$20} ANNUAL REGISTER, 1490..’ 
our inquiry has gone, for the officers 
in thefe departments to be them- 
felves the proprictors of, or to have 
fharcs or intereits in, a great number 
of the veflels and {mall craft, and in 
almoft all the waggons and horfes, 
employed in thefe fervices: thefe of- 
ficers have purchafed or procured 
them upon their own account, and 
Jet them out to gdVernment at the 
fixed prices of hire; the fame per- 
fon, employed by and acting for the 
public, contracts, on the part of the 
public, with himfelf, for the hire of 
hisown property, controls his own 
actions, and pays himfelf with the 
pubhc money intrutted to his charge: 
his truft and intereft draw oppotite 
ways: his truft obliges him, to be 
frugal for the public; to hire at the 
loweft price (lower, if he can, than 
the price allowed by government) ; 
to take care that what he hires ts 
compleatand fit for fervice; to em- 
ploy as few veffels and carriages, 
nd for as fort a time as poflible: 
but his intereft leads him not to 
fpare the public purfe; to let to go- 
vernment, at the fame fixed price, 
all the veflels, carriages, and horfes, 
he can collec, by whatever means 
procured, or at however Jow a price 
ke may have purchafed them, and 
whatever may be their condition or 
difference in point of goodnefs; to 
keep them continually in pay, whe- 
ther wanted, or employed; or not, 
and for as long a time as he can 
contrive; and his laft advantage 
may be, the fuffering them to be 
taken ordeftroyed by the enemy, to 
entitle him to the value from the 
public. .In fuch a conteft between 
duty and intereft, it is not unchari- 
table to fuppofe the public intereft 
will frequently be facrificed to pri- 
vatéemolument. But this is not the 
enly mifchief : this practice has:a 
a 
manifeft tendency to corrupt and ert} 
danger the fervice of the army; it 
weakens the military difcipline, it 
infufes into the foldier the thirft for 
gain, and diverts his attention from 
honour and his co&ntry’s fervice, to 
the purfuit of wealth, and that too 
by intrenching upon the treafure of 
his country. 
We do not mean to fuggeft thefe 
as impofitions, that have all been 
actually committed upon the public, 
but as confequences that will follow; 
whenever the temptation is powerful 
enough to overcome the fenfe of 
duty, and where the opportunities of 
yielding to the temptation are {6 
frequent and fo obvious. 
_ AMthefe officers would hardly 
have engaged in bufinefs of this 
kind, without the expettation at 
leaft of fome advantage (for they 
had no additional pay for being 
employed in the expenditure) we 
were led to enquire into the expence 
incurred by the public for this arti- 
cle of hire, and from thence to en= 
deavour to form fome judgment 
upon the probable advantage to the 
officers 
We obtained from captain David 
Laird, a lift of all the veffels, under 
whatever denomination, employed 
in the fervice of the army in North 
America, from the rf of January 
1777, when he was appointed fuper2 
intendant of the veffels, until the 
end of December 1780, when he: 
quitted the fervice; with the name 
of each veflél, and of the maftér or . 
owner, the number of tons, tlie price . 
per ton, the time when hired, the 
time when difcharged, and in what 
department employed. From this lift 
it appears, that the number of veflels 
employed at different times, during 
the above period, in the department 
ef the quarter mafter genesal, was 
thres 
