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rant to the clerk of the crown, to make out a new writ, for the electing of a burgess to serve in this present parliament, for the borough of Tavistock, in the county of Devon, in the room of the Right Hon. John Russell, commonly called Lord John Russell, now Duke of Bedford, called up to the House of Peers."

ARREARS OF THE CIVIL LIST.

March 29.

MR. Addington, the chancellor of the exchequer, having this day moved in a committee of supply, "That it is the opinion of this committee that a sum not exceeding 990,0531. be granted to his majesty to discharge the arrears and debts due and owing upon the civil list on the fifth of January 1802,"

Mr. Fox rose and said:- Sir, there is no man in this House less disposed than I feel myself, at any time, to find fault with such measures as may be conducive to the comfort, the splendour, and the dignity of every branch of the royal family; and particularly what may tend to the ease and happiness of the chief magistrate of the state, as far as I can reconcile such proceedings to the duty I owe to my own constituents in particular, and the general interests of the country. If it could be supposed that humour or temper were to govern any part of this discussion, the present is a moment in which I could have little disposition to indulge them. I have not been more than about four hours in town; and, since leaving my carriage, have heard of two articles of news than which I know of nothing of a public nature that could be more grateful to my feelings. The first is that in which every man, wishing well to his country, must rejoice, I mean the conclusion of the definitive treaty of peace with France; and the second, that it is the intention of the minister to move for the repeal of the income-tax, a tax the most oppressive, pernicious, and vexatious, that ever was imposed in any country; and tending more than any other to subvert that respect in which a good government ought always to be held by the people, and without which there can be very little security for its subsisting for any length of time. This, however, is a subject which is by no means connected with good or ill humour, and is solely dependent on what is consistent with our attachment to the throne, a proper view to the laws of the land, and the sacred principles of the British constitution.

However I may have been instructed or entertained by the right honourable gentleman, in the history he has given us of the civil list during the last century, I do not conceive it to have been precisely in point, or to bear strongly on the present question. My ideas upon that subject differ vastly from those which have been brought forward in this committee; nor can I conceive how any thing respecting the revenues of the crown, previously to the Revolution, has more analogy to the present civil list than what may be drawn from the remotest antiquity. The revenues of the crown before the event alluded to, compared with the present civil list, was as gold to silver. The king certainly possessed immense revenues in former times, totally independent of parliament: but for this revenue, what had he to do? He was to raise and maintain fleets and armies in times of war, as well as in peace. It was no private income of his own, as an individual, but a trust from the public. It is very true, that such revenue was not adequate to meet extraordinary occasions; and though the monarch was bound, at his own expence, to defend the country, and maintain the expences of wars, as well as civil government, in cases of necessity he applied to parliament for assistance. Whether that mode was preferable to that which has been since adopted, is a question not worth discussing at this moment; but I am free to confess, that I am a strong advocate in favour of the modern system. Now, however, that the House and the country provide for all the expences (and God knows they have been severe enough lately!) of our fleets and armies, the revenues allotted to the crown must necessarily be at the disposition, and subject to the controul of parliament. It would be a strange and absurd doctrine indeed, to maintain that the public should take upon itself all the expence, and leave the revenue precisely as it was before: such a doctrine is too monstrous to have met with any support even in the worst of times. Fortunately for us, some of our kings have been too improvident, by which they outran their incomes.

In treating of this question I do not wish to be severe; but I understand, that so much stress has lately been made on the claims which some persons suppose the crown ought still to have upon a part at least, if not the whole of the old hereditary revenue, that I cannot withhold expressing briefly my opinion on that subject. Were we now to allow the hereditary revenue to be the same as it was in former times, surely no gentleman could possibly say that it should be applied to the purposes of the civil list only. I admit that the revenue of James II. was two millions annually; but I

believe no one will venture to assert that it was granted only for civil-list purposes. From the time, however, that parliament exonerated the crown (for that is the fact) from the expence of levying and supporting fleets and armies, from that moment the hereditary revenues became the property of the public. It was so understood and so expressed on the election of William III. He could hold no hereditary revenue jure coronæ, for he was not the heir to the crown when he succeeded James II. I am aware that a great misunderstanding prevailed upon this subject, and perhaps continues to prevail; but we are not now infected with the superstitious notions imbibed by some persons of that day. We know that William III. ascended the throne, not by right, but by the choice and election of the people, and therefore had no rights jure coronæ, nor any other rights but such as had been covenanted. So of George III. He is not the heir of James II., but of William III.; nor has he any right to this hereditary revenue, unless we go back to the ancient and absolute rights of prescription. What did the parliament of William III. do? Instead of the hereditary revenue, they appropriated others for the civil list, to the amount of 700,000l. a year; and should they exceed that sum, the surplus was to be at the disposal of parliament. From the sum of 700,000l. they deducted 370,000l. for public services; decreed that the crown revenues should be under their own controul; and came to what I consider to have been a wise and salutary resolution, of granting it to him for life. The same practice has since been uniformly adopted at the commencement of every reign. I know perfectly well that there has been much difference of opinion on the question, whether it would not be better to make these grants of annual revenue from time to time. This doubt so far operated in the parliament of King William, that the provision was at first made temporary, but it was afterwards thought expedient that the provision should be for life. The same line of conduct was pursued on the accession of Queen Anne, and has been followed up in all the succeeding reigns. The right honourable gentleman has anticipated the answer which might be given to some parts of his statement. I know that it has been a mistake made, not by lawyers or other wellinformed persons, but by courtiers, that the hereditary revenue formed only a part of the revenue of the crown. From general recollection also (for I have not lately had much access to the Journals) I think that in the reign of Queen Anne an application was made to parliament in aid of the civil list, at a time when 800,000l. had been expended, though the grant was no more than 700,000l. Great stress has been

laid on the expences his majesty has been put to in consequence of his family: but let it be remembered, that there were equal incumbrances in the reign of George I.; that in the reign of George II. annuities to the Duke of Cumberland, the Princess Amelia, and the Dowager Princess of Wales, were charged upon the civil list to the amount of 100,000l. which, out of the grant of 700,000l. left only 600,000l. of actual revenue. It is true, that in that reign there were three applications to parliament for relieving the civil list; but I believe, and think I may say with some confidence, that the relief was effected by a two-penny tax on all pensions and salaries, which was, in fact, a mode of making the civil list supply and make good its own defalcations, without any additional burthens on the public. In the same reign there was a successful application to parliament at one particular period; but, if I mistake not, it was merely to make up the deficiency between the actual receipts of the revenue and 800,000l. which was about that time settled as the limit of the civil list. The right honourable gentleman has urged, that the civil list of his present majesty had been loaded with annuities to the Princess Amelia, the Duke of Cumberland, &c.; but if these were liens on the civil list in the present, they were equally so in the reign of George II. who had also to pay 100,000l. a year to the then Prince of Wales. These annuities continued from 1745 to 1760; the remainder of the civil list of his present majesty only for five; but George II. had paid them for the space of fifteen years. I mention this principally, because I do not esteem it altogether becoming in gentlemen to appear in this House, in the shape and manner of counsel, to depreciate the amount of the present revenues of the crown.

It is to be observed, that all those annuities which hung as incumbrances on the civil list of his present majesty, ceased in the year 1786; that to the Duke of Cumberland expired in 1765; that to the Dowager Princess of Wales in 1763; and that to the Princess Amelia in 1786; so that, in fact, the whole of them ceased before the debt now brought forward began to accumulate. The proposition, so much boasted of, which was made in the beginning of the present reign, would have been a good one, if properly followed up. By that proposal the king relinquished nothing, because, constitutionally, he had nothing to give up in point of right, there being no right in existence. All that was done may more properly be considered in the way of an exchange. His majesty, indeed, had a right to expect that parliament would make the same allowance to him that they did to his ancestors; but when a civil list of 800,000l. a year was granted

to his grandfather, it was implied that the excess, which was never very considerable, should be subject to the controul of parliament, and that he should possess no more income from the revenues of this country than what the parliament thought proper to allow him. The right honourable gentleman, in tracing the history of the civil list through the course of the present reign, might have called to mind, that it was settled under an administration composed of persons who were considered as his majesty's peculiar favourites. The Duke of Newcastle was then prime minister, and Lord Bute and the late Lord Chatham, secretaries of state. The right honourable gentleman seems to think the provision was less than it ought to be; but let me ask, is it to be believed that such an administration would ever have thought of proposing an inadequate revenue? But supposing they had done so, yet we must recollect, that the several annuities already mentioned were then so many incumbrances on the civil list; and yet we find that the debts it incurred in the first nine years amounted to no more than 500,000l. Though I was at that time a member of this House, I remember little of the discussion, and do not recollect that I was even present at the debate; but I recollect reading some pamphlets at that time published on the subject: one of these was written by a gentleman whose pursuits have since taken a more serious and holy turn-I mean Dr. Tucker, Dean of Gloucester, who treated the matter in a very facetious and good-humoured manner. In offering an apology for the proceedings, he said, that it was no extraordinary thing if a very young man, just come to his estate, and consequently not so prudent and economical as experience might in time teach him to be, and who had lately incurred the expences of matrimony, enhanced by fêtes, a coronation, installation, &c.—it was no very extraordinary thing if such a man, possessed of 800,000l. annually, should in nine years contract a debt of 500,000l. The debt first incurred was at the rate of 50,000l. a year beyond the income allotted. Parliament, it is true, consented to pay it; but, by doing so, acted, in the opinion of many persons, rather rashly. In the year 1777 the ministers came again with another demand; and it appeared that the debt had increased more within the eight years between 1769 and 1777, than it had done in the former nine years. The demand I now refer to was for the sum of 600,000l.; and though ministers were successful, yet the minority, which condemned the payment of the sum, was by no means insignificant in point of numbers, but still less so in respect to character and talents, as the committee will acknowledge when I enumerate among them Sir George Savile, Mr.

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