GENERAL HISTORY. 



[35 



CHAPTER III. 



War SaluTies of tiie Secretaries of the Admiralty. — Motion respecting 

 the Lords of the Admiralty. — Motion for a Committee on the Public 

 Income and Expenditure, by Lord Castlereagh. — First Report of the 

 Committee. — Bills for abolishing tlie Offices of Justices in Eyre, and 

 for a Compensation for Civil Services. — Pass both Houses. — Irish 

 Peace preservation Bill. 



SECRETARIES OF THE ADMIRALTY. 



LORD Milton, in rising on 

 February 17th, to call the 

 attention of the House of Com- 

 mons to the increase made in th« 

 salaries of the secretaries of the 

 Admiralty, in consequence of the 

 war with Algiers, began with ob- 

 serving the different light in which 

 objects were regarded, according 

 to the difference of the mind and 

 disposition of the person by whom 

 they were viewed. Having in- 

 stanced the Prince Rpgent and 

 Marquis Camden as those who 

 could relinquish a part of their 

 salaries, when the public service 

 required it, he said, with what 

 different eyes must the admiralty 

 or their secretary have beheld the 

 symptoms of the times, when they 

 conceived the autumn of 1816 the 

 most convenient opportunity for 

 taking advantage of a single ex- 

 pedition to bestow an increase, of 

 salary on their sei-vants. The 

 ground on which this claim had 

 been set up was an order of coun- 

 cil of January 15, ISOO, by which, 

 on account of increase of duty in 

 time of war, the secretary and 

 some other persons were to have 

 an increased salary. But the 

 question was^ had it been fairly 



made out to the sense of any man 

 that the time for which the in- 

 creased salary had been given was 

 what could fairly be understood 

 as a case of war ? Lord Ex- 

 mouth was sent to Algiers in the 

 double quality of a negociator and 

 commander. When the attack 

 was tinally made and had succeed- 

 ed, what did Lord Exmouth say? 

 " Thus has a provoked war of two 

 days existence been attended with 

 a complete victory." A quarter's 

 salary on the war establishment 

 was claimed by the secretary, for a 

 war said by the commander who 

 conducted it to be of two days du- 

 ration. If the commencement of 

 this Algiers war was difficult to 

 be settled, and had been settled 

 wrong, its termination was no 

 less curious : it was dated from 

 the reception of the treaty at the 

 Admiralty. These dates of the 

 fitting out of the expedition and 

 the ai rival of the treaty in London 

 might tally with the duration of 

 the salary ; but they could not be 

 said to constitute the commence- 

 ment and termination of a war, 

 during the existence of which a 

 war salary might be claimed. The 

 navy pay-office, not thinkxig that 

 the attack on Algiers constituted 

 this country in a state of war 

 [D 2] ' within 



