Many of the persons who in all times have
filled the great offices of state have been younger brothers, who had
originally little, if any fortune. These offices do not furnish the
means of amassing wealth. There ought to be some power in the crown of
granting pensions out of the reach of its own caprices. An entail of
dependence is a bad reward of merit.

I would therefore leave to the crown the possibility of conferring some
favors, which, whilst they are received as a reward, do not operate as
corruption. When men receive obligations from the crown, through the
pious hands of fathers, or of connections as venerable as the paternal,
the dependences which arise from thence are the obligations of
gratitude, and not the fetters of servility. Such ties originate in
virtue, and they promote it. They continue men in those habitudes of
friendship, those political connections, and those political principles,
in which they began life. They are antidotes against a corrupt levity,
instead of causes of it. What an unseemly spectacle would it afford,
what a disgrace would it be to the commonwealth that suffered such
things, to see the hopeful son of a meritorious minister begging his
bread at the door of that Treasury from whence his father dispensed the
economy of an empire, and promoted the happiness and glory of his
country! Why should he be obliged to prostrate his honor and to submit
his principles at the levee of some proud favorite, shouldered and
thrust aside by every impudent pretender on the very spot where a few
days before he saw himself adored,--obliged to cringe to the author of
the calamities of his house, and to kiss the hands that are red with his
father's blood?--No, Sir, these things are unfit,--they are intolerable.

Sir, I shall be asked, why I do not choose to destroy those offices
which are pensions, and appoint pensions under the direct title in their
stead. I allow that in some cases it leads to abuse, to have things
appointed for one purpose and applied to another. I have no great
objection to such a change; but I do not think it quite prudent for me
to propose it. If I should take away the present establishment, the
burden of proof rests upon me, that so many pensions, and no more, and
to such an amount each, and no more, are necessary for the public
service. This is what I can never prove; for it is a thing incapable of
definition. I do not like to take away an object that I think answers my
purpose, in