"most dangerous and offensive, which ought to be at once and for ever abolished, because it corrupted the manners of the people." It appeared from Lord John Cavendish's own statement that £94,000 had been allotted among the clerks in the different public offices. He also adumbrated a plan for a new sinking fund, in which the hand of Dr. Price may be recognized, containing the ideas which Pitt subsequently rendered familiar to the public mind, and had already made his own in a speech on the 11th of April.
The debate on this occasion gave Shelburne an opportunity of vindicating his own recent conduct against the imputations freely levelled at him in the House of Commons by Burke, to the effect that the promises of reform contained in the King's speech had been made only to delude the public. "With regard to the argument," he said, "that he had lost the confidence of the House of Commons, he did not believe it, but let the House of Commons beware or they would lose his confidence. With regard to himself, he had gone out of office holding up his head higher than those who came in, and he now thanked God that he remained independent of all parties. With regard to the promises in the King's speech, they had begun to be fulfilled; the Custom House Bill, a very essential reform, had been already presented to the House of Commons; other great and essential forms of economy were ripening, and would soon have been matured had he and his friends continued in office. The Admiralty department was, he must own, the least active of any great department, with a view to reform. He declared he meant no attack; but such was the fact. With regard to the question so often put 'Why did not the last Administration make the loan,' the truth was, the loan was to have been brought in the very next week after the resolution upon the peace had passed the House of Commons."[1]
This was the last appearance of Shelburne in public for some time. Shortly afterwards he went abroad, after
- ↑ Parliamentary History, xxiii. 824.
