WILLIAM THE THIRD.

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life. The duties were formal and easy. The gains chap.were uncertain: for they rose and fell with the public~nf 9 srexpenditure: but they could hardly, in time of peace,and under the most economical administration, be lessthan four thousand pounds a year, and were likely, intime of war, to be more than double of that sum.Montague marked this great office for his own.- Hecould not indeed take it, while he continued to be incharge of the public purse. For it would have beenindecent, and perhaps illegal, that he should audit hisown accounts. He therefore selected his brother Chris-topher, whom he had lately made a Commissioner ofthe Excise, to keep the place for him. There was, asmay easily be supposed, no want of powerful and noblecompetitors for such a prize. Leeds had, more thantwenty years before, obtained from Charles the Seconda patent granting the reversion to Caermarthen. Godol-phin, it was said, pleaded a promise made by William.

But Montague maintained, and was, it seems, right inmaintaining, that both the patent of Charles and thepromise of William had been given under a mistake,and that the right of appointing the Auditor belonged,not to the Crown, but to the Board of Treasury.

He carried his point with characteristic audacity andcelerity. The news of the vacancy reached London ona Sunday. On the Tuesday the new Auditor was swornin. The ministers were amazed. Even the Chancellor,with whom Montague was on terms of intimate friend-Mucaulay, llislonj. IX. 13