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circumstances relating to that subject, which I wish to have better known among us.
[1]The revenue of the crown there arises principally from the Excise granted “for pay of the army, and defraying other public charges, in defence and preservation of the kingdom”---from the tonnage and additional poundage granted “for protecting the trade of the kingdom at sea, and augmenting the public revenue”---from the hearth money granted---as a “public revenue, for public charges and expences.” There are some other branches of the revenue, concerning which there is not any express appropriation of them for public service, but which were plainly so intended.
Of these branches of the revenue the crown is only trustee for the public. They are unalienable. They are inapplicable to any other purposes, but those for which they were established; and therefore are not legally chargeable with pensions.
There is another kind of revenue, which is a private revenue. This is not limited to any public uses; but the crown has the same property in it, that any person has in his estate. This does not amount, at the most, to Fifteen Thousand Pounds a year, probably not to Seven, and is the only revenue, that can be legally charged with pensions.
If ministers were accustomed to regard the rights or happiness of the people, the pensions in Ireland would not exceed the sum just mentioned: But long since have they exceeded that limit; and in December 1765, a motion was made in the house of commons
- ↑ An enquiry into the legality of pensions on the Irish establishment, by Alexander M‘Aulay, Esq; one of the King’s council, &c.
Mr. M‘Aulay concludes his piece in the following beautiful manner. “If any pensions have been obtained on that establishment, to serve the corrupt purposes of ambitious men.----If his Majesty’s revenues of Ireland have been employed in pensions, to debauch his Majesty’s subjects of both kingdoms.----If the treasure of Ireland has been expended in pensions, for corrupting men of that kingdom to betray their country; and men of the neighbouring kingdom, to betray both.---If Irish pensions have been procured, to support gamesters and gaming-houses; promoting a vice which threatens national ruin.---If pensions have been purloined out of the national treasure of Ireland, under the mask of salaries annexed to public offices, useless to the nation; newly invented, for the purposes of corruption.---If Ireland, just beginning to recover from the devastations of massacre and rebellion, be obstructed in the progress of her cure, by swarms of pensionary vultures preying on her vitals.---If, by squandering the national substance of Ireland, in a licentious, unbounded profusion of pensions, instead of employing it in nourishing and improving her infant agriculture, trade and manufactures, or in enlightening and reforming her poor, ignorant, deluded, miserable natives (by nature most amiable, most valuable, most worthy of public attention)-----If, by such abuse of the national substance, sloth and nastiness, cold and hunger, nakedness and wretchedness, popery, depopulation and barbarism, still maintain their ground; still deform a country, abounding with all the riches of nature, yet hitherto destined to beggary.---If such pensions be found on the Irish establishment; let such be cut off: And let the perfidious advisers be branded with indelible characters of public infamy; adequate, if possible, to the dishonor of their crime.”
