After
this stroke of orderly and Parliamentary wit and humour, they went
into the Committee, and very generously voted the payment.
There was a circumstance in that debate too remarkable to be
overlooked. This debt of the Civil List was all along argued upon
the same footing as a debt of the State, contracted upon national
authority. Its payment was urged as equally pressing upon the
public faith and honour; and when the whole year's account was
stated, in what is called THE BUDGET, the Ministry valued themselves
on the payment of so much public debt, just as if they had
discharged 500,000 pounds of navy or exchequer bills. Though, in
truth, their payment, from the Sinking Fund, of debt which was never
contracted by Parliamentary authority, was, to all intents and
purposes, so much debt incurred. But such is the present notion of
public credit and payment of debt. No wonder that it produces such
effects.
Nor was the House at all more attentive to a provident security
against future, than it had been to a vindictive retrospect to past,
mismanagements. I should have thought indeed that a Ministerial
promise, during their own continuance in office, might have been
given, though this would have been but a poor security for the
public.
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