After this proceeding, I suppose that no man can be so weak as to
think that the Crown is limited to any settled allowance whatsoever.
For if the Ministry has 800,000 pounds a year by the law of the
land, and if by the law of Parliament all the debts which exceed it
are to be paid previous to the production of any account, I presume
that this is equivalent to an income with no other limits than the
abilities of the subject and the moderation of the Court--that is to
say, it is such in income as is possessed by every absolute Monarch
in Europe. It amounts, as a person of great ability said in the
debate, to an unlimited power of drawing upon the Sinking Fund. Its
effect on the public credit of this kingdom must be obvious; for in
vain is the Sinking Fund the great buttress of all the rest, if it
be in the power of the Ministry to resort to it for the payment of
any debts which they may choose to incur, under the name of the
Civil List, and through the medium of a committee, which thinks
itself obliged by law to vote supplies without any other account
than that of the more existence of the debt.

Five hundred thousand pounds is a serious sum. But it is nothing to
the prolific principle upon which the sum was voted--a principle
that may be well called, THE FRUITFUL MOTHER OF A HUNDRED MORE.
Neither is the damage to public credit of very great consequence
when compared with that which results to public morals and to the
safety of the Constitution, from the exhaustless mine of corruption
opened by the precedent, and to be wrought by the principle of the
late payment of the debts of the Civil List. The power of
discretionary disqualification by one law of Parliament, and the
necessity of paying every debt of the Civil List by another law of
Parliament, if suffered to pass unnoticed, must establish such a