I admit, that, when called to account for the
execution of a trust, he might fairly be obliged to prove the
affirmative, and to state the merit for which the pension is given,
though on the pensioner himself such a process would be hard. If in this
examination we proceed methodically, and so as to avoid all suspicion of
partiality and prejudice, we must take the pensions in order of time,
or merely alphabetically. The very first pension to which we come, in
either of these ways, may appear the most grossly unmerited of any. But
the minister may very possibly show that he knows nothing of the putting
on this pension; that it was prior in time to his administration; that
the minister who laid it on is dead: and then we are thrown back upon
the pensioner himself, and plunged into all our former difficulties.
Abuses, and gross ones, I doubt not, would appear, and to the correction
of which I would readily give my hand: but when I consider that pensions
have not generally been affected by the revolutions of ministry; as I
know not where such inquiries would stop; and as an absence of merit is
a negative and loose thing;--one might be led to derange the order of
families founded on the probable continuance of their kind of income; I
might hurt children; I might injure creditors;--I really think it the
more prudent course not to follow the letter of the petitions. If we fix
this mode of inquiry as a basis, we shall, I fear, end as Parliament has
often ended under similar circumstances.
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