inculcates form its greatest perfection:-it teacheth that sloth and vice may eat that bread which virtue and honesty may starve for after they had earned it. It teaches the idle and dissolute to look up for that support which they are too proud to stoop and earn. It directs the minds of men to an entire reliance on the ruling power of the state, who feeds the ravens of the royal aviary, that cry continually for food. It teaches them to imitate those saints on the pension list that are like lilies of the field -they toil not, neither do they spin, but they are arrayed like Solomon in his glory. In fine, it teaches a lesson which indeed they might have learned from Epictetus-that it is sometimes good not to be over virtuous; it shows, that in proportion as our distresses increase, the munificence of the crown increases also in proportion as our clothes are rent, the royal mantle is extended over us.

But notwithstanding the pension list, like charity, covers a multitude of sins, give me leave to consider it as coming home to the members of this house-give me leave to say, that the crown in extending its charity, its liberality, its profusion, is laying a foundation for the independence of parliament; for hereafter, instead of orators or patriots accounting for their conduct to such mean and unworthy persons as free-holders, they will learn to despise them, and look to the first man in the state; and they will by so doing have this security for their independence, that while any man in the kingdom has a shilling, they will not want one.

Suppose at any future period of time the boroughs of Ireland should decline from their presert flourishing and prosperous state -suppose they should fall into the hands of men who would wish to drive a profitable commerce, by having members of parliament to hire or let; in such a case a secretary would find great difficulty if the proprietors of members should enter into a combination to form a monopoly; to prevent which in time, the wisest way is to purchase up the raw material, young members of parliament, just rough from the grass; and when they are a little bitted, and he has got a pretty stud, perhaps of seventy, he may laugh at the slave merchant: some of them he may teach to sound through the nose, like a barrel organ; some, in the course of a few months might be taught to cry hear! hear! some, chair! chair! upon occasion; though these latter might create a little confusion, if they were to forget whether they called inside or outside of

those doors. Again, he might have some so trained that he need only pull a string, and up gets a repeating member; and if they were so dull that they could neither speak nor make orations, (for they are different things) he might have them taught to dance, pedibus ire in sententia.—This improvement might be extended; he might have them dressed in coats and shirts all of one colour, and of a Sunday he might march them to church two by two, to the great edification of the people and the honour of the christian religion; afterwards, like the ancient Spartans, or the fraternity at Kilmainham, they might dine all together in a large hall. Good heaven! what a sight to see them feeding in public upon public viands, and talking of public subjects for the benefit of the public. It is a pity they are not immortal; but I hope they will flourish as a corporation, and that pensioners will beget pensioners to the end of the chapter.

SPEECH OF MR. CURRAN,

ON PENSIONS.

HOUSE OF COMMONS, MONDAY, MARCH 12th, 1787.

MR. FORBES presented a bill to limit pensions; it was read a first time he then moved, that it be read a second time on the following day; this was opposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who moved, that the bill should be read a second time on the first of August.

MR. CURRAN said, he felt too much respect for the excellent mover of the bill, and too strong a sense of the necessity of the measure, to give it only a silent support. He rejoiced, he said, in the virtuous perseverance of his honourable friend in labouring for the establishment of our constitution, by securing the independence of parliament. He would offer some reasons in defence of the bill, though he felt the full force of the policy adopted by administration, to make any attempt of that kind either ridiculous or impossible. He observed the gentlemen, he said, consulting whether to bury the question under a mute majority, or whether to make a sham opposition to it by setting up the old gladiator of administration, new polished and painted for the field. They expected, he supposed, that men should shrink in silence and disgust from such a competition. He would, he said, defend the principle of the bill on the grounds of economy, but still more of constitution. He adverted to the frame of our civil state, it depended on an exact balance of its parts, but he said, from our peculiar situation, that equipoise on which our liberty depends must be continually losing ground, and the power of the crown continually increasing. A single individual can be vigilant and active, improving every occasion of extending his power; the

people are not so, they are divided in sentiment, in interest without union, and therefore without co-operation, and from the necessity of bringing the constitution frequently back to its first principles; but this, he said, was doubly necessary to do by law in a country where a long system of dividing the people had almost extinguished that public mind, that public vigilance and jealousy, with which the conduct of the crown was watched over in Great Britain. But further, he said, it was rendered necessary by the residence of our king in another country.—His authority must be delegated first to a viceroy, and next it fell to a secretary, who could have no interest in the good of the people; no interest in future fame, no object to attract him but the advancement of his dependants. Then, he said, the responsibility that binds an English king to moderation and frugality was lost here in the confusion of persons, or in their insignificance. This, he said, might be deemed an unusual language in that house, but assured the right honourable secretary, he did not speak with any view of disturbing his personal feelings; he did not admire, nor would he imitate the cruelty of the Sicilian tyrant who amused himself with putting insects to the torture; he was therefore stating facts. What responsibility, said he, can be found or hoped for in an English secretary? Estimate them fairly, not according to the adulation that lifts them into a ridiculous importance while they are among you, or the as unmerited contumely that is heaped upon them by disappointment and shame when they leave you. But what have they been in fact?-why, a succession of men, sometimes with heads, sometimes with hearts, oftener with neither.

But as to the present right honourable secretary, he said, it was peculiarly ridiculous to talk of his responsibility or his economy, to the people: his economy was only to be found in reducing the scanty pittance which profusion had left for the encouragement of our manufactures; or in withholding from the undertakers of a great national object, that encouragement that had been offered them on the express faith of parliament; unless, perhaps, it were to be looked for in the pious plan of selling the materials of houses of religious worship on a principle of economy. But where will you look, said he, for his responsibility as a minister? You will remember his commercial propositions. They were proposed to this country on his responsibility. You

cannot forget the exhibition he made; you cannot have yet lost his madrigal on reciprocity: but what was the event? He went to Great Britain with ten propositions, and he returned with double the number, disclaimed and abandoned by those to whom he belonged, and shorn of every pretension to responsibility. But look for it in the next leading feature of his administration.

We gave an addition of 140,000l. in taxes, on the express compact and condition of confining expense within the limits of revenue. Already has that compact been shamefully evaded: but what says the responsible gentleman? Why he stood up in his place, and had the honest confidence boldly to deny the fact. Now, said he, I should be glad to ask who that right honourable gentleman is? Is he the whole house of commons? If he be, he proposed the compact. Is he the king? he accepted it by his viceroy. Is he the viceroy? he accepted by himself. In every character that could give such a compact either credit, or dignity, or stability, he has either proposed or ratified it; in what character then does the right honourable gentleman deny it? why, in his own; in that of a right honourable gentleman. Can any man then, said he, be so silly as to think that so barefaced a spirit of profusion can be stopped by any thing less than a law?-Or can any man point out any ground on which we can confide in the right honourable gentleman's affection to the interest or even the peace of this country? At a time when we are told that the people are in a state of tumult little short of rebellion, when you ought to wish to send an angel to recall the people to their duty, and restore the credit of the laws, what does he do? he keeps three judicial places, absolute, vacant, or sinecure places, as if in this country not officers, but offices are to become superannuated; and he sends the commission with a job tacked to it, to be displayed in the very scene of this supposed confusion.-Would this contemptuous trifling with the public be borne in Great Britain? No, sir; but what the substance of an English minister, with all his talents, would not dare to attempt in that country, his fetch is able to achieve, and with impunity, in this.

But a right honourable member opposes the principle of the bill, as being in restraint of the royal bounty. I agree with him in this sentiment, but I differ from this argument. It becomes the dignity and humanity of a generous people to leave it in the