5792. political progrefs of Britain. 23 
<‘ acquainted with the inclinations and true interest 
<* of his people; weak, capricious, transported with 
<< unbounded ambition, and INSATIABLE AVARICE.”* 
Though we were still at peace, twelve hundred thou- 
sand pounds were borrowed from the sinking fund 
for the service of the current year. A subsidy of 
fifty-six thousand two hundred and fifty pounds 
was, not long after, voted to the king of Denmark, 
and another million sterling abstracted from the sink-~ 
ing fund. 
In February 1735, the accounts of the navy were 
~ Jaid before the parliament. One article may serve 
es a specimen of the rest. About two hundred and 
fifty thousand pounds were exacted, not for building 
of thips, but for the pretended building of ouses for 
the commifsioners and other officers of admiralty *. 
Walpole had not even paid parliament the previous . 
“compliment of consulting them. In 1736, a million 
was again borrowed from the sinking fund, and still 
in the midst of a profound peace. It is natural 
enough that the word Walpole has become synony- 
mous to bribery. Pulteney, and some of the oppo- 
sition, were but little better. They wanted the mi- 
nister to settle an hundred thousand pounds a-year 
on the prince of Wales. It had been fixed at about half 
that sum; and this revenue was, it seems, unequal 
to his necefsities. Though a temperate and moderate 
man, he died bankrupt, and his debts are at this day 
unpaid. Forgthe discharge of them by his family 
would have been only an act of justice, not a political 
job. 
# Beatson’s Naval Memoirs, vol. i. page 25. 
