426 
To the Editor of theMonthly Magazine. 
Sim: 
N answer to the question suggested 
by your Correspondent Oxp Q. (p. 
300 of your preceding No.), relative 
to the rents of the Crown Lands; I 
avail myself of the earliest opportunity 
of stating that those rents do in their 
nature (though not in their immediate 
temporary operation) constitute, to their 
extent, an independent revenue, not of 
necessity subject to the vote of Parlia- 
ment. The Crown Lands are, in reality, 
the personally hereditary property of the 
Crown, and belong to the sovereign on 
his accession to the throne, by the same 
right of hereditary descent as that by 
which the throne itself, since the Act of 
Succession, belongs to him. Your corres- 
pondent is, therefore, right enough in 
his supposition, that if the reforming 
Henry VIII. had known as well how to 
clasp, as to grasp,—to retain, as to rap 
and rend, and had applied to /egitimate 
uses, (instead of wasting in prodigality, 
and squandering upon favourites), the 
orion which, in defence of the faith, 
is Protestant zeal replevied from the 
Church, he might have sworn “ by 
God’s fish,” and left every of his suc- 
cessors to swear by what fish or flesh he 
chose, that “he didnot care a wife’s head 
(which was perhaps about synonimous 
with a pinch of snuff) for the prating or 
the votes of Parliament :”—for he could 
not do without them. In other words, 
the Crown would have become so im- 
measurably the greatest landholder in 
the realm (having, perhaps, not less 
than one-third of the whole rent-roll of 
the kingdom at its absolute disposal,) 
that the rents alone of those lands 
would have rendered the king of Eng- 
land the most absolute and independent 
sovereign in. Europe—perhaps in. the 
whole world; and London might. have 
been at this time, if the sovereign had 
chosen to make it so, morally and po- 
litically, another Constantinople. But, 
thanks.to the royal virtues of profligate 
expense and illimitable profusion! the 
rent-roll of the Crown Lands remaining, 
is, at present, so scanty, that the re- 
venue thence deriyed, so far from being 
competent to the expense of governing 
a mighty and extended empire, would 
scarcely maintain the trappings of the 
petty court of the pettiest German or 
Italian principality. Thus, the Crown, 
on the one hand, being obliged to have 
recourse to the liberality of Parlia- 
ment, and the Parliament, on the other, 
haying hitherto. preserved a laudable 
jealousy on the score of this pecuniary 
Crown Lands. 
(June I, 
dependence, it has become an es- 
tablished usage for the king, on his ac- 
cession, to surrender the proceeds 
of his hereditary possessions to the 
conservators of the state; and to re- 
ceive, in lieu thereof, such revenue 
by the vote of Parliament as might be 
deemed sufficient for the due mainte- 
nance of. his state and dignity. So that 
the king, for the time: being, has, in 
reality, no personal revenue from the 
Crown Lands; nor any immediate or 
personal interest in the increase or 
diminution of the rent-roll of the 
same. If, therefore, the ground rent 
of such portion of these lands as may 
be covered by the new streets, &c. were 
increased fifty fold,* His Majesty, 
George the Fourth, would not be one 
stiver the more rich in independent or 
personal revenue. The Whiggish, or 
Republican jealousy of Old Q. may, 
therefore, thus far at least, be set com- 
pletely to rest. Yet is the subject not 
unworthy of consideration, and I wish 
it were in my power to answer, with 
any correctness, even so much ‘of 
your correspondent’s further inquiry 
as relates to the present amount of the 
augmentation If any of your statis- 
tical communicants could furnish the 
facts and documents by which this in- 
quiry might be illustrated, no doubt 
it would be conferring an obligation on 
the public: for what has begun upon 
one part of these Crown Lands may in 
time be extended to others; and the 
proceeds of these might in some jobbing 
and accommodating hour become ap- 
plied to the redemption of such as had 
from time to time been alienated. As the 
aforesaid bargain, between the king and- 
the parliament, is only personal, and 
renewed from reign to reign, one infer- 
ence appears to be obvious, namely, that 
in proportion to the increased value of 
what is to be surrendered, the expec- 
tation of what is to be received in re- 
turn, may, speciously: enough, be ex- 
tended; while, at the same time, as it is 
to be remembered ‘that, in the political 
as well as the physical universe, “ from 
small beginnings mighty streams may 
rise,” so it is at least worthy of politi- 
cal forethought, what probability, or 
possibility, of a progress towards an 
independent royal revenue might be 
deducible from such sources.—I am, 
Sir, your’s, &c. Purto Oxp Q. 
Temple, 16th May, 1825. 
* We are informed ‘that, in some in- 
stances, it has been increased fully to this 
amount.—Ep. 
nett 
