haps the order of time, dictated by the proportion of value, which
ought to regulate his application of payment to service.

I am sensible, too, that the very operation of a plan of economy which
tends to exonerate the civil list of expensive establishments may in
some sort defeat the capital end we have in view,--the independence of
Parliament; and that, in removing the public and ostensible means of
influence, we may increase the fund of private corruption. I have
thought of some methods to prevent an abuse of surplus cash under
discretionary application,--I mean the heads of _secret service, special
service, various payments_, and the like,--which I hope will answer, and
which in due time I shall lay before you. Where I am unable to limit the
quantity of the sums to be applied, by reason of the uncertain quantity
of the service, I endeavor to confine it to its _line_, to secure an
indefinite application to the definite service to which it belongs,--not
to stop the progress of expense in its line, but to confine it to that
line in which it professes to move.

But that part of my plan, Sir, upon which I principally rest, that on
which I rely for the purpose of binding up and securing the whole, is to
establish a fixed and invariable order in all its payments, which it
shall not be permitted to the First Lord of the Treasury, upon any
pretence whatsoever, to depart from. I therefore divide the civil list
payments into _nine_ classes, putting each class forward according to
the importance or justice of the demand, and to the inability of the
persons entitled to enforce their pretensions: that is, to put those
first who have the most efficient offices, or claim the justest debts,
and at the same time, from the character of that description of men,
from the retiredness or the remoteness of their situation, or from their
want of weight and power to enforce their pretensions, or from their
being entirely subject to the power of a minister, without any
reciprocal power of awing, ought to be the most considered, and are the
most likely to be neglected,--all these I place in the highest classes;
I place in the lowest those whose functions are of the least importance,
but whose persons or rank are often of the greatest power and influence.

In the first class I place the _judges_, as of the first importance. It
is the public justice that holds the community together; the ease,
therefore, and independence of the judges ought to