that board must act with as little authority
as skill. The prerogative of the crown is utterly inadequate to the object; because all regulations are, in their nature, restrictive of some liberty. In the reign,
indeed, of Charles the First, the Council, or Committees of Council, were never a moment unoccupied with affairs of trade. But even where they had no ill intention, (which was sometimes the case,) trade and manufacture suffered infinitely from their injudicious
? ? ? ? 342 SPEECH ON THE PLAN
tampering. But since that period, whenever regulation is wanting, (for I do not deny that sometimes
it may be wanting,) Parliament constantly sits; and
Parliament alone is competent to such regulation.
We want no instruction from boards of trade, or
from any other board; and God forbid we should give
the least attention to their reports! Parliamentary
inquiry is the only mode of obtaining Parliamentary
information. There is more real knowledge to be obtained by attending the detail of business in the committees above stairs than ever did come, or ever will come, from any board in this kingdom, or from all of
them together. An assiduous member of Parliament
will not be the worse instructed there for not being
paid a thousand a year for learning his lesson. And
now that I speak of the committees above stairs, I
must say, that, having till lately attended them a good
deal, I have observed that no description of members
give so little attendance, either to communicate or to
obtain instruction upon matters of commerce, as the
honorable members of the grave Board of Trade. I
really do not recollect that I have ever seen one of
them in that sort of business. , Possibly some members may have better memories, and may call to
mind some job that may have accidentally brought
one or other of them, at one time or other, to attend
a matter of commerce.
This board, Sir, has had both its original formation
and its regeneration in a job. In a job it was conceived, and in a -job its mother brought it forth. It
made one among those showy and specious impositions which one of the experiment-making administrations of Charlis the Second held out to delude the people, and to be substituted in the place of the real
? ? ? ? FOR ECONOMICAL REFORM. 343
service which they might expect from a Parliament
annually sitting. It was intended, also, to corrupt
that body, whenever it should be permitted to sit. It
was projected in the year 1668, and it continued in
a tottering and rickety childhood for about three or
four years: for it died in the year 1673, a babe of as
little hopes as ever swelled the bills of mortality in
the article of convulsed or overlaid children who have
hardly stepped over the threshold of life.
It was buried with little ceremony, and never more
thought of until the reign of King William, when, in
the strange vicissitude of neglect and vigor, of good
and ill success that attended his wars, in the year
1695, the trade was distressed beyond all example of
former sufferings by the piracies of the French cruisers. This suffering incensed, and, as it should seem, very justly incensed, the House of Commons. In this
ferment, they struck, not only at the administration,
but at the very constitution of the executive government. They attempted to form in Parliament a board for the protection of trade, which, as they planned it,
was to draw to itself a great part, if not the whole, of
the functions and powers both of the Admiralty and
of the Treasury; and thus, by a Parliamentary delegation of office and officers, they threatened absolutely to separate these departments from the whole system
of-the executive government, and of course to vest
the most leading and essential of its attributes in this
board. As the executive government was in a manner convicted of a dereliction of its functions, it was with infinite difficulty that this blow was warded off
in that session. There was a threat to renew the
same attempt in the next. To prev'ent the effect of
this manoeuvre, the court opposed another manceuvre
? ? ? ? 344 SPEECH. ON THEI PLAN
to it, and, in the yesr 1696, called into life this
Board of Trade, which had slept since 1673.
This, in a few words, is the history of the regeneration of the Board of Trade. It has perfectly answered
its purposes. It was intended to quiet the minds of
the people, and to compose the ferment that was then
strongly working in Parliament. The courtiers were
too happy to be able to substitute a board which they
knew would be useless in the place of one that they
feared would be dangerous. Thus the Board of Trade
was reproduced in a job; and perhaps it is the only
instance of a public body which has never degenerated, but to this hour preserves all the health and
vigor of its primitive institution.
This Board of Trade and Plantations has not been
of any use to the colonies, as colonies: so little of
use, that the flourishing settlements of New' England,
of Virginia, and of Maryland, and all our wealthy
colonies in, the West Inips, Were of a date prior to
the first bo~d 6'f Charles thie eondd. Pennsylvania
and Carolina were settled during its dark quarter, in
the interval between the extinction of the first and the
formation of the second board. - Two colonies alone
owe their origin to that board. Georgia, which, till
lately, has made a very slow progress, - and never did
make any progress at all, until it had wholly got rid
of all the regulations which the Board of Trade had
moulded into its original constitution. That colony
has cost the nation very great sums of money; whereas the colonies which have had the fortune of not
being godfathered by the Board of Trade never cost
the nation a shilling, except what has been so properly spent in losing them. But the colony of Georgia, weak as it was, carried with it to the last hour,
? ? ? ? FOR ECONOMICAL REFORM. 345
and carries, even in its present dead, pallid visage,
the perfect resemblance of its parents. It always had,
and it now has, an establishment, paid by the public of
England, for the sake of the influence of the crown:
that colony having. never been able or willing to take
upon itself the expense of its proper government or
its own appropriated jobs.
The province of Nova Scotia was -the youngest and
the favorite child of the Board. Good God! what
sums the nursing of that ill-thriven, hard-visaged,
and ill-favored brat has cost to this wittol nation!
Sir, this colony has stood us in a sum of not less than
seven hundred thousand pounds. To this day it has
made no repayment, - it does not even support those
offices of expense which are miscalled its government; the whole of that job still lies upon the patient, callous shoulders of the people of England.
Sir, I am going to state a fact to you that will
serve to set in full sunshine the real value of formality and official. superintendence. There was -in'the province of Nova Scotia one little neglected corner, the country of the neutral French; which, having the good-fortune td escape the fostering care of both France and England, and to have been shut out
from the protection and regulation of councils of
commerce and of boards of trade, did, in silence,
without notice, and without assistance, increase to
a considerable degree. But it seems our nation had
more skill and ability in destroying than in settling
a colony. In the last war, we did, in my opinion,
most inhumanly, and upon pretences that in the eye
of an honest man are not worth a farthing, iroot out
this poor, innocent, deserving people, whom our utter
inability to govern, or to reconcile, gave us no sort
? ? ? ? -346 SPEECH ON THE PLAN
of right to extirpate. Whatever the merits of that
extirpation might have been, it was on the footsteps
of a neglected people, it was on the fund of unconstrained poverty, it was on the acquisitions of unregulated industry, that anything which deserves the name of a colony in that province has been formed.
It has been formed by overflowings from the exuberant population of Now England, and by emigration
from other parts of Nova Scotia of fugitives from the
protection of the Board of Trade.
But if all of these things were not more than sufficient to prove to you the inutility of that expensive
establishment, I would desire you to recollect, Sir,
that those who may be very ready to defend it are
very cautious how they employ it, - cautious how,they employ it even in appearance and pretence.
They are afraid they should lose the benefit of its
influence in Parliament, if they seemed to keep it up
for any other purpose. If ever there were commercial points of great weight, and most closely con,
nected with our dependencies, they are those which
have been agitated and decided in Parliament since I
came into it. Which of the innumerable regulations
since made had their origin or their improvement in
the Board of Trade? Did any of the several East
India bills which have been successively produced
since 1767 originate there? Did any one dream of
referring them, or any part of them, thither? Was
anybody so ridiculous as even to think of it? If ever
there was an occasion on which the Board was fit to
be consulted, it was with regard to the acts that were
preludes' to the American war, or attendant on. its
commencement. Those acts were full of commercial
regulations, such as they were: the Intercourse Bill;
? ? ? ? FOR ECONOMICAL REFORM. 347
tile Prohibitory Bill; the Fishery Bill. If the Board
was not concerned in such things, in what particular
was it thought fit that it should be concerned? In
the course of all these bills through the House, I observed the members of that board to be remarkably cautious of intermeddling. They understood decorum
better; they know that matters of trade and plantations are no business of theirs.
There were two very recent occasions, which, if the
idea of any use for the Board had not been extinguished by prescription,- appeared loudly to call for their interference.
When commissioners were sent to pay his Majesty's and our dutiful respects to the Congress of
the United States, a part of their powers under the
commission were, it seems, of a commercial nature.
They were authorized, in the most ample and undefined manner, to form a commercial treaty with America on the spot. This was no trivial object. As
the formation of such a treaty would necessarily have
been no less than the breaking up of our whole commercial system, and the giving it an entire new form, one would imagine that the Board of Trade
would have sat day and night to model propositions,
which, on our side, might serve as a basis to that
treaty. No such thing. Their learned leisure was
not in the least interrupted, though one of the members of the Board was a commissioner, and might, in mere compliment to his office, have been supposed to
make a show of deliberation on the subject. But he
knew that his colleagues would have thought he
laughed in their faces, had he attempted to bring
anything the most distantly relating to commerce or
colonies before them. A noble person, engaged in
? ? ? ? 348 SPEECH ON THE PLAN
the same commission, and sent to learn his commercial rudiments in New York, (then under the operation of an act for the universal prohibition of trade,) was soon after put at the head of that board. This
contempt from the present ministers of all the pretended functions of that board, and their manner of
breathing into its very soul, of inspiring it with its
animating and presiding principle, puts an end to all
dispute concerning their opinion of the clay it was
made of. But I will give them heaped measure.
It was but the other day, that the noble lord in
the blue ribbon carried up to the House of Peers two
acts, altering, I think much for the better, but altering in a great degree, our whole commercial system:
those acts, I mean, for giving a free trade to Ireland
in woollens, and in all things else, with independent
nations, and giving them an equal trade to our own
colonies. Here, too, the novelty of this great, but
arduous and critical improvement of system, would
make you conceive that the anxious solicitude of the
noble lord in the blue ribbon would have wholly
destroyed the plan of summer recreation of that
board, by references to examine, compare, and digest
matters for Parliament. You would imagine that
Irish commissioners of customs, and English commissioners of customs, and commissioners of excise,
that merchants and manufacturers of every denomination, had daily crowded their outer rooms. Nil
horumrn. The perpetual virtual adjournment, and the
unbroken sitting vacation of that board, was no more
disturbed by the Irish than by the plantation commerce, or any other commerce. The same matter
made a large part of the business which occupied the
House for two sessions before; and as our ministers
? ? ? ? FOR ECONOMICAL REFORM. 349
were not then mellowed by the mild, emollient, and
engaging blandishments of our dear sister into all
the tenderness of unqualified surrender, the bounds
and limits of a restrained benefit naturally required
much detailed management and positive regulation.
But neither the qualified propositions which were
received, nor those other qualified propositions which
were rejected by ministers, were the least concern of
theirs, or were they ever thought of in the business.
It is therefore, Sir, on the opinion of Parliament,
on the opinion of the ministers, and even on their
own opinion of their inutility, that I shall propose to
you to suppress the Board of Trade and Plantations,
and to recommit all its business to the Council, from
whence it was very improvidently taken; and which
business (whatever it might be) was much better
done, and without any expense; and, indeed, where
in effect it may all come at last. Almost all that deserves the name of business there is the reference of the plantation acts to the opinion of gentlemen of the
law. But all this may be done, as the Irish business
of the same nature has always been done, by the
Council, and with a reference to the Attorney and
Solicitor General.
There are some regulations in the household, relative to the officers of the yeomen of the guards, and the officers and band of gentlemen pensioners, which
I shall likewise submit to your consideration, for the
purpose of regulating establishments which at present are much abused.
I have now finished all that for the present I shall
trouble you with on the plan of reduction. I mean
next to propose to you the plan of arrangement, by.
which I mean to appropriate and fix the civil list
? ? ? ? '350 SPEECH ON THE PLAN
money to its several services according to their nature: for I am thoroughly sensible, that, if a discretion wholly arbitrary can be exercised over the civil list revenue, although the most effectual methods
may be taken to prevent the inferior departments
from exceeding their bounds, the plan of reformation
will still be left very imperfect. It will not, in my
opinion, be safe to permit an entirely arbitrary discretion even in the First Lord of the Treasury himself; it will not be safe to leave with him a power of diverting the public money from its proper objects, of
paying it in an irregular course, or of inverting perhaps the order of time, dictated by the proportion of.
value, which ought to regulate his application of payment to service.
I am sensible, too, that the very operation of a plan
of economy which tends to exonerate the civil list of
expensive establishments may in some sort defeat the
capital end we have in view, -- the independence of
Parliament; and that, in removing the public and
ostensible means of influence, we may increase the
fund of' private corruption. I have thought of some
methods to prevent an abuse of surplus cash under
discretionary application, - I mean the heads of secret
service, special service, variousspayments, and the like, -
which I hope will answer, and which in due time I
shall lay before you. Where I am unable to limit
the quantity of the sums to be applied, by reason of
the uncertain quantity of the service, I endeavor to
confine it to its line, to secure an indefinite application to the definite service to which it belongs, - not
to stop the progress of expense in its-line, but to confine it to that line in which it professes to move.
But that part of my plan, Sir, upon which I prin
? ? ? ? FOR ECONOMICAL REFORM. 351,
cipally rest, that on which I rely for the purpose of
binding up and securing the whole, is to establish a
fixed and invariable order in all its payments, which it
shall not be permitted to the First Lord of the Treasury, upon any pretence whatsoever, to depart from.
I therefore divide the civil list payments into nine
classes, putting each class forward according to thp
importance or justice of the demand, and to the inability of the persons entitled to enforce their pretensions: that is, to put those first who have the most efficient offices, or claim the justest debts, and at the
same time, from the character of that description of:
men, from the retiredness or the remoteness of their
situation, or from their want of weight'and power to
enforce their pretensions, or from their being entirely
subject to the power of a minister, without any reciprocal power of awing, ought to be the most considered,
and are the most likely to be neglected, - all these I
place in the highest classes; I place in the lowest
those whose functions are of the least importance, but
whose persons or rank are often of the greatest power
and influence.
In the first class I place the judges, as of the first
importance. It is the public justice that holds the
community together; the ease, therefore, and independence of the judges ought to supersede all other
considerations, and they ought to be the very last to
feel the necessities of the state, or to be obliged either
to court or bully a minister for their right; they ought
to be as weak solicitors on their own demands as strenuous assertors of the rights and liberties of others.
The judges are, or ought to be, of a reserved and retired character, and wholly unconnected with the
political world.
? ? ? ? 352 SPEECH ON THE PLAN
In the second class I place the foreign ministers.
The judges are the links of our connections with one
another; the foreign ministers are the links of our
connection with other nations. They are not upon
the spot to demand payment, and are therefore the
most likely to be, as in fact they have sometimes been,
entirely neglected, to the great disgrace and perhaps
the great detriment of the nation.
In the third class I would bring all the tradesmen
who supply the crown by contractor otherwise.
In the fourth class I place all the domestic servants of the king, and all persons in efficient offices whose salaries do-not exceed two hundred pounds a
year.
In the fifth, upon account of honor, which ought to
give place to nothing but charity and rigid justice, I
would place the pensions and allowances of his Majesty's royal family, comprehending of course the queen, together with the stated allowance of the
privy purse.
In the sixth class I place those efficient offices of
duty whose salaries may exceed, the sum of two hundred pounds a year.
In the seventh class, that mixed mass, the whole
pension list.
In the eighth, the offices of honor about the king.
In the ninth, and the last of all, the salaries and
pensions of the First Lord of the Treasury himself,
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the other Commissioners of the Treasury.
If, by any possible mismanagement of that part
of the revenue which is left at discretion, or by any
other mode of prodigality, cash should be deficient for
the payment of the lowest classes, I propose that the
? ? ? ? FOR ECONOMICAL REFORM. 353
amount of those salaries where the deficiency may
happen to fall shall not be carried as debt to the account of the succeeding year, but that it shall be entirely lapsed, sunk, and lost; so that government will be enabled to start in the race of every new year
wholly unloaded, fresh in wind and in vigor. Hereafter no civil list debt can ever come upon the public.
And those who do not consider this as saving, because
it is not a certain sum, do not ground their calculations of the future on their experience of the past.
I know of no mode of preserving the effectual execution of any duty, but to make it the direct interest
of the executive officer that it shall be faithfully performed. Assuming, then, that the present vast allowance to the civil list is perfectly adequate to all its purposes, if there should be any failure, it must be
from the mismanagement or neglect of the First Commissioner of the Treasury; since, upon the proposed
plan, there can be no expense of any consequence
which he is not himself previously to authorize and
finally to control. It is therefore just, as well as
politic, that the loss should attach upon the delinquency.
If the failure from the delinquency should be very
considerable, it will fall on the class directly above
the First Lord of the Treasury, as well as upon himself
and his board. It will fall, as it ought to fall, upon
offices of no primary importance in the state; but
then it will fall upon persons whom it will be a matter of no slight importance for a minister to provoke:
it will fall upon persons of the first rank and consequence in the kingdom, -- upon those who are nearest to the king, and frequently have a more interior credit with him than the minister himself. It will
VOL. II. 23
? ? ? ? 854 SPEECH ON THE PLAN
fall upon masters of the horse, upon lord chamberlains, upon lord stewards, upon grooms of the stole, and lords of the bedchamber. The household troops
form an army, who will be ready to mutiny for want
of pay, and whose mutiny will be really dreadful to a
commander-in-chief. A rebellion of the thirteen lords
of the bedchamber would be far more terrible to a
minister, and would probably affect his power more
to the quick, than a revolt of thirteen colonies. What
an uproar such an event would create at court! What
petitions, and committees, and associations, would it not
produce! Bless me! what a clattering of white sticks
and yellow sticks would be about his head! what a
storm of gold keys would fly about the ears of the minister! what a shower of Georges, and thistles, and medals, and collars of S. S. would assail him at his
first entrance into the antechamber, after an insolvent Christmas quarter! -- a tumult which could not
be appeased by all the harmony of the new year's ode.
Rebellion it is certain there would be; and rebellion
may not now, indeed, be so critical an event to those
who engage in it, since its price is so correctly ascertained at just a thousand pound.
Sir, this classing, in my opinion, is a serious and
solid secu'rity for the performance of a minister's
duty. Lord Coke says, that the staff was put into the
Treasurer's hand to enable him to support himself
when there was no money in the Exchequer, and to
beat away importunate solicitors.
The method which
I propose would hinder him from the necessity of
such a broken staff to lean on, or such a miserable
weapon for repulsing the demands of worthless suitors, who, the noble lord in the blue ribbon knows, will bear many hard blows on the head, and many other
? ? ? ? FOR ECONOMICAL REFORM. 355
indignities, before they are driven from the Treasury.
In this plan, he is furnished with an answer to all
their importunity, - an answer far more conclusive
than if he had knocked them down with his staff: -
"Sir, (or my Lord,) you are calling for my own salary, - Sir, you are calling for the appointments of my
colleagues whlo sit about me in office, - Sir, you are
going to excite a mutiny at court against me, - you
are going to estrange his Majesty's confidence from
me, through the chamberlain, or the master of the
horse, or the groom of the stole. "
As things now stand, every man, in proportion to
his consequence at court, tends to add to the expenses
of the civil list, by all manner of jobs, if not for himself, yet for his dependants. When the new plan is
established, those who are now suitors for jobs will
become the most strenuous opposers of them. They
will have a common interest with the minister in public economy. Every class, as it stands low, will become security for the payment of the preceding class; and thus the persons whose insignificant services
defraud those that are useful would then become
interested in their payment. Then the powerful,
instead of oppressing, would be obliged to support
the weak; and idleness would become concerned in
the reward of industry. The whole fabric of the civil
economy would become compact and connected in all
its parts; it would be formed into a well-organized
body, where every member contributes to the support
of the whole, and where even the lazy stomach secures the vigor of the active arm.
This plan, I really flatter myself, is laid, not in official formality, nor in airy speculation, but in real life,
and in human nature, in what "comes home" (as
? ? ? ? 356 SPEECH ON THE PLAN
Bacon says) " to the business and bosoms of men. '!
You have now, Sir, before you, the whole of my
scheme, as far as I have digested it into a form that
might be in any respect worthy of your consideration. I intend to lay it before you in five bills. *
The plan consists, indeed, of many parts; but they
stand upon a few plain principles. It is a plan which
takes nothing from the civil list without discharging
it of a burden equal to the sum carried to the public
service. It weakens no one function necessary to
government; but, on the contrary, by appropriating
supply to service, it gives it greater vigor. It provides the meahs of order and foresight to a minister of finance, which may always keep all the objects of
his office, and their state, condition, and relations,
distinctly before him. It brings forward accounts
without hurrying and distressing the accountants:
whilst it provides for public convenience, it regards
private rights. It extinguishes secret corruption almost to the possibility of its existence. It destroys direct and visible influence equal to the offices of at
least fifty members of Parliament. Lastly, it prevents
tile provision for his Majesty's children from being
diverted to the political purposes of his minister.
These are the points on which I rely for the merit
of the plan. I pursue economy in a secondary view,
and only as it is connected with these great objects.
I am persuaded, that even for supply this scheme will
be far from unfruitful, if it be executed to the extent
I propose it. I think it will give to the public, at its
periods, two or three hundred thousand pounds a
year; if not, it will give them a system of economy,
which is itself a great revenue. It gives me no little
* Titles of the bills read.
? ? ? ? FOR ECONOMICAL iEFORM. 357
pride and satisfaction to find that the principles of
my proceedings are in many respects the very same
with those which are now pursued in the plans of the
French minister of finance. I am sure that I lay
before you a scheme easy and practicable in all its
parts. I know it is common at once to applaud and
to reject all attempts of this nature. I know it is common for men to say, that such and such things are perfectly right, very desirable, -but that, unfortunately, they are not practicable. Oh, no, Sir! no!
Those things which are not practicable are not desirable. There is nothing in the world really beneficial that does not lie within the reach of an informed
understanding and a well-directed pursuit. There is
nothing that God has judged good for us that He has
not given us the means to accomplish, both in the
natural and the moral world. If we cry, like children, for the moon, like children we must cry on.
We must follow the nature of our affairs, and conform ourselves to our situation. If we do, our objects are plain and compassable. Why should we resolve
to do nothing, because what I propose to you may not
be the exact demand of the petition, when we are far
from resolved to comply even with what evidently is
so? Does this sort of chicanery become us? The
people are the masters. They have only to express
their wants at large and in gross. We are the expert
artists, we are the skilful workmen, to shape their
desires into perfect form, and to fit the utensil to the
use. They are the sufferers, they tell the symptoms
of the complaint; but we know the exact seat of the
disease, and how to apply the remedy according to
the rules of art. How shocking would it be to see
us pervert our skill into a sinister and servile dexter
? ? ? ? 858 SPEECH ON THE PLAN
ity, for the purpose of evading our duty, and defrauding our employers, who are our natural lords, of the
object of their just expectations! I think the whole
not only practicable, but practicable in a very short
time. If we are in earnest about it, and if we exert
that industry and those talents in forwarding the
work, which, I am afraid, may be exerted in impeding it, I engage that the whole may be put in complete execution within a year. For my own part, I have very little to recommend me for this or for any
task, but a kind of earnest and anxious perseverance
of mind, which, with all its good and all its evil effects,
is moulded into my constitution. I faithfully engage
to the House, if they choose to appoint me to any par)
in the execution of this work, (which, when they have
made it theirs by the improvements of their wisdom,
will be worthy of the able assistance they may give me,)
that by night and by day, in town or in country, at
the desk or in the forest, I will, without regard to
convenience, ease, or pleasure, devote myself to their
service, not expecting or admitting any reward whatsoever. I owe to this country my labor, which is my
all; and I owe to it ten times more industry, if ten
times more I could exert. After all, I shall be an
unprofitable servant.
~ At the same time, if I am able, and if I shall be
permitted, I will lend an humble helping hand to
any other good work which is going on. I have not,
Sir, the frantic presumption to suppose that this plan
contains in it the whole of what the public has a right
to expect in the great work of reformation they call
for. Indeed, it falls infinitely short of it. It falls
short even of my own ideas. I have some thoughts,
not yet fully ripened, relative to a reform in the cus
? ? ? ? FOR ECONOMICAL REFORM. 359
toms and excise, as well as in some other branches
of financial administration. There are other things,
too, which form essential parts in a great plan for the
purpose of restoring the independence of Parliament.
The contractors' bill of last year it is fit to revive;
and I rejoice that it is in better hands than mine.
The bill for suspending the votes of custom-house
officers, brought into Parliament several years ago by
one of our worthiest and wisest members,* - would to
God we could along with the plan revive the person
who designed it! but a man of, very real integrity,
honor, and ability will be found to take his place,
and to carry his idea into full execution. You all
see how necessary it is to review our military expenses
for some years past, and, if possible, to bind up and
close that bleeding artery of profusion; but that business also, I have reason to hope, will be undertaken
by abilities that are fully adequate to it. Something
must be devised (if possible) to check the ruinous
expense of elections.
Sir, all or most of these things must be done.
Every one must take his part. If we should be'able, by dexterity, or power, or intrigue, to disappoint the expectations of our constituents, what will it avail us? We shall never be strong or artful
enough to parry, or to put by, the irresistible de.
mands of our situation. That situation calls upon
tis, and upon our constituents too, with a voice which
will be heard. I am sure no man is more zealously
attached than I am to the privileges of this House,
particularly in regard to the exclusive management
of money. The Lords have no right to the disposition,
in any sense, of the public purse; but they have gone
* W. D)wdeswell, Esq. , Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1765.
? ? ? ? 360 SPEECH ON THE PLAN
further in self-denial * than our utmost jealousy could
have required. A power of examining accounts, to
censure, correct, and punish, we never, that I know
of, have thought of denying to the House of Lords. It
is something more than a century since we voted that
body useless: they have now voted themselves so.
The whole hope of reformation is at length cast upon
us; and let us not deceive the nation, which does us
the honor to hope everything from our virtue. If all
the nation are not equally forward to press this duty
upon us, yet be assured that they all equally expect
we should perform it. The respectful silence of those
who wait upon your pleasure ought to be as powerful
with you as the call of those who require your service
as their right. Some, without doors, affect to feel hurt
for your dignity, because they suppose that menaces
are held out to you. Justify'their good opinion by
showing that no menaces are necessary to stimulate
you to your duty. But, Sir, whilst we may sympathize with them in one point who sympathize with
us in another, we ought to attend no less to those who
approach us like men, and who, in the guise of petitioners, speak to us in the tone of a concealed author-'
ity. It is not wise to force them to speak out more
plainly what they plainly mean. -But the petitioners are violent. Be it so. Those who are least anxious about your conduct are not those that love you most. Moderate affection and satiated enjoyment
are cold and respectful; but an ardent and injured
passion is tempered up with wrath, and grief, and
shame, and conscious worth, and the maddening
sense of violated right. A jealous love lights his
torch from the firebrands of the furies. They who
* Rejection of Lord Shelburne's motion in the House of Lords.
? ? ? ? FOR ECONOMICAL REFORM. 361
call. upon you to belong wholly to the people are those
who wish you to return to your proper home, - to the
sphere of your duty, to the post of your honor, to the
mansion-house of all genuine, serene, and'solid satisfaction. We have furnished to the people of England
(indeed we have) some real cause of jealousy. Let
us leave that sort of company which, if it does not
destroy our innocence, pollutes our honor; let us
free ourselves at once from everything that can increase their suspicions and inflame their just resentment; let us cast away from us, with a generous scorn, all the love-tokens and symbols that we have
been vain and light enough to accept, - all the bracelets, and snuff-boxes, and miniature pictures, and hair
devices, and all the other adulterous trinkets that are
the pledges of our alienation and the monuments of
our shame. Let us return to our legitimate home,
and all jars and all quarrels will be lost in embraces.
Let the commons in Parliament assembled be one and
the same thing with the commons at large. The distinctions that are made to separate us are unnatural
and wicked contrivances. Let us identify, let us incorporate ourselves with the people. Let us cut all
the cables and snap the chains which tie us to an
unfaithful shore, and enter the friendly harbor that
shoots far out into the main its moles and jetties to
receive us. "War with the world, and peace with
our constituents. " Be this our motto, and our principle. Then, indeed, we shall be truly great. Respecting ourselves, we shall be respected by the world. At present all is troubled, and cloudy, and distracted,
and full of anger and turbulence, both abroad and at
home; but the air may be cleared by this storm, and
light and fertility may follow it. Let us give a faith
? ? ? ? 362 SPEECH ON THE PLAN
ful pledge to the people, that we honor, indeed, the
crown, but that we belong to them; that we are their
auxiliaries, and not theii task-masters,- the fellowlaborers in' the same vineyard, not lording over their
rights, but helpers of their joy; that to tax them is -a
grievance to ourselves, but to cut off from our enjoyments to forward theirs is the highest gratification we
are capable of receiving. I feel, with comfort, that
we are all warmed -with these sentiments, and while
we are thus warm, I wish we may go directly and
with a cheerful heart to this salutary work.
Sir, I move for leave to bring in a bill, "For
the better regulation of his Majesty's civil establishments, and of certain public offices; for the limitation of pensions, and the suppression of sundry useless, expensive, and inconvenient places, and for applying the moneys saved thereby to the public service. " X Lord North stated, that there was a difference
between this bill for regulating the establishments
and some of the others, as they affected the ancient
patrimony of the crown, and therefore wished them
to be postponed till the king's consent could be obtained. This distinction was strongly controverted;
but when it was insisted on as a point of decorum
only, it was agreed to postpone them to another day.
Accordingly, on the Monday following, viz. Feb. 14,
leave was given, on the motion of Mr. Burke, without
opposition, to bring in -
1st, "A bill for the sale of the forest and other
crown lands, rents, and hereditaments, with certain
exceptions, and for applying the produce thereof to
* The motion was seconded by Mr. Fox.
? ? ? ? FOR ECONOMICAL REFORM. 363
the public service; and for securing, ascertaining,
and satisfying tenant rights, and common and other
rights. "
2nd, "A bill for the more perfectly uniting to the
crown the Principality of Wales and the County
Palatine of Chester, and for the more commodious
administration of justice within the same; as also for
abolishing certain offices now appertaining thereto,
for quieting dormant claims, ascertaining and securing tenant rights, and for the sale of all forest lands, and other lands, tenements, and hereditaments, held
by his Majesty in right of the said Principality, or
County Palatine of Chester, and for applying the
produce thereof to the public service. "
3rd, "A bill for uniting to the crown the Duchy
and County Palatine of Lancaster, for the suppression of unnecessary offices now belonging thereto,
for the ascertainment and security of tenant and other
rights, and for the sale of all rents, lands, tenements,
and hereditaments, and forests, within the said Duchy
and County Palatine, or either of them, and for applying the produce thereof to the poublic service. " And it was ordered that Mr. Burke, Mr. Fox, Lord
John Cavendish, Sir George Savile, Colonel Barr6,
Mr. Thomas Townshend, Mr. Byng, Mr. Dunning,
Sir Joseph Mawbey, Mr. Recorder of London, Sir
Robert Clayton, Mr. Frederick Montagu, the Earl of
Upper Ossory, Sir William Guise, and Mr. Gilbert do
prepare and bring in the same.
At the same time, Mr. Burke moved for leave to
bring in4th, "A bill for uniting the Duchy of Cornwall to
the crown; for the suppression of certain unnecessary
offices now belonging thereto; for the ascertainment
? ? ? ? 364 SPEECH ON ECONOMICAL REFORM.
and security of tenant and other rights; and for the
sale of certain rents, lands, and tenements, within or
belonging to the said Duchy; and for applying the
produce thereof to the public service. "
But some objections being made by the SurveyorGeneral of the Duchy concerning the rights of the Prince of Wales, now in his minority, and Lord North
remaining perfectly silent, Mr. Burke, at length,
though he strongly contended against the principle
of the objection, consented to withdraw this last motion for the present, to be renewed upon an early occasion.
? ? ? ? SPEECH
AT THE
GUILDHALL IN BRISTOL, PREVIOUS TO THE
LATE ELECTION IN THAT CITY,
UPON
CERTAIN POINTS RELATIVE TO HIS PARLIAMENTARY CONDUCT. 178o.
? ? ? ? SPEECH.
M R. MAYOR, AND GENTLEMEN,- I am extremely pleased at the appearance of this large
and respectable meeting. The steps I may be obliged
to take will want the sanction of a considerable authority; and in explaining anything which may appear doubtful in my public conduct, I must naturally desire a very full audience.
I have been backward to begin my canvass. The
dissolution of the Parliament was uncertain; and it
did not become me, by an unseasonable importunity,
to appear diffident of the effect of my six years' endeavors to please you. I had served the city of Bristol honorably, and the city of Bristol had no reason to think that the means of honorable service to the
public were become indifferent to me.
I found, on my arrival here, that three gentlemen
had been long in eager pursuit of an object which but
two of us can obtain. I found that they had all met
with encouragement. A contested election in such a
city as this is no light thing. I paused on the brink
of the precipice. These three gentlemen, by various
merits, and on various titles, I made no doubt were
worthy of your favor. I shall never attempt to raise
myself by depreciating the merits of my competitors.
In the complexity and confusion of these cross pursuits, I wished to take the authentic public sense of
my friends upon a business of so much delicacy. I
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