Note 10 — General Introduction.

The following facts will shew, in some degree, how this change has been brought about.—For ten years ending Aug. 1, 1717 (a period comprehending in it a general war abroad; and the demise of the crown, the establishment of a new family, and an open rebellion at home) the money expended in secret services amounted only to 279,444l.—For TEN YEARS ending Feb. 11, 1742, it amounted to no less a sum than 1.384,600; of which 50,077l. was paid to printers of News-papers and writers for government; and a greater sum expended, in the last six weeks of these ten years, than had been spent in three years before Aug. 1710.—See the Report of the Committee appointed March 23, 1742, to enquire into the conduct of Robert Earl of Orford, printed in the Journals of the House of Commons, vol. 24, p. 295, 296, 300.—One passage, in this report, contains remarks, so much to my present purpose and so important, that I cannot help copying it.—“There are no laws particularly adapted to the case of a minister who clandestinely employs the money of the public, and the whole power and profitable employments that attend the collecting and disposing of it, against the people: And, by this profusion and criminal distribution of offices, in some measure justifies the expence that particular persons are obliged to be at, by making it necessary to the preservation of all that is valuable to a free nation. For in that case, the contest is plain and visible. It is, whether the Commons shall retain the third state in their own hands; while this whole dispute is carried on at the expence of the people, and, on the side of the minister, out of the money granted to support and secure the constitutional independence of the three branches of the legislature.—This method of corruption is as sure, and, therefore, as criminal a way of subverting the constitution as by an armed force. It is a crime, productive of a total destruction of the very being of this government; and is so high and unnatural, that nothing but the powers of parliament can reach it; and, as it never can meet with parliamentary animadversion but when it is unsuccessful, it must seek for its security in the extent and efficacy of the mischief it produces.” P. 395. The obstructions which this committee met with in their enquiry proved that the crime they here describe in such emphatical language, had even then obtained that very security, in the extent of the mischief it produced, which, they observe, it was under a necessity of seeking.