•WILLIAM AND MART.

235

lawful remuneration. In this rvay it would have been possibleto diminish the public burdens, and at the same time to in- ■crease the efficiency of every public department. But unfortu-nately those who were loudest in clamouring against the pre-vailing abuses were utterly destitute of the qualities necessaryfor the work of reform. On the twelfth of December, somefoolish man, whose name has not come down to us, moved thatno person employed in any civil office, the Speaker, Judgesand Ambassadors excepted, should receive more than five hun-dred pounds a year; and this motion was not only carried, butcarried without one dissentient voice.* Those who were mostinterested in opposing it doubtless saw that opposition would,at that moment, only irritate the majority, and reserved them-selves for a more favourable time. The more favourable timesoon came. No man of common sense could, when his bloodhad cooled, remember without shame that he had voted for aresolution which made no distinction between sinecurists andlaborious public servants, between clerks employed in copyingletters and ministers on whose wisdom and integrity the fate ofthe nation might depend. The salary of the Doorkeeper of theExcise Office had been, by a scandalous job, raised to five hun-dred a year. It ought to have been reduced to fifty. On theother hand, the services of a Secretary of State who was wellqualified for his post would have been cheap at five thousand.If the resolution of the Commons had been carried into effect,both the salary which ought not to have exceeded fifty pounds,and the salary which might without impropriety have amountedto five thousand, would have been fixed at five hundred. Suchabsurdity must have shocked even the roughest and plainestfoxhunter in the House. A reaction took place; and when,after an interval of a few weeks, it was proposed to insert in abill of supply a clause in conformity with the resolution of the* Commons’ Journals, Deo. 12. 169}.

CHAP.

XVIII.

1G91.