Under the authority and with the guidance of those principles I proceed,—wishing that nothing in any establishment may be changed, where I am not able to make a strong, direct, and solid application of those principles, or of some one of them. An economical constitution is a necessary basis for an economical administration.
First, with regard to the sovereign jurisdictions, I must observe, Sir, that whoever takes a view of this kingdom in a cursory manner will imagine that he beholds a solid, compacted, uniform system of monarchy, in which all inferior jurisdictions are but as rays diverging from one centre. But on examining it more nearly, you find much eccentricity and confusion. It is not a monarchy in strictness. But, as in the Saxon times this country was an heptarchy, it is now a strange sort of pentarchy. It is divided into five several distinct principalities, besides the supreme. There is, indeed, this difference from the Saxon times,—that, as in the itinerant exhibitions of the stage, for want of a complete company, they are obliged to throw a variety of parts on their chief performer, so our sovereign condescends himself to act not only the principal, but all the subordinate parts in the play. He condescends to dissipate the royal character, and to trifle with those light, subordinate, lacquered sceptres in those hands that sustain the ball representing the world, or which wield the trident that commands the ocean. Cross a brook, and you lose the King of England; but you have some comfort in coming again under his Majesty, though "shorn of his beams," and no more than Prince of Wales. Go to the north, and you find him dwindled to a Duke of Lancaster; turn to the west of that north, and he pops upon you in the humble character of Earl of Chester. Travel a few miles on, the Earl of Chester disappears, and the king surprises you again as Count Palatine of Lancaster. If you travel beyond Mount Edgecombe, you find him ones more in his incognito, and he is Duke of Cornwall. So that, quite fatigued and satiated with this dull variety, you are infinitely refreshed when you return to the sphere of his proper splendor, and behold your amiable sovereign in his true, simple, undisguised, native character of Majesty.
In every one of these five principalities, duchies, palatinates, there is a regular establishment of considerable expense and most domineering influence. As his Majesty submits to appear in this state of subordination to himself, his loyal peers and faithful commons attend his royal transformations, and are not so nice as to refuse to nibble at those crumbs of emoluments which console their petty metamorphoses. Thus every one of those principalities has the apparatus of a kingdom for the jurisdiction over a few private estates, and the formality and charge of the Exchequer of Great Britain for collecting the rents of a country squire. Cornwall is the best of them; but when you compare the charge with the receipt, you will find that it furnishes no exception to the general rule. The Duchy and County Palatine of Lancaster do not yield, as I have reason to believe, on an average of twenty years, four thousand pounds a year clear to the crown. As to Wales, and the County Palatine of Chester, I have my doubts whether their productive exchequer yields any returns at all. Yet one may say, that this revenue is more faithfully applied to its purposes than any of the rest; as it exists for the sole purpose of multiplying offices and extending influence.
An attempt was lately made to improve this branch of local influence, and to transfer it to the fund of general corruption. I have on the seat behind me the constitution of Mr. John Probert, a knight-errant dubbed by the noble lord in the blue ribbon, and sent to search for revenues and adventures upon the mountains of Wales. The commission is remarkable, and the event not less so. The commission sets forth, that, "upon a report of the deputy-auditor" (for there is a deputy-auditor) "of the Principality of Wales, it appeared that his Majesty's land revenues in the said principality are greatly diminished";—and "that upon a report of the surveyor-general of his Majesty's land revenues, upon a memorial of the auditor of his Majesty's revenues, within the said principality, that his mines and forests have produced very little profit either to the public revenue or to individuals";—and therefore they appoint Mr. Probert, with a pension of three hundred pounds a year from the said principality, to try whether he can make anything more of that very little which is stated to be so greatly diminished. "A beggarly account of empty boxes." And yet, Sir, you will remark, that this diminution from littleness (which serves only to prove the infinite divisibility of matter) was not for want of the tender and officious care (as we see) of surveyors general and surveyors particular, of auditors and deputy-auditors,—not for want of memorials, and remonstrances, and reports, and commissions, and constitutions, and inquisitions, and pensions.
Probert, thus armed, and accoutred,—and paid,—proceeded on his adventure; but he was no sooner arrived on the confines of Wales than all Wales was in arms to meet him. That nation is brave and full of spirit. Since the invasion of King Edward, and the massacre of the bards, there never was such a tumult and alarm and uproar through the region of Prestatyn. Snowdon shook to its base; Cader-Idris was loosened from its foundations. The fury of litigious war blew her horn on the mountains. The rocks poured down their goatherds, and the deep caverns vomited out their miners. Everything above ground and everything under ground was in arms.
In short, Sir, to alight from my Welsh Pegasus, and to come to level ground, the Preux Chevalier Probert went to look for revenue, like his masters upon other occasions, and, like his masters, he found rebellion. But we were grown cautious by experience. A civil war of paper might end in a more serious war; for now remonstrance met remonstrance, and memorial was opposed to memorial. The wise Britons thought it more reasonable that the poor, wasted, decrepit revenue of the principality should die a natural than a violent death. In truth, Sir, the attempt was no less an affront upon the understanding of that respectable people than it was an attack on their property. They chose rather that their ancient, moss-grown castles should moulder into decay, under the silent touches of time, and the slow formality of an oblivious and drowsy exchequer, than that they should be battered down all at once by the lively efforts of a pensioned engineer. As it is the fortune of the noble lord to whom the auspices of this campaign belonged frequently to provoke resistance, so it is his rule and nature to yield to that resistance in all cases whatsoever. He was true to himself on this occasion. He submitted with spirit to the spirited remonstrances of the Welsh. Mr. Probert gave up his adventure, and keeps his pension; and so ends "the famous history of the revenue adventures of the bold Baron North and the good Knight Probert upon the mountains of Venodotia."
In such a state is the exchequer of Wales at present, that, upon the report of the Treasury itself, its little revenue is greatly diminished; and we see, by the whole of this strange transaction, that an attempt to improve it produces resistance, the resistance produces submission, and the whole ends in pension.[34]
It is nearly the same with the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster. To do nothing with them is extinction; to improve them is oppression. Indeed, the whole of the estates which support these minor principalities is made up, not of revenues, and rents, and profitable fines, but of claims, of pretensions, of vexations, of litigations. They are exchequers of unfrequent receipt and constant charge: a system of finances not fit for an economist who would be rich, not fit for a prince who would govern his subjects with equity and justice.
It is not only between prince and subject that these mock jurisdictions and mimic revenues produce great mischief. They excite among the people a spirit of informing and delating, a spirit of supplanting and undermining one another: so that many, in such circumstances, conceive it advantageous to them rather to continue subject to vexation themselves than to give up the means and chance of vexing others. It is exceedingly common for men to contract their love to their country into an attachment to its petty subdivisions; and they sometimes even cling to their provincial abuses, as if they were franchises and local privileges. Accordingly, in places where there is much of this kind of estate, persons will be always found who would rather trust to their talents in recommending themselves to power for the renewal of their interests, than to incumber their purses, though never so lightly, in order to transmit independence to their posterity. It is a great mistake, that the desire of securing property is universal among mankind. Gaming is a principle inherent in human nature. It belongs to us all. I would therefore break those tables; I would furnish no evil occupation for that spirit. I would make every man look everywhere, except to the intrigue of a court, for the improvement of his circumstances or the security of his fortune. I have in my eye a very strong case in the Duchy of Lancaster (which lately occupied Westminster Hall and the House of Lords) as my voucher for many of these reflections.[35]
For what plausible reason are these principalities suffered to exist? When a government is rendered complex, (which in itself is no desirable thing,) it ought to be for some political end which cannot be answered otherwise. Subdivisions in government are only admissible in favor of the dignity of inferior princes and high nobility, or for the support of an aristocratic confederacy under some head, or for the conservation of the franchises of the people in some privileged province. For the two former of these ends, such are the subdivisions in favor of the electoral and other princes in the Empire; for the latter of these purposes are the jurisdictions of the Imperial cities and the Hanse towns. For the latter of these ends are also the countries of the States (Pays d'États) and certain cities and orders in France. These are all regulations with an object, and some of them with a very good object. But how are the principles of any of these subdivisions applicable in the case before us?