22} ANNUAL REGISTER, 1815. 
CHAPTER IIL. 
Mr. Tierney’s Motion on the Civil List.—Renewal of the Property 
Tax.—Foreign Slave-trade Bill.—Bill for preventing the illicit Im- 
portation of Slaves.—Motion for a Committee on the Catholic Ques- 
tion.——Prince Regent’s Message concerning the Treaties with the 
. Allied Powers.—-Lord Castlereagh's Motion respecting Subsidies. 
ly esa 4th Mr. Tierney rose 
to move for an inquiry into 
the excesses of the civil list. He 
said, there had been such an enor- 
raity in the expenditure in that 
department, and such an effici- 
ency in all committees hitherto 
appointed for an inquiry on the 
subject, that unless a new one 
should be nominated with extra- 
ordinary powers, there would be 
an end to every thing like con- 
trol over the royal expenditure. 
He then stated, that since 1812, 
parliament had provided, for the 
purpose of squaring the civil list 
accounts, the sum of 2,827,000/. 
In 1812 there was a sort of re- 
cognition of the expenditure of a 
further sum of 124,000/.; but in- 
stead of this excedent, which 
might be said to be sanctioned 
by parliament, tie actual ex- 
cedent in the last two years and 
three quarters had been 321,0001. 
The total of the sums of the 
parliamentary estimates, and the 
excedents connived at by parlia- 
ment, amounted to 3,299,000/. 
which was the whole entitled to be 
expended in two years and three 
quarters ; but the charge during 
that period was no Jess than 
4,108,000/. being anexcessbeyond 
the allowance of 809,000/. The 
excess was actually greater, for 
100,000/. had been voted to his 
royal highness for an outfit. It 
appeared therefore that his Royal 
Highness, in less than two years 
and three quarters, had expended 
above 900,000/. beyond his allow- 
ance, and that, after being allow- 
ed to exceed it by 124,000/. The 
next point was to show that the 
civil list, fora length of time, had 
been in the practice of a yearly 
encroachment above the parlia- 
mentary allowance. In no one 
case of an average of years had 
it been attempted to keep within 
reasonable bounds. The know- 
ledge of this had generally been 
kept from parliament till it was 
become necessary to have the 
civil list debt paid off, a principal 
means of effecting which, was the 
leaving of the droits of admiralty 
at the disposal of the crown. 
Three committees had been ap- 
pointed in different years to in- 
quire into the civil list expendi- 
ture, the last of them in 1804, 
and they all suggested the pro- 
priety of a new estimate, that 
parliament might know to what 
extent the liberality of the public 
could go. In Mr. Pitt’s time an 
