payment is to no rational purpose an account. However, the House of
Commons thought all these to be antiquated principles; they were of
opinion that the most Parliamentary way of proceeding was, to pay
first what the Court thought proper to demand, and to take its
chance for an examination into accounts at some time of greater
leisure.

The nation had settled 800,000 pounds a year on the Crown, as
sufficient for the purpose of its dignity, upon the estimate of its
own Ministers. When Ministers came to Parliament, and said that
this allowance had not been sufficient for the purpose, and that
they had incurred a debt of 500,000 pounds, would it not have been
natural for Parliament first to have asked, how, and by what means,
their appropriated allowance came to be insufficient? Would it not
have savoured of some attention to justice, to have seen in what
periods of Administration this debt had been originally incurred;
that they might discover, and if need were, animadvert on the
persons who were found the most culpable? To put their hands upon
such articles of expenditure as they thought improper or excessive,
and to secure, in future, against such misapplication or exceeding?
Accounts for any other purposes are but a matter of curiosity, and
no genuine Parliamentary object. All the accounts which could
answer any Parliamentary end were refused, or postponed by previous
questions. Every idea of prevention was rejected, as conveying an
improper suspicion of the Ministers of the Crown.

When every leading account had been refused, many others were
granted with sufficient facility.

But with great candour also, the House was informed, that hardly any