The subject was now revived.

A report made by the Commissioners who had been appointed in the preceding year to examine the public accounts disclosed some facts which excited indignation, and others which raised grave suspicion.

The House seemed fully determined to make an extensive reform; and, in truth, nothing could have averted such a reform except the folly and violence of the reformers.

That they should have been angry is indeed not strange.

The enormous gains, direct and indirect, of the servants of the public went on increasing, while the gains of every body else were diminishing.
Rents were falling; trade was languishing; every man who lived either on what his ancestors had left him or on the fruits of his own industry was forced to retrench.