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it is probable that, in his tricks, he would have been less daring.

In the first place, he charged, in point of measure, as a retailer, not making the allowance always made by wholesale dealers, of one chaldron in twenty so that, supposing his prices to have been fair, he thus gained one twentieth part more, than would have been done by a fair wholesale dealer. This, how ever, was a trifle, compared with what follows. It appears, from a comparative view of the prices which Davison paid, and those which he charged to the government, (and which were paid to him for a course of nine years,) that the average of the price charged to the public, was eighty-one shillings per chaldron; and the average of the price paid by Davison, sixty-one shillings per chaldron; making a difference of twenty-five in the hundred. To this sum, again, must be added, the one chaldron in twenty, which Da. vison ought to have given in, as the wholesalers do, amounting to five pounds in the hundred more: thus making a gain of thirty pounds in every hundred. Farther still, Da. vison was bound to make the deliveries in the most favourable seasons; instead of which, he made almost the whole of them in winter, when coals were dearest, though he had bought them at the seasons when coals were cheapest; and that too, through the most shameful and culpable inattention, if not the connivance of general Delancey, with the public money. For many other instances, and the most accurate details concerning the fraudulent

dealing of Mr. Alexander Davison, we refer our readers to the report of the commissiouers.---The wealth that this man accumulated at the expence of the public, must have been im mense; nor was he at any pains to shade it from the pubic eye, but, on the contrary, seemed desirous to display it by the utmost splendour and magnificence*. In short, he seemed destined to rouse the attention of government to the conduct of their servants, and the agents of its servants.

Lord Archibald Hamilton, who had given notice, in the house of commons, of a motion which he intended to bring forward respecting the third report of the commissioners of military inquiry, on the 2d of February, called the attention of the house to this subject. He had intended to have moved, that the attorney-general should be instructed to take the necessary measures for ascertaining and securing, by due course of law, such sums as should be due to the public from Mr. Alex. ander Davison, in consequence of the transactions disclosed in the third report of the commissioners of military inquiry. But he had since. learnt that the business was in the hands of the treasury, with whose proceedings he was un. willing, especially after some communication he had had with his noble friend (lord H. Petty), to interfere. He thought it his duty, however, to state the view with which he had taken up the subject. He had considered that, the report having been made, it was far from being creditable that it should have

He was a purchaser of the most valuable pictures, as well as of estates, and was in the habit of giving grand and splendid entertainments not only to the nobility, but to the Prince of Wales, and others of the Princes.

been

been supposed to remain so long on the table unnoticed; and also that it would have been more desireable for the house to have instituted some process against Mr. Alexander Davison, than that it should have been done by the treasury. Nor had he yet wholly relinquished that opinion, though by his communica. tions with his noble friend, it had been very much weakened.

Lord H. Petty took the present opportunity of explaining to the house the proceedings of the treasury with regard to the matter in question, which he was not surprized to find had attracted the notice of his noble friend, and of the house in general. The commissioners of barrack accounts had, very properly, com. municated to the lords of the trea. sury their opinion, that it was very necessary that Mr. Davison should produce his cash-account with the barrack-master-general. Mr. Da vison, after delays which he endea. voured to excuse, declared his readiness to give such information as to his cash-account, as he could gize; but stated at the same time, that his cash-account was so mixed with other accounts, that it was impossible he could give a clear view of it. It was not competent for lord H. P. to say, in the present stage of the business, whether there was any evidence on which to found a criminal prosecution: but if it should, the attorney and solicitor generals would be instructed by the lords of the treasury to institute proceedings upon it. Mr. Davison had written to the lords of the treasury, stating, that he would pro. duce, in his own defence, an account which would prove satisfac

tory. The commissioners, however, by the direction of the treasury, had called for the cash-account, and directions had been given, and measures taken for the recovery of the sums due.

Mr. Robson, Feb. 18, moved for certain papers relative to abuses in the barrack department. Four years had elapsed since he had first recommended and pressed an inquiry into the expenditure of that department; and since that period, six millions had been granted for that service in Great Britain, and two millions for Ireland. If his suggestions had been acted upon, there would have been a saving of two millions for the public, out of the sums paid for the hire of buildings, the repairs of buildings, and the rent of temporary barracks. As an in. stance of the abuses in the above articles, he mentioned a collusion between a Mr. Page who had become barrack-master, and a Mr. Green, a lawyer at Winchester, stated in the second report of mili. tary inquiry.* In proof of the utility of producing the papers to be moved for, he stated that last year he had confined his inquiry to one parish or district in the Isle of Wight, and that in this place he had since found that the rents of the temporary barracks were reduced to one half. Barns hired for that purpose, and rated at £.2,200, were now lower. ed to £.1,100 by means of the motion he had formerly made on that subject.

Lord Howick declared in a very earnest manner, and wished Mr. Robson to be assured, that if his motion could possibly have been complied with, without interfering

* Vide Appendix to the Chronicle.

with

with the commissioners already appointed, no one could be more ready than he would have been to support such inquiries.--Mr. Robson's motion being put from the chair, was negatived, without a division. Mr. Robson then stated, that he should on a future day submit a motion to the house, that would reach the barrack departments on foreign stations: and he hoped that the charges abroad, for instance, in the Island of Sicily*, would not turn out to be such as formerly existed in the Island of Corsica.

A committee of finance had been appointed in 1797, for investigating public establishments, and sifting official abuses, as a ground-work for retrenchments in the national expenditure. For the same end,

Mr. Biddulph, February 10th, moved, in the house of commons, the appointment of a similar committee. Great advantages would result from an attentive perusal of the valuable documents of the former committee; the light which their labour and industry had thrown on the subject; and finally from the eventual good which the application of that infor. mation, assisted by the result of the intermediate time and circumstances must in any future inquiry produce. His motion would embrace every branch of the public expenditure. The powers he proposed to give to the committee, were the same as those granted to the committee of 1797. The pension-list was not referred to the committee of that tim neither would he have it expressly referred to the committee how proposed. But his motion, he gaid, would be framed in such a Tanner that the committee would be

enabled to attend to that branch of expenditure, as well as to every other. He concluded with moving, "That a committee be appointed to consider of what saving could be made by the reduction of useless places, sinecure offices, exorbitant fees, and every other retrenchment that could be made in the expendi ture of the public money."-Lord Folkstone, rose and said, that he had the honour to second the mo. tion.

Lord H. Petty said, that whatever difference of opinion there might ex ist between himself and the honour. able gentleman as to the words, there was a perfect coincidence of sentiment upon the grounds of the present motion, between the honourable gentleman, and not only himself, but all his majesty's mini. sters. In this they all concurred, that the strictest economy should be observed in the management of the public money; and that all places, offices, and pensions, should be reduced to the smallest charge, con. sistent with the proper administra. tion of the affairs of the nation. But if an union of sentiment prevailed so far, he hoped there would also be an union of sentiment upon another position, essential to the welfare and stability of government; which was this, that in every country there ought to be rewards for services performed; and that such rewards should form part of the establishment of all well-regulated governments. The only point then to be considered was, how far places and pensions were proper, and in what instances they had been allowed to run to excess, either through abuse or neglect. That such excess

Where the commander-in-chief of our forces was general Fax.

did formerly exist, he was perfectly aware; but he begged leave to remind the house, that during a course of twenty years, it had been a constant object to reduce and confine such places within their proper bocals. From an historical view of this kind of reform, from the commission of accounts established in the administration, in which a near and dear connexion of his (earl of Shelburue) bore a part, to the present period, he concluded that great progress had been made in destroying offices, and that there was a disposition in the government to prerent the unnece sary renewal of them.

But though little remained to be done, he did not contend that that 'ittle should remain undone. He was of opinion, that with a slight alteration in the words, the motion deserved the assent of the house. Ile proposed an alteration by which the motion, as amended, stood thus: "That a select committee be appointed to examine and consider what regulations and checks had been established in order to controul the several branches of the public expenditure in Great Britain and Ireland, and how far the same had been effectual; and what further measures could be adopted for redu. cing any part of the said expenditure, or diminishing the amount of salaries and emoluments, without detriment to the public service; and that they should report the same, with their observations thereupon, to the house.

Mr. Biddulph very readily acquiesced in the amendment; between which and the motion he had made, there was so little of substantial dif ference; and declared his sincere

satisfaction in the sentiments expressed by the chancellor of the ex, chequer. The sentiments of lord H. Petty, and the other ministers, on the propriety and necessity of œconomy, were also highly applauded by Mr. Fawkes (in a maiden speech), Mr. Ellison, and Mr. Calvert. The amendment was then agreed to, and the committee nominated, to whom were referred the reports of the committee of finance, and the com. missioners of accounts, and other reports of a similar nature.

The present age, that is, the last century, with what has passed and is passing of dus, may be called the age of finance. If a traveller from some distant country, altogether unacquainted with our banks and paper-credit, had put the question, what the house of commons were about, when they were so busily employed for so long a time, in the consideration of plans of finance; and been told that they were crea. ting money; he would doubtless have imagined that they were engaged in the business of coinage. The conventional value of gold and silver, had been abstracted from these solid metals, and transferred to paper, stamped with a promise; so that mo ney had come to be an operation of the mind, an act of faith not a substantial or material, but a metaphysical sort of thing, and so easily mul tiplied, that bank-notes in this coun try almost exceeded calculation. And in the beginning of A. D. 1797, so great was the demand on the bank of England for payment of its notes in specie, that the intervention of government was found to be neces sary for the preservation of public credit.*

This vast accumulation of circu.. lating

* Vide Vol. XXXIX, 1797, History of Europe, p. 178.

lating capital tended no doubt to money, on an average proportion rouse and enliven every branch of wages to necessaries for some year industry and species of adventure, back, than new inundations of bot and thereby contributed to the ge- metaphysical and metal money d neral wealth or clear revenue of the stroyed the balance. The number nation. But, it is not to be disgui. those who depended on relief from the sed, that it had a most pernicious parishes, had increased to an alarm influence on the condition of the ing degree. And the increase in th great mass of the poor labouring poors-rates was an enormous add people. Taxes on taxes without tion to the enormous taxes paid t end, for payment of the inte. government. The reduced state rest of loans on loans, gave birth to the common people was observabl such a profusion of those paper-signs to every one, and to those who hap of wealth, as occasioned also a rapid pened to return to London, or an decrease in its value. While idle other place, after an absence capitalists and stock-jobbers rolled twenty or thirty years, extremel in wealth, the lot of the lower clas- striking. A very great number ses of the people became harder and what are called tea-gardens, in th harder. The price of provisions and vicinity of the metropolis, were do all necessaries became higher and serted. The voice of joy and glac higher that is, the value of money ness was less heard in the village became less and less. This fall in And even among those who were n the value of money was rapid, but inclined to give vent to their feeling the rise in the price of labour, par. in murmurs and complaints, there wa ticularly agricultural labour, the an air of patient and sad resignation most valuable of any, and which These were among the evils flow employs so great a proportion of ing from the funding system, or the the population of the country, was of shifting off on the shoulders very slow. And no sooner was it posterity the burthen of the day raised, if indeed it ever was raised, which burthen, however, would, to a level with the depreciation of many instances, have been less,

*We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of wor but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes, the masters can ho out much longer than the labourers or workmen. A landlord, a farmer, a maste manufacturer, or merchant, though they did not employ a single labourer or wor man, could, generally, live a year or two upon the stocks which they have alrea acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a mont and scarcely any a year, without employment. In the long-run the workman 1. be as necessary to his master as his master is to him: but the necessity is not immediate---we rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, thou frequently of those of workmen. But, whoever imagines on this account, that m ters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are ways and every where in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate. To violate this combinati is everywhere a most unpopular action, and a sort of reproach to a master amo his neighbours and equals. We seldom indeed hear of this combination, beca it is the usual, and one may say the natural state of things, which nobody e hears of.-SMITH'S WEALTH OF NATIONS, book 1.

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