HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
when the events were recent, could 
have been easily and satisfactorily 
explained, but which the death of 
those concerned, renders it after- 
wards impossible to clear up. What 
a hardship on persons engaged in 
the service of the state, that having 
been once employed in the expen- 
diture of public money, they should 
be unable, in the whole period of 
their subsequent lives, to obtain a 
settlement of their accounts, for the 
security of their families, and justi- 
fication of their conduct. 
The abuses to which the accumula- 
tion of inaudited accounts had given 
rise in the West Indies, wereso glaring, 
that,in 1800, commissioners had been 
sent thither te investigate them ; in 
consequence of which malversatioris 
to an enormous extent were de- 
tected. New commissioners were 
then appointed by act of parliament, 
with authority to correct and re- 
medy the evil. But, though much 
good was effected by the exertions 
of these commissioners, the system 
of fraud and profusion, which they 
were sent out to stop, continued to 
go on; and no crime was spared by 
the actors in this scene of delinquen- 
cy, that could serve to screen them 
from detection, or secure them from 
punishment. Forgery, perjury, 
bribery, and every iniquitous stra- 
tagem, which fraud could devise, 
Was resorted to; and not content 
with false charges, false returns, and 
_ flagitious embezzlements, they bribed 
_the custom-house officers to sign 
false certificates, fraudulent invoices, 
and other such documents, in aid of 
their mal-practices ; proofs of which 
were detected, in one instance, to 
the amount of 80,0001. and in ano- 
ther, to the amount of 30,000I. ap- 
plied in bribery, to conceal frauds 
ef an enormous extent. 
P 7 
Though it be impossible to acquit 
entirely of negligence and inatten« 
tion, the administration, which suf. 
fered these abuses to accumulate 
so long, and arrive at such an ex- 
tent, it must in fairness be admit- 
ted, that great reforms had been 
made in this, as in most other de. 
partments of the public revenue, 
under the auspices and direction of 
Mr. Pitt. When that celebrated 
minister began his long administra- 
tion, he found a similar accumula. 
tion of inaudited accounts to that 
which existed, when the present mi- 
nisters came into office. He found 
also the established system of audit- 
ing the public accounts, obsolete 
and ineflicacious, ill-adapted for 
dispatch of business, and still worse 
calculated to procure a careful re- 
vision and examination of the ac- 
counts, He, therefore, established 
a new board of auditors, with more 
ample powers than their predeces. 
sors, by whose exertions the great 
mass of inaudited accounts that had 
accrued during the American war, 
was at length audited and settled. 
A fresh accumulation had now taken 
place, and a similar remedy was cal. 
led for, with such additional regu- 
lations, as would ensure in future, 
that no such accumulation should 
again be experienced. -The neces. 
sity of some more effectual provision 
for auditing and examining the pub- 
lic accounts, was acknowledged in 
the preamble to Mr. Pitt's bill, in 
1805, for appointing an extraordi- 
nary board of auditors; but that 
bill, though it increased the number 
of auditors, contained no provisions 
for the better and more regular ex- 
ecution of their duty. 
The plan proposed by the chan- 
cellor of the exchequer for the re- 
medy of those abuses, was, in the 
first 
