The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1826-10-27 00:00:00

LETTER THE TENTH,
FROM
THE CHAIRMAN OF THK BOARD OF sum*

TO
THE RIGHT HON. T. WALLACE.

Sta,—ln clearing my official character from the aspens
'ions winch you have so publicly thrown upon it, I (10
not mean to affirm. or even to imply, that you have been
grossly deceived. Had you been imposed upon by fise
testimony, or had you illogically drawn your inferences
from insufficient premises, althonah I might have disputed
your competence as a Commissioner of Inquir. I should
have throwu no imputation upon your uprightness as a
man. But you have no such apology to plead. No im-
position has been practised, either upon the slowness of
your discernment, or the tininess of your understanding;
lon the contrary, the anisrer esentatioes you have made are
purely andexclusively your own. You have sought to
establish false charges with infinitely more zeal than is
usually shown in the investigrion of actual guilt—you
have laboured to give a colour of reality to facts
which have no existence—you have raised up accusa-
nous cm evidence which you ought not to have received,
while you have withheld evidence, which, in justice,
ou ought to have produced. On whit ground can you
justify your aye: meat, that on specialty up/dying for the
!Muslim Accounts of the County Fire Office for the year
1919, nothing could he proittc al to you, but the fragment
the cover and a !Aug al one nfthe pairs t, whet. tern qaarters
of that very year's account were proffered to you nerji•rt and
entire? Wherefore is it that you give a most conspicuous
placein your Report to your letter from Edinburgh, which
charges unprrerdentrd neglect anal delay against the Com-
missioners of Stamps, while you suppressed their Svretary's
answer, which removed an ground of complaint? What
vindication will you offer for that deliberate distortion of
evidente, which had for its object to confirm that wrongful
impression which your Report hail already raised against
me? But for the development of facts which your false
accusations have ilrawit front ice, I must have been !milled
to the public estimation, utterly, and without redress.
What inducement—every one would have said, and pro-
perly enough—what inducement could Mr. Wal-
lace have, as a Commissioner of Inquiry, for attack-
ing the Cliairmair of the Board of Stamps? What
diaire can lie have to arraign his conduct undeservedly?
What object can he seek by his removal from office? Of
what importatic- is it to hint who tills the Chair? He has
only a public duty to perform, and what motive cart he
have that shoot,' interfere with the fair discharge of it?
Such questions are reasonable ; because it was not suspected
—for there was no reason to suspect—that you could be
leagued with that power in Scotian 1, which upholds the
very abuses which I had strenuously laboured to put down.
It was not known that I hail unveiled a system of nefa-
rious mismanagement in the Stamp Office in Edinburgh,
and that, by causing the removal of the principal ag,e nt in
that system, I hsel excited the hitter resentment of that
party in Scotland, through whose influence he was re-
appointed to office. It was not known that Commis-
sioners chosen afterwards, by means of that influence., to
inquire into and teport on that system which I had thus
denounced, hail drawn up and presented a Report ex-
actly at variance with urine, and calculated not only
to set aside its authority, but to involve me in the disrepute
which had been cast upon it. It was not known that 1
hail dissected this adverse Report—as has been seen--
amid had made it wholly unavailable to its purpose, by
proving to demonstration that no reliance was to be placed
upon it. Again, nut one of the readers of those extracts,
full of accusations, front yew Report, which swelled the
columns of every newspaper—not one of them was aware
of the relentless enmity which I hail thus drawn upon
myself, and the unsleeping vengeance with which it had
ever since pursued tee. 'ow Report above adverted to,
of Mr. Sykes, by which my Report of 1818 was meant to
be overthrown, was presetiteil to the Treasury in 1822.
Fills entered on your investigations into the Stamp Depart-
ment in Edinburgh in the Autumn of 18'24, the year
before you began your inquiry at the head office st
Somerset House, hut, to tine day, your Report on the
Stamp Department in Entsnuann has never been laid
before Parliament, although your Reports on the office in
LONDON, which did not commence till the year following
(1525), are presented, printed, published, and their con-
tents dispersed all Over the kingdom! To what are the
public to ascribe this keeping back of a Report which
ought, in the order of things, to have appeared at least
twelve months ago? 'lite non-appearance of it is the
more important, because the system to which it related
was one entire mass of abuse, and required that not an
hour should be lost in rescuing the Revenue from the
heavy losses it had ID long borne, and which called ur-
gently, anal with imploring voice, for remedy.
The lamentable state of disorder which prevailed in
the Stamp Department in Scotland may be collected from
what has alreadylappeared. But I will not rest the proof of
it on any written statement or report made by me. I will
appeal to evidence which cannot err. Mr. Bremner was
suspended in October, 1818, and Mr. Renny, who, at my
instance, hail been just before made by the Treasury
Solicitor to the Legacy Department, was directed to act, as
interim Solicitor, which he did, and continued to do, until
the reinstatement of Mr. Bremner in 1819. -
Let us now compare the difference in the receipt of
the Revenue, during the corresponding six months of the
years 1618 and 19, from January to June inclusive, under
only six horde of duty. Every other head of duty was
improved, but I will confine myself to these.
Duties in Scotland. From Jan. to June, I
10111. I 1819

Increase.

£6,454 19
251 14
1157 0
521 7
3,543 10

i
Attorneys Ccriiiicates . 11,198 0 I
1 2:11,653 0
Attorneys' 31andates . 970 5 1,222 0
Fire Insurance . . 10.307 19 11,164 19
Newspapers . . 8.859 16 41381 3 ,
Inventory Prolate (D.ity)' 12,64 V 16,200 10
Legacy Only trout Jan.
to Aug. inclusive . I 19,355 10 33,777 17 14,422 7
No stronger proof need be adduced than this to show the
loss sustained under the management of Mr. Bremner;
and Low little the interests of the Revenue were consulted
in his restoration to office. The space to which 1 vat li-
mited dots not allow me to go further into detail ; I can
give only the more striking facts. The conclusions to
which they lead are on the surface.
I advert next to the benefit which accrued to the public,
by removing the Solicitorship of the Legacy Duty from the
collection of Mr. Bremner, in whom it had been hitherto
vested, and forming it into a separate office, under the ma-
nagement of Mr. Ronny.
The following comparison of this duty, for the three
years immediately preceding the year 1819, and the three
subsequent years inclusive)' will sufficiently exemplify
the stivantage whic resulted from it :
Amount of beret .Duty paid in I,
. - £17,133 1 7
Scotland in 1010 - .1
1817 - . . 26,391 11 o'.
1816 - - - . 281011 I 0
1619 - . . . 49,764 1 2
14120 - - . - 62.872 0 2
1821 . - - . 58,828 12 5
1822 - . - . 63,624 14 10
Continuing the annual receipt of this duty up to the
close of last year, it stands thus :
In the year 1823 - - 359 19 91
.C5O.
lilt - - . - 61,370 10 II
13r..5 - . . -
64,805 13 9
As this isribranch of duty which can have thus annually
atigtnented only in consequence of the.increased diligence
and fidelity employed by Mr. Iteuny in the collection of it,
the deficient amount of it while in the hands of Mr.
Bremner may be obviously accounted for.
Now, Sir, after what is here stated—after all that has
been stated in my former letter, and stated upon evidence
which you cannot contravert—after calling to mind the
appallitia. but literally correct, description of the Stamp.
office and the Stamp-oft-ken in Scotland, which is detailed
in my correspondence with the late Mr. Ilindley (bearing
in mind the fact of Mr. Bremner's restoration to office, by
which all the earnest endeavours which had been made to
rectify the hideous abuses which had so long prevailed in
the Stamp department in that quarter of the kingdom bad
been baffled, and the interest of the and the exer-
tions of the Board of Stams qually act at nought)—let
us turn once again to the staternent which, deliberately,
and oil oath, von have laid before Parliament,
yand the
Lords ad in which ou Wei.
.rt'eaus putrYandn incorrigible function.
(ciousi
theseyofrephrisesekultajestt's
core
'tries in Scoet.arin as meet diligent and worthy men,
zealous for the increase end improteinent of the Revenue,