ANNO 1834.]

ORDER OF THE BATH.

181

the Crown should pay for them. The Resolution was agreed to; and a Billwas ordered to be brought in by Mr. Bernal, Mr. Secretary Stanley,and the Chancellor of the Exchequer . 1

Notwithstanding these Proceedings, and the general feeling of the Houseof Commons, that the system of paying the Officers by Fees was highlyimproper, and ought to be abolished, this attempt to place the Order on aproper foundation was entirely abandoned. Whether the effort was relinquishedin consequence of the apparent unwillingness of the House to compensate theOfficers, or for other reasons, it is certain that nothing more was done; andthe Order still remains in the same discreditable state as when it was madethe subject of a special Message from the Crown to Parliament.

On the 3rd of March 1834, John Ponsonby, second Lord Ponsonby ofImokilly (since created Viscount Ponsonby), Ambassador Extraordinary andPlenipotentiary at the Sublime Ottoman Porte, was nominated a Civil KnightGrand Cross; and he was both Invested and Installed by Dispensation soonafterwards. On the 16th of April, the Sovereign honoured the Knights GrandCross and Officers of the Order by receiving them at a State Dinner, inSt. James’s Palace. The next appointment to the Order was attended withsome anomalies. Lieutenant-General Sir Herbert Taylor, Knight Grand Crossof the Order of the Guelphs, Private Secretary to the King, was nominateda Military Knight Grand Cross on the 16th of April; and on the 23rd of thatmonth he was Invested, and on the same day Installed by Dispensation. Buthe had never been a Knight Commander, nor had he distinguished himselfagainst the Enemy, as a General Officer; and no other deviation from theRegulation of 1815 had occurred, except in the instance of the Marquess ofHastings, 2 who was, however, Commander-in-Chief of an Army, and had gainedthe Distinction in the Field. It is obvious, therefore, that the precedent ofLord Bloomfield, in April 1822, should have been followed, by appointingSir Herbert Taylor to the Civil class, and which would have been only a justreward for his long and faithful services to His Sovereign and the RoyalFamily. On the 23rd of May 1834, Field-Marshal His Imperial Highnessthe Archduke Charles of Austria, was nominated an Honorary Knight GrandCross; and on the 19th of August, the Honorary Knight Commander,

1 Mirror of Parliament, vol. II. pp. 1088, 1123—1129, 1175.

2 Vide Art. XIV. p. 129, antea.