s a
debt due to the provincial chest from the imperial treasury of
L120,000. The salaries of the clergy and pensioners never had been laid
before the Assembly, but had been thrown into a separate list, and
although paid in the first instance out of the civil chest had,
nevertheless, invariably been provided for out of the extraordinaries
of the army. He further informed the secretary for the colonies that,
in his opinion, it was desirable that the civil list should be wholly
provided for by the province. Lord Bathurst did not fail to take into
consideration the accumulation, during four years, of the annual excess
of the actual expenditure, beyond the appropriated revenue of each
year. He quite concurred in the opinion expressed by Sir John
Sherbrooke, that the annual settlement of the accounts of the province
and the government at home would have been at once the most expedient
course and most likely to prevent any interruption of a mutual good
understanding. Short accounts make long friends. As related to the
past, it was a question whether the legislature might not fairly be
considered as having sanctioned the appropriation, the extra
appropriation of the funds, by not objecting to it, when submitted to
their notice, or whether any further measures were required for
legalizing the appropriation itself, or for repaying the debt, which,
under other circumstances, might be considered due to the province.
With respect to some part of the expenditure, the silence of the
legislature must be interpreted into an approbation of it, for they
could not but think themselves bound to make good the deficiency of the
funds appropriated by themselves to specific objects, such as the
charge for the Trinity House, and the payment of the officers of the
legislature, which had uniformly exceeded the funds raised under the
Imperial Acts. He saw no objection to considering the silent admission
of the accounts, submitted to them, as an implied approbation of the
accounts themselves, and of the manner in which they had been
discharged. But with respect to the future, he considered it advisable
that the legislature should be annually called upon to vote all the
sums required for the annual expenditure of the province. The House was
to be prepared for the probable contingency of voting that part of the
civil list which provided for the stipends of the Roman Catholic
Clergy, and omitting the other part which had reference to the
Protestant est