APPENDIX to the CHRONICLE. 445 



sing an opinion, that (supposing it 

 allowable for the commissioners to 

 adopt that construction of the act, 

 which they have given to it) these 

 balances ought to have been made 

 productive by investing a very large 

 proportion of them in exchequer 

 bills for the benefit of the public. 

 Probably not less than between 40 

 and 50,000/. would have accrued in 

 the way of interest from a due at- 

 tention to economy on the part of 

 the commissioners in this particular, 

 and the employment of the chief 

 part of their large cash for such a 

 purpose would have constituted a 

 much better apology than has been 

 offered by them for withholding 

 from the Bank the sums which the 

 act, according to the strict construc- 

 tion of it, required to be paid into 

 it, and would unquestionably have 

 been the most convenient arrange- 

 ment. 



In the year 1799, a sum of 

 27,000/. due to captors, was turned 

 to this use, which, through the ac- 

 cumulation of interest, amounted to 

 38,553/. at the time when it was 

 paid; and a sum of about 33,000/. 

 lias been obtained for interest on 

 the balances in the hands of the 

 East India company. 



It has indeed been discovered in 

 the progress of these inquiries, that 

 the commissioners have availed 

 themselves of the opportunity so 

 obviously afforded them of render- 

 ing tlieir balances productive, but 

 that they employed them, during 

 the years which preceded the com- 

 pletion of their sales, entirely with 

 a view to their own emolument. — 

 They have invested a part of them 

 in exchequer bills, a part in India 

 bonds, and a small part in the very 

 exceptionable article of bills of ex- 



change on privateindividuals, which 

 they have discounted. 



No minute was made of any re- 

 solution of the board to employ 

 any part of the cash in hand in this 

 manner, and no proof of such em- 

 ployment of it appears among the 

 receipts and payments of the cash- 

 book; the balances of which there- 

 fore do not exhibit, as they ought to 

 do, the amount of cash in the hands 

 of the Bank, and of the several 

 bankers, but include the sum lent 

 out at interest : neither has any 

 trace of the transaction been exhi- 

 bited in any account, nor any men- 

 tion of it been made to government, 

 except that at about the same time 

 when it was stated to the committee 

 on public expenditure, the treasury 

 were furnished with a copy of the 

 statement. The committee itself 

 did not at once receive correct or 

 explicit information on this point. 



It will appear by the papers and 

 evidence annexed, that on the 2d 

 of March 1807, t1i£ commissioners 

 were directed (nearly in the same 

 terms in which the heads of other 

 offices were required to furnish their 

 returns) to give an " account of 

 their establishment and names, how 

 paid, salary, fees, and other emolu- 

 ments, and amount of their receipts 

 on an average of the last three 

 years." The commissioners stated 

 in their return, that they had " no 

 salary, fees or emoluments, they 

 being paid the usual commission on 

 the, sale of the property placed 

 under their care, out of which they 

 paid salaries to clerks, and all other 

 expences of their establishment;" 

 and they proceeded to say, that 

 " their sales having ceased from the 

 year 1798, and consequently their 

 commission also, thev expected to 



be 



