of them could be ready until the next session; some of them perhaps
not so soon. But, in order firmly to establish the precedent of
PAYMENT PREVIOUS TO ACCOUNT, and to form it into a settled rule of
the House, the god in the machine was brought down, nothing less
than the wonder-working LAW OF PARLIAMENT. It was alleged, that it
is the law of Parliament, when any demand comes from the Crown, that
the House must go immediately into the Committee of Supply; in which
Committee it was allowed, that the production and examination of
accounts would be quite proper and regular. It was therefore
carried that they should go into the Committee without delay, and
without accounts, in order to examine with great order and
regularity things that could not possibly come before them. 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