£33 15 for horses, and £1825 for carriages. Liveries may require renewal annually; but surely her Majesty does not spend £3000 in purchasing horses, or £4800 on new carriages, every year? In the Lord Steward's department the tradesmen's bills amounted to £92,065, on which some abatement was made, the sum allotted for the future being £86,000 only. An investigation of the items would seem to show, that the committee might very properly have gone a little further. It might also now be supposed that her Majesty's consort, Prince Albert, holding, as he does, extensive farms of the Crown, rent, tax, and rate free, and being an extensive breeder of cattle, with the privilege of grazing as many as he likes in the two royal parks, of which he is ranger, and a successful competitor at agricultural shows, would be able to do somewhat towards supplying his own family, and his own and his royal consort's household establishment, (for they have two) with butcher's meat and poultry, bread, bacon, butter, cheese, eggs, milk, and cream; but if his Royal Highness does anything in this way, he probably takes care to turn a good penny by it, for the sums appropriated as the annual cost of these things amount to £21,609. The tradesmen's bills in the department of the Master of the Robes amounted, in 1836, to £1880, and this the committee increased to £5000, probably on the supposition that a female Sovereign might be more expensive in such matters, although, as William IV. had a Queen, it is not quite clear that this was sufficient ground for the addition. The total amount of the tradesmen's bills, in 1836, in all the departments, was £174,048, and the annual allowance under this head, recommended by the committee, was £172,500.

The salaries, allowances, &c., of the last reign, having been examined and arranged, pretty much on the same principle as the tradesmen's bills, the following estimates were submitted to Parliament as the grounds for granting £385,000 per annum to the Queen, "for the support of her Majesty's household, and of the honour and dignity of the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland :"

The act of Parliament settling the civil list according to this scheme received the royal assent on the 23rd of December, 1837. Its intention was that all the expenses of royalty, whilst the Queen remained single, should be covered by the sum of £385,000. On the marriage of her Majesty, in February, 1840, an annuity of £30,000 was granted, by the 3rd Vict., caps. 1 and 2, to Prince Albert, to enable him to support that portion of the royal dignity reflected upon him, without pressing on the resources of his illustrious consort. This allowance has since been largely augmented, as will be seen in a subsequent section, by the emoluments of various posts, with and without duty, showered upon the Prince in such bountiful profusion,—all of which his royal highness has been thought competent to fill at the same time, or, at all events, to be paid for being supposed to fill. But, whatever Parliament may have intended, ways and means have been found to manage its allocations differently. It is wholly a mistake to suppose that £385,000, even with that source of annual increase, the £1200 pension fund, which has already swelled it to £410,000, is the whole cost of supporting "the honour and dignity of the Crown," or that the arrangements of Parliament as to the distribution of the various items have been adhered to. In this, as in other matters, Parliament Costly Vice- proposes but the Minister disposes. In the first place, to say Royalty of nothing of the costly vice-royalty of Ireland, (for which there is no more occasion, in these days of steam and electricity, than

Ireland.

there is for vice-kings in Scotland, Lancashire, and Yorkshire,) the counties palatine of Chester and Durham, the duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster, and the principality of Wales, have all their mock royal establishments,-their Courts of Chancery and ecclesiastical law,-their chancellors, attorney-generals, solicitorgenerals, privy councillors, &c., &c., just as if such were a separate kingdom, and we were still in the days of the heptarchy. All this adds immensely to the patronage and influence of the Crown, and something to its wealth: it is also very beneficial to the aristocracy, whose members and clients swarm in the lucra tive offices provided by these mimic kingdoms; but in what way it contributes to the real "honour and dignity of the Crown,' or the welfare of the nation, is a political problem that remains to be solved. In the second place, many of the expenses forming items of the estimates on which the civil list was arranged, on the accession of her Majesty, have since been transferred to the Consolidated Fund, and are provided for in the annual votes of Parliament. Thus,-in the department of the Lord Steward, in 1836, occurred an item of £10,569 for the royal gardens. The fund appropriated to that department is now burthened with no such expense. The sum voted in the estimate for "Royal palaces and public buildings," "Royal parks, pleasure gardens," &c., exclusive of the new Houses of Parliament, of public buildings in Ireland, and of other buildings which may be called national, as distinguished from royal, was in 1854 £221,885, in 1855 £224,496, and in 1856 the total sum demanded for the same purpose is £234,460.

It is only proper to observe, however, that of this large annual addition to the civil list, which almost doubles it, only a small portion is spent on palaces in the personal occupation of her Majesty. Of the rest some are useless, some occupied rent-fiee by collateral branches of the royal family; others, as Hampton Court, for example, form a sort of Elysian variety of the Union workhouse for noble and right honourable paupers; but all are parts of the royal expenditure. There must be added, also, the immense sums spent on the building, cobbling, and sailing of the royal yachts, which, though only used for occasional pleasure trips, are little less expensive than line-of-battle ships in commission; and very much more so, proportionately and relatively, than merchant vessels, trading to far distant countries, and bringing grist to the national mill. In fine, if all the expenses incidental to "the honour and dignity of the Crown" could be

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ascertained, and were fairly stated, it would be found that the £385,000 per annum, settled by Parliament on her Majesty, constitutes but a very small portion of the actual cost of royalty. We do not mean to deny that, if the whole sum, whatever it be, were well spent for objects desirable in themselves, though not indispensable, the blessing of settled government would be cheaply purchased even at that price; but to contend that much of it is improperly squandered on persons and for objects contributing nothing towards the comfort and happiness of the Sovereign, or the true honour and dignity of the Crown; and this we will in our next volume proceed to demonstrate from the constitution of the royal household, after a brief exposition of some facts relating more immediately to the royal lady, for whose supposed advantage it exists in its present form.

To the Right Honourable, ROBERT MONSEY, BARON CRANWORTH, of Cranworth, in the County of Norfolk, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain.

HUMBLY COMPLAINING,

Sheweth unto his Lordship, CHARLES WILLIAM GREGORY, of Ingram Court, Fenchurch Street, in the City of London, Ship Owner and Insurance Broker, the above-named Plaintiff. as follows :—

1. In and previously to the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-three, the plaintiff Charles William Gregory was a Director of the African Steam Ship Company, and was largely interested in the said company, and was desirous of investing some capital, then unemployed, in his hands, in trading with various places situate on the west coast of Africa.

2. The defendant Frederick Desnanx had been introduced to the plaintiff Charles William Gregory, by two brothers of the plaintiff, named Edward Henry Gregory and Leonard Barnard Gregory, and the plaintiff had procured for the defendant Frederick Desnaux the situation of a clerk in an underwriter and wine merchant's office; and the defendant Frederick Desnaux had, about twelve months afterwards, procured better employment in the office of merchants trading to and from the West Indies.

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of Africa secretly and

suppressed.

3. On consideration, it appeared to the plaintiff that the position of the plaintiff, as a director of the said African Steam Ship Company, would not admit of the carrying on in plaintiff's own name any trade which the plaintiff' Charles William Gregory chan might purpose to carry on with the west coast of Africa, if such against protrade were carried on in his own name; and with a view to civilization obviate the difficulty, the plaintiff Charles William Gregory proposed to the defendant Frederick Desnaux, that the said for ever trade should be carried on in the name of the defendant Frederick Desnaux, and should be managed by the said defendant under the direction of the plaintiff, and that in addition to the knowledge which the defendant would obtain by such management, under the direction of the plaintiff, the defendant should for remuneration receive a sum of one hundred and fifty pounds per annum for his services, and the plaintiff at the same time mentioned to the defendant, that should the said trade turn out very profitable, the plaintiff would further remunerate the defendant.

4. The defendant Frederick Desnaux agreed to the said proposal, and for the purpose of carrying on the said trade, the plaintiff engaged an office situate in East India Chambers, Leadenhall Street, in the said City of London, and furnished the said office at his own expense, and has ever since paid the rent of the said office, and the plaintiff Charles William Gregory introduced the defendant to a merchant of the name of Scala, carrying on business at Lagos and Accra, both on the said west coast of Africa, and the defendant Frederick Desnaux com