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HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
cur in making every necessary pro- 
Vision in a constitutional manner. 
~ Ministry justified the measure, as 
proceeding from absolute and im- 
mediate necessity. “Troops, when 
encamped, were usually turnished 
with bread at a reduced price, on 
the principle that government could 
provide it at a cheaper rate than 
soldiers could buy it : from the same 
thotive they now were also found 
in meat, by an additional allow- 
ance of money to purchase it. 
~ Itewas replied, by Mr. Fox, that 
without entering into minute and 
embarrassing discussions, it was clear 
that, while parliament was sitting, 
no additional pay could be granted 
- to the army, without the consent of 
both houses: no objection lay to 
the grant itself, but to the slight put 
upon the legislature, by not apply- 
ing for its assent. 
Mr, Pitt exculpated ministry, by 
representing the relief given to the 
soldiery, as temporary, and arising 
wholly from the circumstances of 
the moment : it would of course, he 
doubted not, be sanétioned by par- 
liament, though it had not yet been 
communicated regularly to the 
house, the estimates of the expence 
not having been ascertained. Were 
an augmentation of pay to be form- 
ally voted, it would become per- 
manent; whereas the present mode 
of relief making it only occasional, 
it would cease with the necessity 
from which it arose. 
“The motion was warmly support- 
ed, by generals Smith and Tarleton, 
Mr, Martin, and Mr. Robinson. 
Royal bounties of this nature, it 
was observed by general ‘Tarleton, 
Were inauspicious omens to the 
rties of a people, The present 
easure would cost little less than- 
a million: but, what was of greater 
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importance, it was a link of that 
chain intended for the enslavement’ 
of the nation. The greatness “of 
the sum was, in the opinion ‘of Mr. 
Grey, of no importance, when 
compared with the introduction of 
so dangerous a principle, and pre, 
cedenr, as that of taking the people’s 
money without consulting their re. 
presentatives, who certainly might 
have been applied to, ‘by a general 
communication of the measure, 
without particularizing the amount 
of what might be required’ for the 
purposes proposed. Mr. Francis 
was remarkably zealous in his op- 
position to the measufe': no «prin’ 
ciple, he observed, was clearer in 
the English constitution, and espe- 
cially in the formation of the house 
of commons, than its exclusive dis- 
posal of the nation’s money : the 
crown had not the most distant 
right to participate in this preroga- 
tive; much less was it entitled, 
from its sole authority, to distri- 
bute largessestothe army. This was 
not only an usurpation of the rights 
of parliament, but ‘2 violation of 
them for the worst purposes; those 
of alienating the attachment of the 
military from the parliament, and 
transferring it tothe crown, as the 
soorce from whence bounties and 
donitions were to flow. It had 
been’ much insisted on, that minis. 
ters would subsequently obtain the 
approbation of parliament; but 
admitting the supposition, that this 
approbation were refused, what — 
must the consequence prove to the 
parliament, but hatred, and perhaps 
Violence, from an enraged military ; 
and an implicit devotion and sub- 
serviency, ever after, to the will of 
the crown? Whatever the’ minister 
might allege, of the approval given 
to preceding measures of this kind, 
[P4] no 
