U8 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1809. 



not ignorant of the public duties 

 imposed upon him by his situation. 



Mr. H. Thornton, in order to 

 obviate the objections to the seve- 

 ral resolutions moved by Mr. Ord, 

 proposed to consolidate them into 

 one, and in such terms as should 

 meet with general approbation. 

 Theresoiutionwhich he intended to 

 substitute for the whole five was as 

 follows: " that the commissioners 

 appointed in the year 1795 for 

 the disposal of captured Dutch 

 property, taking advantage of the 

 neglect of the government to in- 

 quire into their proceedings, have, 

 without authority, appropriated to 

 their own use large and unreason- 

 able profits; that they have pri- 

 vately taken interest on large ba- 

 lances of money, vvhich ought to 

 have been lodged in the bank of 

 England ; that they have refrained 

 from giving correct and explicit 

 information respecting the interest 

 so taken to the committee ap- 

 pointed for inquiring into the pub- 

 lic expenditure ; and that they had 

 been guilty of a great violation of 

 public duty." 



Mr. Ord declared his intention 

 of taking the sense of the house 

 on all his resolutions. The house 

 then divided upon the first resolu- 

 tion, when there appeared — 



For the first resolution, 77. 



Against it, 102. 



The other resolutions were with- 

 drawn, and Mr. Thornton's reso- 

 lution adopted, after a division up- 

 on the question for substituting the 

 word omission for neglect. 



For the original resolution, 78. 



For the amendment, 98. 



The word omission it seems was 

 thought less severe on ministry 

 than neglect. But in fact the 



charge of neglect was less thao 

 that of omission. For whereas 

 negligence argues only a want of 

 due attention, and not any inten- 

 tional breach of duty; omission 

 carries in it, or may be supposed 

 to carry, the idea of a voluntary 

 forbearance to perform a duty. 



House of Commons, June 20. — 

 Mr. Vansittart, in the course of a 

 speach of great length, said, that at 

 the time when, in stating the fi- 

 nancial arrangement of the year, 

 the Chancellor of the Exchequer 

 disclosed his intention of charging 

 the greatest part of the interest on 

 the loan on the war taxes, he felt 

 and intimated that it would be im- 

 possible for him to acquiesce in 

 such an arrangement without re- 

 monstrance. But, on some occa- 

 sions, when the subject might have 

 been proposed he was prevented 

 from attending by private circum- 

 stances. And he also felt that 

 considerable advantages would at- 

 tend the mode of proceeding he 

 had now adopted. If he had op- 

 posed the bill for charging the war 

 tax with the loan, and that with 

 much more ability and eloquence 

 than belonged to him, it might 

 have been difficult for the right 

 honourable gentleman, even if he 

 had seen the force of his argu- 

 ments, to have agreed to his con- 

 clusions. After having intimated 

 in the speech from the throne, and 

 deliberately proposed in his budget, 

 that no new taxes should be 

 brought forward for the service of 

 the year, he might not have easily 

 persuaded the country to acquiesce 

 in the imposition of taxes which 

 might be found burthensome ; and 

 which his proposed measures had 

 shown to have been, in his opinion, 

 unnecessary 



