EXCHEQUER. 
Barons.' The primary and original business 
of this court was to call the King’s debtors’ 
to account, by bill filed by the Attorney 
General, and to recover any lands, tene- 
ments, or hereditaments, goods, chattels, or 
other profits or benefits, belonging to the 
crown ; but now, by a fiction ot law, sug- 
gesting that the party is a debtor of the 
King, and is less able to pay his debt, un- 
less he has the aid of the court to recover of 
his own debtor ; any person may be admitted 
to sue here. An appeal from the equity 
side of this court, lies immediately to the 
House of Peers ; but from the common law 
side, pursuant to 31 Edw. III. c. 12, a 
writ of error must first be brought into the 
court of exchequer chamber, whence appeal 
lies to the House ot Lords. The exche- 
quer as a court of law is the last of the 
courts. 
In this court suits are generally brought 
for tythes, although the cmlrt of Chancery 
aho exercises considerable jurisdiction in 
that respect. The Exchequer is also di- 
vided into the court for judicial business ; 
and the other, the receipt of the Exche- 
quer, in which the accounts of the revenue 
are kept, and the money is received: in 
this branch of the Exchequer there are se- 
veral offices; such as two chamberlains, 
the controller of the pipe, the clerk of the 
estreats, the foreign opposer, the auditors, 
the four tellers, the clerk of the pells, clerk 
of the nichils, &c. By stat. 23 Geo. III. 
e. 82, the offices of the two chamberlains, 
tally-cutter, usher, and second clerks to 
each teller, shall, after the death of the pre- 
sent officers, be abolished ; and instead of 
tallies, indented cheque receipts are to be 
used : also after the death of the auditor, 
clerk of the pells, four tellers, and two 
chamberlains, their fees shall be abolished, 
and their salaries be fixed. 
Exchequer chamber. This court has 
no original jurisdiction, but is merely a 
court of appeal, to correct the errors of 
other jurisdictions, and consists of the Lord 
Chancellor, the Lord Treasurer, with the 
Justices of the King’s Bench and Common 
Pleas, in imitation of this, a second court 
of Exchequer chamber was erected by 
27 Eliz. c. 8, consisiing of the Justices of 
the Common Pleas, and the Barons of the 
Exchequer, before whom writs of error may 
be brought to reverse judgments in certain 
suits, commenced originally in the court of 
King’s Bench. Into the Exchequer cham- 
ber are sometimes adjourned, from the 
other courts, such causes, as the judges, 
upon argument, find to be of great weight 
and difficulty, before any judgment is given 
upon them in the court. 
Exchequer, Chancellor of, is in Great 
Britain, the officer to whom the arrange- 
ment of the financial concerns of the coun- 
try is chiefly entrusted, He causes ac- 
counts to be annually laid before parlia- 
ment of the produce of the taxes, with 
estimates of the several branches of public 
expenditure for the ensuing year; and if 
the amount of the estimated expenditure 
exceeds the probable produce of the re- 
venue, he adjusts the extent and conditions 
of the loan with such persons as are willing 
to advance the same, and proposes to par- 
liament the new taxes which become neces- 
sary for paying the interest on the money 
thus borrowed. On the foundation of the 
accounts, and estimates submitted to par- 
liament, particular sums are voted for the 
several branches of the expenditure ; and 
where the ways and means of raising ihe 
whole sum wanted have been determined, 
an act is passed appropriating the specific 
sums to the various articles forming the 
supplies which have been granted. In 
order to provide against any unforseen ex- 
pellees, it is usual to grant also a certain 
sum appropriated to any particular purpose, 
to be applied to any branch of the expen- 
diture in which there may be occasion for 
it ; this is called a vote of credit, and has 
increased in amount with the progress of 
the supplies ; in the American war it was 
1,000,0001. per annum, of late it has gene- 
rally been 2,500,0001. Soon after the com- 
mencement of each session, an account is 
laid before the House of Commons, shewing 
how the money given for the service of the 
preceding year has been disposed of, and 
what part thereof remains unpaid. If the 
ways and means have fallen short of the 
sum they were expected to produce, the 
deficiency is made good as an article among 
the next year’s supplies. 
Exchequer bills, bills or tickets issued 
by the Exchequer, payable out of the pro- 
duce of a particular tax, or generally out 
of the supplies granted for the year, and 
receivable in all payments to the exchequer. 
The first bills of this kind were issued in 
‘1697, as a more convenient kind of security 
than the tallies and orders for repayment 
then in use, and were partly intended to 
supply the want of money during the re- 
coinage then undertaken. With this view, 
