The nation had settled 800,000_l._ a year on the crown, as sufficient for the support of its dignity, upon the estimate of its own ministers.  When ministers came to Parliament, and said that this allowance had not been sufficient for the purpose, and that they had incurred a debt of 500,000_l._, would it not have been natural for Parliament first to have asked how, and by what means, their appropriated allowance came to be insufficient?  Would it not have savored of some attention to justice, to have seen in what periods of administration this debt had been originally incurred; that they might discover, and if need were, animadvert on the persons who were found the most culpable?  To put their hands upon such articles of expenditure as they thought improper or excessive, and to secure, in future, against such misapplication or exceeding?  Accounts for any other purposes are but a matter of curiosity, and no genuine Parliamentary object.  All the accounts which could answer any Parliamentary end were refused, or postponed by previous questions.  Every idea of prevention was rejected, as conveying an improper suspicion of the ministers of the crown.

When every loading account had been refused, many others were granted with sufficient facility.

But with great candor also, the House was informed, that hardly any of them could be ready until the next session; some of them perhaps not so soon.  But, in order firmly to establish the precedent of payment previous to account, and to form it into a settled rule of the House, the god in the machine was brought down, nothing less than the wonder-working law of Parliament.  It was alleged, that it is the law of Parliament, when any demand comes from the crown, that the House must go immediately into the committee of supply; in which committee it was allowed, that the production and examination of accounts would be quite proper and regular.  It was therefore carried, that they should go into the committee without delay, and without accounts, in order to examine with great order and regularity things that could not possibly come before them.  After this stroke of orderly and Parliamentary wit and humor, they went into the committee; and very generously voted the payment.

There was a circumstance in that debate too remarkable to be overlooked.  This debt of the civil list was all along argued upon the same footing as a debt of the state, contracted upon national authority.  Its payment was urged as equally pressing upon the public faith and honor; and when the whole year’s account was stated, in what is called the budget, the ministry valued themselves on the payment of so much public debt, just as if they had discharged 500,000_l._ of navy or exchequer bills.  Though, in truth, their payment, from the sinking fund, of debt which was never contracted by Parliamentary authority, was, to all intents and purposes, so much debt incurred.  But such is the present notion of public credit, and payment of debt.  No wonder that it produces such effects.