I would therefore leave to the crown the possibility of conferring some favors, which, whilst they are received as a reward, do not operate as corruption.  When men receive obligations from the crown, through the pious hands of fathers, or of connections as venerable as the paternal, the dependences which arise from thence are the obligations of gratitude, and not the fetters of servility.  Such ties originate in virtue, and they promote it.  They continue men in those habitudes of friendship, those political connections, and those political principles, in which they began life.  They are antidotes against a corrupt levity, instead of causes of it.  What an unseemly spectacle would it afford, what a disgrace would it be to the commonwealth that suffered such things, to see the hopeful son of a meritorious minister begging his bread at the door of that Treasury from whence his father dispensed the economy of an empire, and promoted the happiness and glory of his country!  Why should he be obliged to prostrate his honor and to submit his principles at the levee of some proud favorite, shouldered and thrust aside by every impudent pretender on the very spot where a few days before he saw himself adored,—­obliged to cringe to the author of the calamities of his house, and to kiss the hands that are red with his father’s blood?—­No, Sir, these things are unfit,—­they are intolerable.

Sir, I shall be asked, why I do not choose to destroy those offices which are pensions, and appoint pensions under the direct title in their stead.  I allow that in some cases it leads to abuse, to have things appointed for one purpose and applied to another.  I have no great objection to such a change; but I do not think it quite prudent for me to propose it.  If I should take away the present establishment, the burden of proof rests upon me, that so many pensions, and no more, and to such an amount each, and no more, are necessary for the public service.  This is what I can never prove; for it is a thing incapable of definition.  I do not like to take away an object that I think answers my purpose, in hopes of getting it back again in a better shape.  People will bear an old establishment, when its excess is corrected, who will revolt at a new one.  I do not think these office-pensions to be more in number than sufficient:  but on that point the House will exercise its discretion.  As to abuse, I am convinced that very few trusts in the ordinary course of administration have admitted less abuse than this.  Efficient ministers have been their own paymasters, it is true; but their very partiality has operated as a kind of justice, and still it was service that was paid.  When we look over this Exchequer list, we find it filled with the descendants of the Walpoles, of the Pelhams, of the Townshends,—­names to whom this country owes its liberties, and to whom his Majesty owes his crown.  It was in one of these lines that the immense and envied employment he now holds came