HISTORY OF EUROPE. 



103 



the accounts of foreign corps in 

 the British service. This depart- 

 ment was continued, at a consi- 

 derable expense, till the peace of 

 1802, when it was suppressed. 

 On the commencement of the pre- 

 sent war, it was re-established ; 

 and it was then expressly stated 

 that it bore the same relation to the 

 foreign corps, as that which is 

 transacted in the war oflSce, bears 

 to British corps. The person who 

 was at the head of the department 

 while abroad, as the agent for fo- 

 reign corps, did not send home 

 any estimate to justify his bills, 

 nor even state the balances which 

 he held in his hands. In short in 

 the words of the commissioners, 

 *' Those checks and precautions, 

 which are usually adopted in the 

 eases of officers entrusted with 

 such large powers of money trans- 

 actions, were not observed in his 

 ease." And how were these ac- 

 counts audited ? a person who held 

 no situation whatever, in any 

 branch of the war-office, to whom 

 no powers or instructions were re- 

 gularly or officially given, but 

 merely verbal authority from Mr. 

 Windham, at that time secretary 

 of state for the war department, 

 composed the vouchers with the 

 expenditure of the agent's ac- 

 counts. And the certificate of 

 this person, thus irregularly ap- 

 pointed, and who could not be 

 presumed to have any sense of 

 public duty, or apprehension of 

 responsibility, uninstructed in the 

 duties of his situation, and having 

 executed these duties in the most 

 inaccurate and slovenly manner, 

 was the ground of all the agent's 

 final discharges. Many other in- 

 stances of the grossest misconduct, 

 lo use the mildest term, in this 



seventh report of the military 

 commissioners, were laid open. 

 Through the hands of one man, 

 an army agent for foreign corps, 

 there passed, in the course of se- 

 ven years, the sum of 1,524',630/.^ 

 When he resigned his situation, 

 he was allowed to retain five-sixths 

 of the balance of public money ; 

 and when called upon to produce 

 his documents he replied, that 

 many payments were made by him 

 under either verbal or implied au- 

 thorities from the war-ofiBce : for 

 many of which irregular payments 

 he afterwards received covering 

 letters from the same office. Ano- 

 ther agent was permitted to keep 

 an untouched balance of ^jOOO/. 

 for years unmentioned, though, at 

 the beginning of every quarter, he 

 was in the practice of delivering 

 in estimates, upon which additi- 

 onal sums were issued. The com- 

 mittee conclude their report, with 

 strongly recommending and urging 

 the discontinuance of the foreiga 

 department in the war office, and 

 with suggesting the necessity of 

 various prospective regulations. 



From the ninth report it appear- 

 ed, that in consequence of the in- 

 dubitable and confessed insuffici- 

 ency of the auditors of public ac- 

 counts in the year 1800, a com- 

 mission was appointed to inquire 

 into abuses in the West Indies. 

 So far back as the year 1791, a 

 regular and unchecked system of 

 peculation, carried on in the most 

 unblushing manner, was stated to 

 have been established. In the 

 space of nine years, from 1791 to 

 1800, only a few thousand pounds 

 were wrested from the peculators, 

 and restored to the public. 



From the official return made to 

 parliament, of the arrears of pub- 

 lic 



