Note 6 — Chapter XV · TRAFALGAR

Though I do not undertake to give a full account of the Commissions and their Reports, I will take leave to say a few words as to the general impression an examination of them has left on me. There was waste due:—1st, to the division of responsibility between the Admiralty Board and the Navy Office; 2nd, to the survival of the old belief that a man in a Government office committed no mortal sin if he “licked his fingers”; 3rd, to the fact that while the work of the Admiralty and Navy Board had increased enormously since 1793, there had been no proportionate increase in the administering and supervising staff. Pitt, who long clung to the belief that France would be reduced to submission by financial distress, and was by nature a rigid economist, was unwilling to add to the permanent expenses of Government, and accounts remained unchecked and unbalanced for want of hands to do the work. Money was lost, because expenditure could not be followed, and checked. Fallen mankind availed itself of the opportunity. Big men kept public money lying at their bankers, who gave them interest for it. Little men drew pay for work they never did. Contractors took illegitimate profits. All this was bad, but it may all be conceded, and yet we may find that we cannot accept the wholesale denunciations of the Navy Board made by St. Vincent, and by his men, notably his sycophantic secretary, Tucker. Such a story as that of the illegal—at least the tyrannical—impressment of D. E. Bartholomew speaks very ill for the spirit prevailing in the men about St. Vincent, and for him. The notorious case of Sir Home Popham is even worse. Sir Home was accused of having wasted public money on the repair of his ship in India. He was very capable of taking care of himself, and he forced an inquiry. It was proved to demonstration that in the accounts on which the accusation brought against him was based, the same sums had been counted several times over, and some of them were given in pounds sterling, and not in the correct currency—rupees. The total was in fact multiplied by ten, and a legitimate outlay of £7000 was swollen, either by deliberate dishonesty, or by carelessness amounting to dishonest negligence, to an enormous figure. How many officials were denounced on no better grounds than Sir Home Popham? No man is so unscrupulous in accusation as a passionate reformer convinced of his own virtue, unless it be a follower eager to earn the approval of his reforming patron by a display of zeal.