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and I am confident that, distinguished as we have always been as a nation for our good faith, we shall not permit Mr. Palmer's case to form an exception to the character which we have so uniformly maintained, but that we shall fulfil an agreement to which I contend we are bound by every tie of honour, of justice, and of sound policy. Mr. Pierrepont then moved the following Resolutions:1. "That it appears from the report of the committee appointed to take into consideration the agreement made with Mr. Palmer for the reform and improvement of the Post-office and its revenue, that an agreement was made by the chancellor of the exchequer for the proposed improvement and reform, by which Mr. Palmer was to receive a certain fixed per centage on all the produce of the revenue of the Post-office over and above the annual sum of 240,000l.-2. That it appears by the said report, that Mr. Palmer has performed his part of the agreement; and that his reform and improvement of the posts have proved highly beneficial to the trade and commerce of the kingdom, as well as to the revenue.-3. Therefore, that Mr. Palmer is justly entitled to the full benefit of his agreement."

Mr. Long said, that Mr. Palmer had forfeited his agreement with the commissioners of the Treasury. What formed the ground of that agreement? Was it that Mr. P. was to carry into effect a certain plan, and then to receive a certain reward? Was it not rather that he was to be put into a public office, in order to control the expenditure of the public revenue, and to improve the plan for the more expeditious conveyance of letters? Now, if it should appear that Mr. P. not only connived at, but actually countenanced frauds; if it should appear that he laid a plan to counteract his own, and to cause a later delivery of letters, instead of expediting them, surely he was not entitled to the full extent of the original stipulation. Mr. Long read several letters from Mr. Palmer to Mr. Bonnor, the tendency of which was, to throw the Postoffice into "glorious confusion," by causing a late delivery of letters, and to cover that fraud of false and exorbitant bills on the office, which it was his duty to have detected. Mr. P. acted in this matter, not from any sudden impulse of resentment, but systematically. Thus had he failed in his part of the agreement with the public. With regard to the

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opinion of counsel, it was an opinion not upon any legal question, but upon a measure depending in parliament, an opinion secured by Mr. Palmer, to influence the votes of that House. Mr. P. had recommended the payment of false bills to the contractor of mail coaches, to put in inefficient officers where efficient ones were necessary, and to cause a later delivery of letters. It had been said that Mr. P. did not act upon this advice; but was not a superior giving directions to an inferior, in fact acting upon it? He would acknowledge that Mr. P. had great merit, if not for inventing the plan of the mail coaches, yet for his perseverance in carrying it into execution; at the same time he must maintain that Mr. P. was not entitled to what was now claimed; that he had forfeited all right to a continuance in his office, in consequence of the endeavours he made to throw the Post-office into confusion. Government had allowed him 3,000l. a year; and, he would ask whether that was not a fit reward for his merits? When he saw lord Duncan, and other illustrious admirals who had performed the most signal services allowed pensions of 2,000l. a year, he could not think Mr. Palmer unhandsomely rewarded.

Mr. Hobhouse said, that the question divided itself into two parts: 1, the nature of the agreement; and 2, the conduct of Mr. P. in his official situation. With regard to the agreement made with Mr. P. in 1785, there could be no doubt upon that head; the only question was, whether he had forfeited his right to claim it? As to the merits of his plan, it might be disputed whether or not he had increased the revenue to the degree which had been stated, yet unquestionably his plan had considerably increased the revenue. Great stress had been laid on the impropriety of his letters to his deputy; but no allowance had been made for his feelings, smarting under a sense of injury, and betrayed by Mr. Bonnor, who endeavoured to make him believe that he had been illtreated by the postmaster-general. He had not, however, acted upon the directions he had given. By the testimony of the postmaster-general it appeared, that when the contractor's charge was to be settled, Mr. P. prevailed on him to accept of a moderate demand, and the same testimony acknowledged that his conduct, as to integrity, was unimpeachable; it could not therefore be believed, that he was guilty of fraud, or of countenancing fraud.

With respect to his suggestion to Mr. Bonnor about the late delivery of letters, this evidently was a hasty piece of resentment, not acted upon, it being two years previous to its actually taking place. It had been said, that no injury was done to Mr. P. because a compensation had been granted him; but Mr. P. denies that what he has received has been a compensation to him. With respect to the rewards granted by parliament to lord Duncan and other noble admirals, no parallel could be made, because they had entered into no previous agreement with the public. The case of Mr. P. was a civil case founded on a direct compact, antecedent to the service engaged for being undertaken. The making good the conditions of his bargain, for services allowed to have been performed, was nothing more than a discharge of a debt of justice. Here was a contract, and Mr. Palmer denied that he had received a compensation. The percentage was merely an allowance of one shilling for every forty gained to the public; added to which, Mr. P. had taken all the risk upon himself. A near relation of his own, a banker, had advanced Mr. P. several thousand pounds to carry on the plan. Mr. P. had proceeded in it many years without receiving one shilling from government, and had he failed in the undertaking, the securities he had lodged for the money must have been forfeited. With regard to the opinion of counsel, if it could not fail to carry great weight with it; since it was the explicit opinion of four gentlemen of acknowledged talents and high character, that if a legal mode of establishing the justice of the case had been resorted to, a court of justice would have granted Mr. P. his claim. For his own part, he was confident that the liberality of parliament would not refuse what a court of justice would have granted.

regard to the commissioners of inquiry, their report had been made without having these letters of Mr. P. laid before them. Was the House to be led by the opinion of four counsel feed by Mr. P.? Respectable as these gentlemen individually were, he thought it as nonsensical an opinion as he had ever read. The agreement of Mr P. of an allowance per-centage, was in consideration of his continued activity for the interest of the public. But had he done so? His letters testified against him. He had received 3,000l. a year for his useful plan: if he expected more, he would most probably find himself deceived.

Dr. Laurence said, he agreed that the written opinions of private counsel, however eminent, ought not to direct the decisions of parliament; at the same time he could not help observing, with concern, that the very persons who objected to those authorities, had on many points argued more like counsel, than members of the committee. They had endea voured by minute calculations from official documents to lessen what was allowed as merit, and by detached passages of hasty and unguarded language picked here and there from a very free and confidential correspondence, to aggravate, what was imputed as demerit to Mr. Palmer. And such was their apparent disposition to do this, that one hon. gentleman had fallen into a palpable error, that seemed unaccountable. The committee had been told, that during the nine years preceding Mr. Palmer's appointment, although there certainly was, as he had stated in his evidence, a decrease in the nett revenue, of the Post-office, yet, in the gross revenue there was a considerable increase; which, the committee had been also told, was to be attributed solely to the increase of our commerce within that period. Now, that period was nearly the same with the duMr. W. Dundas denied that any grant ration of the American war, which stands could have been made to Mr. Palmer of distinguished in the annals of this country an appointment for life independent of from every other war of any length, by the postmaster-general: his claim was this peculiar circumstance, that never, in now brought forward for what he would any one year of its continuance, did our have enjoyed had it not been for his own exports and imports reach the level of the misconduct. Ought not Mr. P. to have preceding peace; so that, clearly, it was fulfilled his part of the agreement; and not to the extension of our commerce, was it not one part of that agreement that during these niue years, that any augmenhe should accelerate the delivery of let-tation, if any actually existed, in the ters? But had he not endeavoured to retard the delivery? Had he not been detected in suborning an inferior officer, and that for the purpose of throwing blame on the postmaster-general? With

receipts of the post-office, could be fairly attributed. The probable cause was the greater intercourse, and increased facility of communication within the kingdom, which it was the excellence of Mr.

Palmer's plan to have systematically improved, and carried to perfection in the department, which he undertook to regulate and reform. But it was unnecessary to answer arguments of this kind in detail. The lords of the Treasury had precluded them all, when, considering themselves as bound by no public faith, and having the whole of Mr. Palmer's conduct before them, they had ranked him among the greatest benefactors of his country; for the reward, which they had ultimately advised their sovereign to bestow upon him, was equal to the grant, with which the public munificence usually remunerated the most splendid achievements of those, whose victories had brought safety, or glory to the state.

The conduct of that board, in referring as it were, the question to the House, Dr. L. thought agreeable to their public duty. They found an officer in one of the revenue departments suspended by his lawful superiors; and that suspension, they judged it necessary not only to confirm, but to follow with a dismission. According to the letters of the commission under which he held his place, his emoluments ceased with his official situation. Combining all these circumstances, they might not regard it as consistent with their limited, delegated and responsible power over the public purse, to hear of a secret understanding and tacit construction, by which, contrary to the expression of the instrument itself, a considerable charge was to be entailed on the nation. They satisfied themselves therefore with handsomely paying what had actually been done; yet at the same time they consented that the whole claim in its fullest extent, should be submitted to the investigation of that House, to which alone it belonged in such cases, to exercise an equitable and wise generosity with the money of the people. Sitting in that committee, even they who had before concurred in the grant already made to Mr. Palmer, were in no degree bound by their former decision; much less ought that decision to influence the judgment of others. The true question was, whether taking the whole evidence into consideration, the spirit and essence of the original agreement, and not the mere words of the subsequent commission, were or were not binding in favour of Mr. Palmer? He did not mean binding with the force of a legal obligation; then the inquiry of that House would have been super[VOL. XXXIV.]

fluous; but binding on the equity, the honour, and liberality of the public.

The hon. gentleman who had last spoken, had very dexterously professed to pass over every thing anterior to what he had called the modified agreement of 1789. He could by no means agree to this mode' of viewing the subject. But there was one point which was settled by that modified agreement beyond all dispute. It ascertained with precision the extent of the reward which Mr. Palmer was to receive. It clearly fixed the nature of the augmentation from which he was to derive his per-centage. He was to derive it from every augmentation over and above the sum of 240,000%. unless where the difference arose from any additional rates of postage, which parliament might impose, or from any diminution which new regulations might effect in the packet establishment. These two were the only exceptions expressed; and the introduction of these operated still more powerfully to the exclusion of all others, than if no exception whatever had appeared on the face of the instrument; since these irrefragably demonstrated, that all the various possible sources of future increase to the revenue were not overlooked when Mr. Palmer's appointment was framed. To what purpose, then, served official documents, speculations, and conjectures intended to show other causes of prosperity in the income of the Post-office than the excellence of Mr. Palmer's reforms? One purpose only could be served by them; that of confusing and misleading the committee. But the use that had been made of that instrument by the hon. gentleman who had thought it decisive of the tenure on which Mr. Palmer held his emoluments, was the last use, Dr. L. said, which he would consent to make of it. If the letter of Mr. Palmer's appointment in 1789 was conclusive, where had been the necessity of a long inquiry? Why had a committee been appointed

to consider of the agreement made with Mr. Palmer for the reform and improvement of the post-office?" Why had that committee produced a bulky report? And why was a committee of the whole House, now sitting on that report? the commission of 1789, would have spoken for itself in a single line-in three words. should therefore think himself at liberty to ascend much higher, and should wish to refer the committee to another com[3 U]

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mission, never executed indeed, but proved in evidence to have been prepared some time in the year 1785.

It had been intimated, that the draft in question could not now be found in the Treasury, that it was, therefore, a paper of doubtful authenticity; probably drawn up by some friend of Mr. Palmer; a mere project submitted to, but never approved by government. This, however, was not agreeable to the evidence before the committee. Some intended appointment or other, to the very same effect, is repeatedly mentioned about the time, in the negociation which took place between Mr. Palmer and the chancellor of the exchequer, through the mediation of the present lord Camden. Above all, the draft of the commission itself was produced to the postmaster-general by Mr. Palmer, when, in 1790, he had some dissentions with the noble lords who filled that office. Upon that he stood, as the real tenure of his situation. Fortified with that, he threatened them with a reference to the chancellor of the exchequer. Could he, could any man in his senses have so acted, if he were conscious that the production of that very instrument would have ruined his whole cause with the judge whom he had chosen? Indeed, the chancellor of the exchequer himself has admitted that he "rather believes the draft to have been prepared at the Treasury, or by directions from thence, and from thence communicated to the attorney-general." What then was the language of that original draft? It was distinctly "for life." Lord Camden, too, represented it at the time, as the opinion entertained by the chancellor of the exchequer himself that the appointment ought to be such as to secure Mr. Palmer against any change of administration. Could it then be supposed, that he was not to be secured against that very minister who wished him to be secured against all? That minister had himself fairly stated, that according to the outline of the original terms, "Mr. Palmer was to have an appointment for life."

But all this, it was maintained, Mr. Palmer himself, in 1789, had voluntarily abandoned. Now, what could have induced him so to relinquish at once what he had so long and so earnestly pressed in all his early negotiations with government! How was he situated at the date of what is called the modified agreement? Did he lie under any temptation to ac

cept less than he had always solicited? Does that agreement contain any compensation for that which it is said to have taken away? Nothing of all this. When Mr. Palmer first undertook the execution of his own plan, he was opposed by all the authority and information of the Postoffice. Volume was added to volume, folio to folio, of objection upon objection, to prove the whole scheme impracticable in all its parts. He defended himself as he could in this paper-war, and he triumphed in the experiments which he instantly made on some of the principal roads, at his own immediate expense, at his own ultimate hazard. He gave up his own private concerns, by no means inconsiderable; he dedicated himself wholly to the public service in which he had engaged; he urged it forward with an activity and perseverance, which had been said by one hon. gentleman, with a great degree of truth, to have formed a principal part of his merit. His plan gradually developed itself in practice. Still he was thwarted by the officers of the old establishment, who, when they could not openly resist, secretly threw every little obstacle in the way of his progress. But every new difficulty which he had to surmount, gave additional merit to Mr. Palmer's success. He had surmounted them all; he had firmly and immoveably established his plan; the commissioners of public inquiry had reported in its favour; the revenue of the state had felt its beneficial effects; it had risen much above the mark where his per-centage was to commence; he had already earned the reward for which he had sti pulated; when, as the committee was now desired to believe, he all at once, without any assignable reason, knowingly and intentionally, consented to accept, instead of a per-centage for life, the very same rate of emolument dependent on the pleasure of the postmaster-general; on the pleasure of persons, who from the first had been unfavourable to all his views, and with whom he had been in a perpetual contest. Was it possible to believe this? Could it be explained upon any known system of human action? Did he gain in power and patronage what he sacrificed in the security of his income? No; the very reverse. He says, and in that he is confirmed by the chancellor of the exchequer, that the original commission fixing his profits for life, and making him independent of the postmaster-ge

once proposed for him had been actually signed and sealed?

neral, was only laid aside because such a separate appointment was thought incompatible with the existing law. Had But even a patent office, it would pernot that legal objection occurred, not to haps be said, might be in some cases vathe nature of the reward which he was cated. Incontrovertibly it might. But to receive, but of the powers which he what were those cases? And was the prewas to exercise, that would have been sent one of the number? He had underdone which he wished, and to which the stood from men of eminence in that prominister intended to accede. When it fession, which was more immediately conwas found that his commission could not versant than his own, in the construction be made out from the Treasury, but that of instruments, that there were two it must come from the postmaster-gene- grounds only of setting aside a patent: ral alone, it was a necessary consequence one was corruption in the discharge of that the compensation for his services the duties annexed to the office; the should also be derived to him through other was more generally, any gross misthe same channel. But he constantly re- behaviour attended with actual injury to garded this as the form only, not the es- the service. Of corruption Mr. Palmer sence of his appointment. He always be- was not accused. Both the noblemen, lieved the real and true interpretation who filled the situation of postmaster-geboth of his authority and of his emolu- neral bore positive testimony to his personal ments, to be, in effect, the same as under integrity. But one fact of his own conduct the original agreement. This was clearly spoke more strongly in his behalf, than no after-thought on his part. While the could any testimony of opinions, however transaction was fresh, the very year after respectable. He had actually effected his his appointment, when the misunder- projected reforms for 20,000l. a year less standings between him and the post- than his own estimate, 20,000l. a year master seem to have reached a higher less than the sum with which government pitch than at any other period since the on the part of the public was willing to first trial of his scheme; when he held purchase the benefits of his plan. Had forth, almost in a tone of menace, an im- he been a corrupt man, here was a fund, mediate application for the accustomed from which, by connivance and collusion, support of the minister, it was upon this from which, by such a participation in the declared ground, that although he was contracts as official men had sometimes nominally under the post-master, he was been supposed to enjoy, he might safely virtually under the Treasury. The man- have drawn to himself secret profits much ner in which his appointment was made beyond all that can ever accrue from the out, he asserted to be but a matter of allowance which he claims. But he represent necessity. And upon this occa- sisted, and broke the combination of consion it was, that, to show the genuine tractors against him; he sought and he nature of his employ, he produced the discovered one, who speculated more unexecuted draft of the original warrant. sanguinely or more correctly, by whose Nothing, then, could be more manifest, means he was able to reduce the charge than that Mr. Palmer never contem- of mere conveyance much below his pubplated the commission which he took in lic promises, below even his own private 1789, as any modification whatever of expectations. The name of this man was the original agreement: nothing could Wilson.-Now, after this, could the combe more improbable than that the chan-mittee pause a single moment on the cellor of the exchequer could have designed it as such a modification, when an objection raised not by himself, but by the attorney-general alone, prevented him from ratifying with all the binding efficacy of a patent, the original proposals of Mr. Palmer in their fullest extent. If then the equity, the honour, the liberality of the public ought to look to the fair intention and spirit of the agreement, could there be a doubt but that Mr. Palmer ought to stand on as advantageous a footing as if the patent-office

charge, which was intimated against Mr.
Palmer, of showing too much partiality to
this man? It was urged against him, that
he favoured this man in getting some ac-
counts passed, which he had himself pro-
nounced to be extravagant. But these
accounts all together were for no very
large sum: it could not be surmised that
Mr. Palmer had any concealed interest in
them; he had not even the indirect in-
terest of reputation seeking to cover any
extravagance of his own.
The simple
truth, according to the evidence, was

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