"Proper Trust of Liberty": economical reform, the English constitution and the protections of accounting during the American War of Independence, The

Accounting History,  Feb 2008  by Funnell, Warwick

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It was not the original intention of the accounting reforms as part of the settlement in 1689 that executive accounts for military spending would be anything other than the means to provide constitutional protections for the nation, through its representatives in parhament, from monarchies intent on using executive powers to retrieve authority and freedoms lost to parhament. Any other purposes that accounts might serve must always be secondary to their immanent constitutional role. A similar level of parliamentary concern, however, did not extend to spending by the Crown on matters that constituted the civil list. The omission of the civil list from parliamentary surveillance after the Revolution perpetuated a constitutional tension between the Crown's executive powers and parliament's legislative supremacy, which reached its climax during the War of Independence (Reitan, 1966, p.318). The mihtary humiliations suffered by the English in the American War of Independence and the rapidly rising costs of its prolongation awoke parhament to serious flaws in government accounts, but especially the civil list accounts The opportunities that these defects in accounting allowed the Crown to exercise patronage unhindered by the intrusions of parliament threatened parliament's independence and authority and, therefore, the liberty of all. These deficiencies in executive accounts, which were finally catalogued by the Commissioners for Examining the Public Accounts, prompted reform of the civil list accounts and the management of the civil list, which overturned centuries of resilient, embedded practices that had nothing to commend them beyond their standing as custom and the powerful vested interests that they served. In particular, the gradual disappearance of the corrupting influence of the Crown in parliament, especially after Burke's reforms in 1782, created a fundamental change in the constitution whereby the last remnants of constitutional antagonism to parliament's sovereignty in financial matters were finally removed. This change was entirely dependent upon the regular, controlled declaration of accounts by the executive.

Notes

1. To reflect contemporary preferences in the eighteenth century, throughout the article "England" and "English" are used in preference to "Britain" and "British". Numerous examples are contained in the article where contemporaries at the time prefened to see themselves as English. Englishness was still the dominant identity, not being British.

2. Burke was a member of parliament between 1766 until 1794, firstly as MP for Wendover and then in 1774 the MP for Bristol, a seat that he lost in 1780 after which he was elected as MP for Malton. For a particularly acerbic opinion of Burke's qualities as a politician see Horace Walpole, a contemporary of Burke, cited in Hodgart (1963, pp.172-3).

3. It is probably wise to remember that Burke, while he may have had a reputation for honesty, selflessness and loyalty, was a seasoned politician who was not above using prominent political issues such as economical reform to further his own standing. Indeed, the way in which Burke and others successfully relocated the force of the Association Movement to London was seen at the time as a politically astute move to take full advantage of rising public support. Charles Fox was well known for his political opportunism. Ehrman (1969, p.64) refers to Fox's "hunger for office", an impatience that he was not prepared to hide. George III believed that Fox had no principles.