STATE PAPERS. 



449 



presented to Mr. G. Villiers, that 

 his accounts ought to be more re- 

 gularly delivered in, and received 

 assurances from him that they 

 should be so ; at the same time 

 Mr. Villiers stated the necessity of 

 having the imprests made to him 

 in full, when the pressure of the 

 public service, about theyear 1798, 

 made it expedient to pay only in 

 part ; and the comptroller was led 

 to believe from his conversations 

 with Mr. G. Villiers, that there was 

 no balance of public money at that 

 time in the accountant's hands. 



It is to be remarked with great 

 regret that the inefficient state of 

 the Navy Office, for a period of 

 no less than eleven vears, is civen 

 as an excuse or palliation for this 

 omission on the part of the Board; 

 and some of the new regulations 

 adopted under an order in council 

 of June S, 1796, at the recom- 

 mendation of the commissioners of 

 Inquiry, are alleged as a princi- 

 pal cause of the defective state 

 of this office. 



The strongest representations 

 from the Navy Office to the Admi- 

 ralty were made on this subject, 

 at different times from 1800 to 

 1807; one great and obvious in- 

 convenience was pointed out as 

 arising from making the chief clerk 

 in the office of bills and accounts, 

 secretary to the committee of 

 accounts (which was recently 

 formed of three members of the 

 Board, agreeably to the directions 

 of that order in council) while 

 tiie same person had the superin- 

 tendancc also of the foreign ac- 

 counts ; this inconvenience the 

 Navy Board endeavoured to re- 

 medy by some official arrange- 

 ments, which diminished but did 

 not remove tiic evil ; and it con- 

 tinued to be felt, until the duties of 



Vol. LII. 



these separate departments were 

 allotted to three distinct officers. 



The hardships suffered by the 

 clerks in generalfrom the low state 

 of their salaries and the abolition 

 of fees, the consequent inactivity 

 and languor which prevailed in the 

 different departments, and the dif- 

 ficulty of carrying on the busi- 

 ness, are enumerated in this cor- 

 respondence ; but the actual evils 

 from the accounts not being pass- 

 ed are not perhaps set forth with 

 sufficient force, or with those de- 

 tails which were calculated to im- 

 press the Admiralty with a due 

 sense of them. Your committee, 

 however, cannot but remark the 

 neglect with which these repre- 

 sentations were ti-eateU. No an- 

 swer whatever appears to have 

 been made to them before June, 



1806, and no remedy was applied 

 by the Admiralty until November, 



1807, to a case which involved the 

 efficiency of this great and most 

 important office of account. 



The balance exhibited in Mr.G. 

 Villiers's monthly account imme- 

 diately subsequent to the 31st. 

 of December, 1802, when the ba- 

 lance was 177,84'7/. amounts to 

 no more than 2,255/; and after 

 the 31st of December, 1803, when 

 the balance on the settlement of 

 the general account for that year 

 proved to be 256,539/. the ba- 

 lance to which his name was sub- 

 scribed amounted only to 12,055/. 



Your committee, notwithstand- 

 ing some pains taken to discover 

 the method by which these month- 

 ly balances were made to exhibit 

 so fallacious a view of the whole 

 sum actually in the accountant's 

 hands at any given time, have 

 not been nble to satisfy themselves 

 as to the particular mode by which 

 the real balance was kept out of 



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