[148] Unfortunately no member rose at this conjuncture to propose that the civil establishment of the kingdom should be carefully revised, that sinecures should be abolished, that exorbitant official incomes should be reduced, and that no servant of the State should be allowed to exact, under any pretence, any thing beyond his known and lawful remuneration.
In this way it would have been possible to diminish the public burdens, and at the same time to increase the efficiency of every public department.

But unfortunately those who were loudest in clamouring against the prevailing abuses were utterly destitute of the qualities necessary for the work of reform.

On the twelfth of December, some foolish man, whose name has not come down to us, moved that no person employed in any civil office, the Speaker, Judges and Ambassadors excepted, should receive more than five hundred pounds a year; and this motion was not only carried, but carried without one dissentient voice.
[149] Those who were most interested in opposing it doubtless saw that opposition would, at that moment, only irritate the majority, and reserved themselves for a more favourable time.

The more favourable time soon came.

No man of common sense could, when his blood had cooled, remember without shame that he had voted for a resolution which made no distinction between sinecurists and laborious public servants, between clerks employed in copying letters and ministers on whose wisdom and integrity the fate of the nation might depend.