450 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1809. 



stance in estimating the amount of 

 the remuneration. No notice of 

 the intended sacrifice was given ; 

 and it is obvious, that by propor- 

 tioning the general compensation 

 receivable by the body to the spe- 

 cial claims of two individuals, a 

 more than adequate reward would 

 be granted to the majority. 



If it should be thought fit to 

 adopt tiie suggestion of your com- 

 mittee, the commissioners ought to 

 be credited in account for the pro- 

 posed commission, and to be debit- 

 ed for all sums applied to their own 

 use, since they have been taken with- 

 out due authority, the same general 

 principles being observed by the 

 auditors in the settlement of the 

 concerns of these commissioners 

 which are usual in similar cases. 



Your committee further suggest, 

 that the commissioners should be 

 directed to use their utmost dili- 

 gence to make up and transmit 

 their accounts to the lords of his 

 majesty's privy council, with a view 

 to their being submitted to the 

 board of treasury, and by them re- 

 ferred to the auditors. 



Your committee have not pursu- 

 ed their examination of all the to- 

 pics to which their attention has 

 been called, as will be seen by the 

 evidence, partly because such in- 

 vestigation might detain thera too 

 long from their inquiries into other 

 subjects, and partly on the ground 

 of their not wishing to be consider- 

 ed as exempting the government 

 from the duty of applying their at- 

 tention to the transactions of the 

 commissioners, or the auditors from 

 the diligent and exact performance 

 of the functions of their important 

 office. The magnitude of the 

 charges on the vessels and cargoes 



sold, which manifest itself in the 

 difference between the gross and 

 the nett proceeds, and in the excess 

 of the charges above the whole pro- 

 ceeds in the case of many vessels, 

 appear to demand attention. 



Your committee have had it 

 chiefly in their view to examine and 

 animadvert upon those points which 

 derive importance either from the 

 magnitude ofthesaving in question, 

 or from their involving some gene- 

 ral principles on which it might be 

 material to insist. 



On a review of the whole of the 

 subject which has been before them, 

 they beg leave generally to remark, 

 that to commit pecuniary trusts of 

 extraordinary magnitude to per- 

 sons, however respectable as indivi- 

 duals, and however qualified for 

 their employment by the habits of 

 their former lives, without settling, 

 during a long course of years, the 

 mode or amount of their remune- 

 ration, — without providing any ma- 

 terial check on their proceedings, 

 — and without reminding them of 

 their responsibility by calling for 

 any regular or periodical account, 

 is a neglect which may be expect- 

 ed often to lead to equally prejudi- 

 cial consequences, and is a devia- 

 tion from the acknowledged duty, 

 and also, as your committee trust, 

 from the ordinary practice of go-, 

 vernment. 



London Gazette Extraordinary, 

 Downing-street, May 24'. 



A dispatch, of which the follow- 

 ing is a copy, was received this 

 evening from lieutenant-gen. the 

 right hon. sir Ariluir Wellesley, 

 by viscount Castlereagh, one of his 



majesty's 



