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. Mr. Pelham gave such an assurance, and he kept his word.
But nothing was capable of extorting from our Ministers anything
which had the least resemblance to a promise of confining the
expenses of the Civil List within the limits which had been settled
by Parliament. This reserve of theirs I look upon to be equivalent
to the clearest declaration that they were resolved upon a contrary
course.

However, to put the matter beyond all doubt, in the Speech from the
Throne, after thanking Parliament for the relief so liberally
granted, the Ministers inform the two Houses that they will
ENDEAVOUR to confine the expenses of the Civil Government--within
what limits, think you? those which the law had prescribed? Not in
the least--"such limits as the HONOUR OF THE CROWN can possibly
admit."

Thus they established an arbitrary standard for that dignity which
Parliament had defined and limited to a legal standard. They gave
themselves, under the lax and indeterminate idea of the HONOUR OF
THE CROWN, a full loose for all manner of dissipation, and all
manner of corruption. This arbitrary standard they were not afraid
to hold out to both Houses; while an idle and inoperative Act of
Parliament, estimating the dignity of the Crown at 800,000 pounds,
and confining it to that sum, adds to the number of obsolete
statutes which load the shelves of libraries without any sort of
advantage to the people.