will no longer reign over the families of those who hold or have held them.  I propose that these offices should be no longer banks or treasuries, but mere offices of administration.  I propose, first, that the present paymaster and the treasurer of the navy should carry into the Exchequer the whole body of the vouchers for what they have paid over to deputy-paymasters, to regimental agents, or to any of those to whom they have and ought to have paid money.  I propose that those vouchers shall be admitted as actual payments in their accounts, and that the persons to whom the money has been paid shall then stand charged in the Exchequer in their place.  After this process, they shall be debited or charged for nothing but the money-balance that remains in their hands.

I am conscious, Sir, that, if this balance (which they could not expect to be so suddenly demanded by any usual process of the Exchequer) should now be exacted all at once, not only their ruin, but a ruin of others to an extent which I do not like to think of, but which I can well conceive, and which you may well conceive, might be the consequence.  I told you, Sir, when I promised before the holidays to bring in this plan, that I never would suffer any man or description of men to suffer from errors that naturally have grown out of the abusive constitution of those offices which I propose to regulate.  If I cannot reform with equity, I will not reform at all.

For the regulation of past accounts, I shall therefore propose such a mode, as men, temperate and prudent, make use of in the management of their private affairs, when their accounts are various, perplexed, and of long standing.  I would therefore, after their example, divide the public debts into three sorts,—­good, bad, and doubtful.  In looking over the public accounts, I should never dream of the blind mode of the Exchequer, which regards things in the abstract, and knows no difference in the quality of its debts or the circumstances of its debtors.  By this means it fatigues itself, it vexes others, it often crushes the poor, it lets escape the rich, or, in a fit of mercy or carelessness, declines all means of recovering its just demands.  Content with the eternity of its claims, it enjoys its Epicurean divinity with Epicurean languor.  But it is proper that all sorts of accounts should be closed some time or other,—­by payment, by composition, or by oblivion. Expedit reipublicae ut sit finis litium.  Constantly taking along with me, that an extreme rigor is sure to arm everything against it, and at length to relax into a supine neglect, I propose, Sir, that even the best, soundest, and the most recent dents should be put into instalments, for the mutual benefit of the accountant and the public.