Note 61 — LUNÆ, 14° DIE JUNII, 1784.

In that Parliament the House of Commons by two several resolutions put an end to the American war. Immediately on the change of ministry which ensued, in order to secure their own independence, and to prevent the accumulation of new burdens on the people by the growth of a civil list debt, they passed the Establishment Bill. By that bill thirty-six offices tenable by members of Parliament were suppressed, and an order of payment was framed by which the growth of any fresh debt was rendered impracticable. The debt on the civil list from the beginning of the present reign had amounted to one million three hundred thousand pounds and upwards. Another act was passed for regulating the office of the Paymaster-General and the offices subordinate to it. A million of public money had sometimes been in the hands of the paymasters: this act prevented the possibility of any money whatsoever being accumulated in that office in future. The offices of the Exchequer, whose emoluments in time of war were excessive, and grew in exact proportion to the public burdens, were regulated,—some of them suppressed, and the rest reduced to fixed salaries. To secure the freedom of election against the crown, a bill was passed to disqualify all officers concerned in the collection of the revenue in any of its branches from voting in elections: a most important act, not only with regard to its primary object, the freedom of election, but as materially forwarding the due collection of revenue. For the same end, (the preserving the freedom of election,) the House rescinded the famous judgment relative to the Middlesex election, and expunged it from the journals. On the principle of reformation of their own House, connected with a principle of public economy, an act passed for rendering contractors with government incapable of a seat in Parliament. The India Bill (unfortunately lost in the House of Lords) pursued the same idea to its completion, and disabled all servants of the East India Company from a seat in that House for a certain time, and until their conduct was examined into and cleared. The remedy of infinite corruptions and of infinite disorders and oppressions, as well as the security of the most important objects of public economy, perished with that bill and that Parliament. That Parliament also instituted a committee to inquire into the collection of the revenue in all its branches, which prosecuted its duty with great vigor, and suggested several material improvements.