THE GOVERNMENT OFFICES.-I. We have for some time past been occupied with subjects that have, externally, great attractions for the reflective observer- ancient cities, with their venerable monuments of ancestral piety-modern capitals of manufacturing districts, with their colossal arrangements of docks and factories; or we have wandered with the quiet lover of nature by the side of smiling rivers, or looked upon the broad sea from some one of the holiday resorts of our summer migrants. The metropolis has, however, its claims upon us; and more particularly so, in connexion with the centralizing power which it exercises over the whole 'Land we Live in,' in matters connected with general government, In this class of subjects we shall occasionally use some of the materials which are before us in our previous work especially devoted to 'LONDON;' but in a very condensed shape, and with essential additions: THE TREASURY. The heart of the Executive of England-that power which embraces in its influence almost every portion of the habitable globe-has its abiding-place in some very plain, or positively ugly, or recently smartened buildings, covering a few acres in the neigbourhood of Whitehall, and opening behind to St. James's Park. We walk southward, a few hundred yards from Charing Cross, and we reach the north flank of these buildings -the Admiralty. A little further on we arrive at the Horse Guards. A private house intervenes, and we are at the Treasury. This was, some little while ago, a brick building of the most gloomy and tasteless character, joined on to one of the architectural freaks of Sir John Soane, used as the Board of Trade and Council Office. (Cut, No. 5.) Mr. Barry has transformed this incongruous association into a very splendid palatial façade, within whose walls is lodged the moving principle of British authority-the power of the purse. (Cut, No. 4.) And yet England's Treasury contrasts strangely with the schoolboy notions of a Treasury that cling to us. Here are no ingots of gold and silver, no stores of jewels, no piled-up substantial wealth. Plainly-dressed men, with about as much small-change as may suffice for the expenses of the day in their pockets, go out and in. Scraps of paper are handed about with large sums written or engraved on them. The abstract idea of money inhabits the empty halls: the power of endowing men with a magnetic power of attracting gold to them after they issue from the doors is there nothing more. It is like the chests full of sand which the Spanish Jews are said to have received in pawn from the Cid, and to have guarded with scrupulous care, believing they contained the hero's plate and jewels. The chests contained something better than gold-the Cid's "promise to pay ;" and the Treasury contains something better still-the collective faith of the British nation. The unseen, remote wealth at the command of this vacant Treasury exceeds what eastern imagination piled up in the cavern opened to Aladdin. In this building is deposited the talisman that keeps together the social fabric of the empire. When Henry VIII. had stripped Wolsey of Whitehall, and other possessions, he constructed there, for the amusement of his leisure, a Tennis-court, a Bowlinggreen, and a Cock-pit. The tennis-court and the bowling-green have left no traces. The cock-pit went through a variety of transmutations, till it settled down into a Treasury. In the reign of Anne, the Lord High Treasurer Godolphin sat three or four times a-week at the Cock-pit, "to determine and settle matters relating to the public treasure and revenues." This was the old building fronting the Banqueting House, which Mr. Barry has recently metamorphosed into a magnificent wing of his uniform edifice. Pennant re-published in his London' an old print of the Horse Guards (that is, of the stables adjoining the Tilt-yard, occupied by the Horse Guards) in the time of Charles II., in which the Cock-pit, the future Treasury of England, occupies a tolerably conspicuous position. Charles, with his spaniels, is lounging in front, with an empty and extensive cock-pit behind him, which in the reign of his niece was to be converted by the 'frugal' Godolphin into a well-filled Treasury. The old office of Godolphin, however, is but a small part of the modern Treasury. The offices of the more important functionaries are in the large building, behind which fronts the esplanade in St. James's Park. (Cut, No. 6.) Malcolm, the author of 'Londinum Redivivum,' says: "The Treasury is fronted by an ancient building next Whitehall, strongly marked with modern alterations. A passage hence leads to the Park, and to an amazing number of apartments used for this extensive department of administration. Several offices were destroyed in 1733, in order to erect the present building facing the parade; the expense of which was estimated at 9000l. The façade consists of a double basement of the Doric order, and a projection in the centre, on which are four Ionic pillars, supporting an entablature and pediment." Where the Treasury of the Kings of England had its abiding place-or, more properly, where its eidolon, or Platonic idea, lodged before it took up its abode in the Cock-pit, were hard to say. The Exchequer, which, in the reign of Edward I., was literally the King's strong-box, was, in his time, lodged in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey. Sir Francis Palgrave says, that the earliest place of deposit for the royal treasures which can be traced is "that very ancient apartment, described as the Treasury in the cloisters of the Abbey of Westminster, next the Chapter-house,' and in which the pix is still contained. This building is a vaulted chamber, supported by a single pillar; and it must remain with the architectural antiquary to decide why a structure in the early Romanesque style, | dern gentlemen do of transporting their portmanteaux ranging with the massy semicircular arch in the south transept, acknowledged to be a portion of the structure raised by the Confessor, may not also have been erected in the reign of the last legitimate Anglo-Saxon king. In this Treasury the Regalia and Crown Jewels were deposited, as well as the Records. The ancient double oak doors, strongly grated and barred with iron, and locked with three keys, yet remain; but these safeguards were not sufficient to defend its contents. And the indictments which state the manner in which the Treasury was broken open by the assent and connivance of Adam de Warefield, the Sacristan, and other monks, the accomplices of the porter of the adjoining palace, are singularly illustrative of the jurisprudence as well as of the manners of the times. In the reign of Elizabeth this Treasury was more particularly appropriated to leagues and treaties. The chamber yet retains the fittings intended for the reception of these documents; and upon several of the drawers, or 'tills,' as they are termed in the old inventories, are yet affixed labels, in the handwriting of Arthur Agarde. But the vault is very damp; and for this reason the records seem to have been removed, though not until some of them have sustained irreparable injury." by railroad. "In this year" (1210), says Matthew of Paris, "the King, upon some displeasure conceived against the Londoners, as a punishment for the offence removed the Exchequer from Westminster to Northampton." Again, in the fifteenth year of Edward I., Maitland, quoting Madox, says :-" Edward commanded the Barons of the Exchequer (whose financial duties, it would appear from the context, had not then been entirely separated from their judicial) to transfer that court to the Hustings of London, at which place I imagine they audited the city accounts." During the Wars of the Roses, and during what Clarendon has called "the great rebellion," it is equally difficult to ascertain the precise locality of the Exchequer. In these unsettled times each party had its own Exchequer, and it was rather a delicate task to undertake to decide which was the true one. Henry VIII.'s Exchequer was in the possession of the suppressed monasteries, and that of his daughter Elizabeth in the pockets of all the rich men who came in her way. After the Restoration, Charles II. had an Exchequer, but he contrived to ruin its credit. So it will be seen that the permanent stationary character of the Treasury is not of much older date than the period at The robbery of the Treasury in the cloisters of which we may trace the rise and progress of the TreaWestminster, alluded to by Sir Francis Palgrave, took | sury buildings. place in 1304. "The Royal Treasury," says Maitland, "being kept in the cloister of the abbey church of Westminster, the same was robbed of a great sum of money. Edward, suspecting the monks to be the robbers, immediately ordered the abbot and forty-nine of them to be apprehended and secured; where they continued in duresse till the year after, when Edward, on Lady-day, repaired to the said church to return thanks to God and St. Edward for his great success against the Scots. On which occasion he gave orders to discharge the monks; however, they were not put in execution till a week after, out of pique to them, by the persons that were ordered to discharge them." Various have been the derivations assigned by etymological financiers to the name Exchequer. The favourite one appears to be that which accounts for its origin by the legend of the board being covered with a chequered cloth, on the squares of which the various sums of money were deposited with a view to aid the defective arithmetic of early times. This may or may not have been the case; but the age which can be suspected of having recourse to such a rude and simple device may also be conceived primitive enough to have had no better place of deposit for the treasure than a strong chest, like that of an African potentate. The facility with which the monks-or, supposing them to have been innocent, the more adroit thieves whose scapegoats the holy fathers became-got at the money in 1304, favours the notion. So do the singularly ambulatory propensities with which the Exchequer appears to have been endowed in early times. Kings thought no more of whisking away their Exchequer from one place and depositing it in another, than mo The theory, however, of the British Treasury was much the same during the nomad period of its existence that it has continued to be in its settled and citizen-like life. There was from the beginning a treasurer, whose office it was to devise schemes for raising money, to manage the royal property to the best advantage, and to strike out the most economical and efficient modes of expenditure. He had even then the control of all the officers employed in collecting the customs and royal revenues, the disposal of offices in the customs throughout the kingdom, the nomination of escheators in the counties, and the leasing of Crown lands. Then, as a check upon the malversation of this officer, there was the Exchequer, the great conservator of the revenues of the nation. "The Exchequer," said Mr. Ellis, Clerk of the Pells, when examined before the Finance Commissioners, "is at least coeval with the Norman Conquest, and has been from its earliest institution looked to as a check upon the Lord High Treasurer, and a protection for the King as well as for the subject, in the custody, payment, and issue of the public money." This is still the broad outline of the Treasury-of the Finance Department of State of Great Britain. The enormous magnitude of the empire has caused the subordinate departments of Customs, the Mint, &c., to expand until they have attained an organization, an individual importance, a history of their own. different modes of transacting money-business, rendered necessary by its greater amount and more complicated nature, have altered the routine both of the Treasury and Exchequer; the changed relations of King and Parliament have subjected the Treasury and Exchequer The to new control and superintendence. Still their mutual | of the Government, are usually referred to the Board of Trade, either for the information of its members, or for the purpose of obtaining their advice. Thus, for example, there are frequent communications with the Foreign Office on the subjects of the negotiation of Commercial Treaties, of difficulty arising out of them, and of the proceedings necessary to give effect to them; with the Treasury, on the alterations made or contem relations, and the part they play in the economy of the empire, remains essentially the same as in older times. The Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, (for the office of Lord High Treasurer has for many years been put in commission,) have their office at Whitehall, in the building whose history we have briefly traced. The Exchequer, or more properly "the receipt of exchequer," has its office at Whitehall-yard. The Chan-plated in the laws of the Customs, on cases of hardship cellor of the Exchequer, who seems formerly to have been looked upon as a depute of the Lord High Treasurer, has in these later times been not unfrequently the same person with the First Lord of the Treasury. He is always one of the Treasury Commissioners. to individuals arising from the operation of those laws, and on points connected with them which require solution; and with other departments on matters of interest in a commercial point of view. The preparation also of Bills, and of Orders in Council, for carrying out the intentions of the Government on these subjects, frequently falls to the care of this Board. The correspondence of the Board with private individuals, on the subjects of which it has cognizance, is likewise extensive." THE HORSE GUARDS. The Horse Guards-that is, the building so called in familiar conversation-was built about the middle of last century by Vardy, after a design by Kent. In justice to Vardy, it ought to be remarked that his mason-work is well enough. But as for the architec The old forms of transacting business were long retained with a desperate fidelity in the Exchequer. Formerly, when money was paid in, the entry, after being made in a book, was transcribed upon a slip of parchment called a Bill; and then from that a stick or rod of hazel, or some other wood, was prepared with certain notches cut upon it indicating the sum in the Bill. This was called striking or levying a Tally. The Tally was then cleft from the head to the shaft through the notches, and one of the two parts retained by the Chamberlains of the Exchequer, while the other, called a Counter-tally, or Foil, was given to the party paying in the money, and was his discharge in the Exchequer of Accompt. The Tallies were not abo-tural pretensions of the Horse Guards-how ashamed lished, and indented Cheques substituted as receipts, Whitehall must feel of its opposite neighbour! (Cut, till 1783. At the same time the offices of the Cham- No. 1.) berlains were abolished, but not determined; and it was not till 1826 that the last of the Chamberlains resigned. Finally, in 1834, the entire ancient constitution of the Receipt of the Exchequer was put an end to; and instead of the Auditor, Four Tellers, Clerk of the Pells, and subordinate Officers, the following new officers were appointed :-namely, a Comptroller-General of the Receipt and Issue of his Majesty's Exchequer, an Assistant-Comptroller, a Chief Clerk, and such number of Clerks and Assistants as should be regulated and established from time to time by the Commissioners of the Treasury. Up to this time the accounts at the Exchequer had been kept in Latin and in Roman numerals; it was not till now that this cumbersome and barbarous method was dispensed with even in receipts and vouchers. BOARD OF TRADE. In the main body of the Treasury buildings, facing the Banqueting House, is the Office of the Board of Trade and Plantations. This Board is, in point of fact, a Committee of the Privy Council, presided over by a President and Vice-president, who in reality are the only working members of the Board. In the valuable Notes and Materials for the History of Public Departments,' by Mr. F. S. Thomas, of the Record Office, the general business of this Board is thus described:-" All matters relating to the interests of Trade which come before the several departments After all, the Horse Guards is but a shell: it is what is going on within it, and the anxious hopes and fears of which it is the centre, and the wonder-working orders that have in times past issued from it, that make us pause to regard it. Not but that there are attractions here for the most unreflecting sight-seer. Those two seemly troopers on their powerful chargers, who, with burnished cuirass and carbine on knee, sit motionless as statues in the niches of the two overgrown sentry-boxes for two hours on a stretch, are figures that can scarcely be passed without attracting a glance of admiration. And there is generally a numerous collection of the frequenters of this part of the town collected to watch the rather striking ceremony of changing guard. The folding-doors, in the rear of the stone sentry-boxes, are thrown open, two cuirassed and helmeted heroes, on sleek snorting steeds that might bear a man through a summer-day's tournay, or through a red field of battle without flagging, ride in, and, upon the philosophical principle that no two bodies can co-exist in the same space, push the living statues already there out in front, who, each describing a semicircle, meet and ride side by side through the central gate, and so back to their stables. This Guard is part of the Queen's Guard, more especially so called from being mounted within the precincts of the palace. (Cut, No. 2.) But this is the mere symbolical pageant of the Horse Guards. Here are the offices of the Commander-in-Chief, the Military Secretary, the Quarter Master-General, and Secretary-at-War; in other words, here is the "local habitation" of those who wield the gallant army of Great Britain. The army is an engine not quite so well understood and appreciated in England as the navy. It is younger by a good many years. We have regiments which date from before the Revolution, but no army. The army is not only of modern growth when compared with the navy, but it differs from that sturdy indigenous plant in being an acclimatised exotic. They were foreign monarchs-one Dutch and two Hanoverian kings-who made our army, and they made it after foreign models. This has been the main cause of scattering the fragments of military management through so many different departments of State, and producing such a confusion and contest of authorities as we shall now attempt to illustrate. The King and Parliament were always scrambling for the management of the army, and with every new department added to make it more efficient, there was a toss up for which should have the control of it. The Commander-in-Chief and the Master-General of the Ordnance have immediate and independent management of their respective portions of the armed force of the country. But, in addition to them, no less than six different departments of Government have various duties committed to them connected with the administration of military affairs. These are:-1st, the Secretaries of State, more particularly the Secretaries for the Colonial and Home Departments; 2nd, the Secretary-at-War; 3rd, the Board of Ordnance; 4th, the Commissariat Department of the Treasury; 5th, the Board of Audit; 6th, the Commissioners of Chelsea Hospital. We shall endeavour to point out as briefly as possible the peculiar functions of each of those classes of authorities, and the means by which so many heterogeneous and independent functionaries are brought to work together with something like harmony and effect. The point of view from which we must set out, and which, in order to thread our way through this labyrinth, we must keep constantly in mind, is, that the army belongs to the King. Parliament gives it to him, or rather, it every year gives him the means of maintaining it for a year; but here the power and right of Parliament to interfere with the management of the army stops. The whole power and control over the army is vested in the Crown-that is, more especially since the Revolution settlement of 1688, in the King's government, represented in the Cabinet by the Secretaries of State. There are three Secretaries of State: the Secretary for the Home Department, the Secretary for the Foreign Department, and the Secretary for War and the Colonies, commonly known as the Colonial Secretary. This latter officer must not be confounded with the Secretary-at-War, who is not one of the Principal Secretaries of State. Although the three Secretaries of State constitute, in fact, but one officer, with equal rank and authority, the public convenience has divided their duties. The military administration of the nation, in all its political bearings, is vested in the Home and Colonial Secretaries. The Secretary of State for the Home Department has the control and management of all the militia and yeomanry, as well as the disposal of the troops of the line at home, and the Guards. According to the necessities of the service, he orders the army to be moved into a disturbed district; he conveys his orders through the Quarter-Master-General to the general officers who are immediately under his guidance; he informs them how they are to act in conjunction with the magistracy; he directs, through the instrumentality of the MasterGeneral of the Ordnance, forts or barracks to be built. The Secretary of State for the War Department and Colonies has the command of the army abroad: he not only orders what proportion of troops shall be sent to each colony, but he approves of the appointment of the general officer who is to command them: he may order a fort or battery to be built in any colony, in consequence of its disturbed or exposed state. time of war, the correspondence with commanders of armies, and the plans and arrangements for foreign military operations, belongs to this department. The offices of these wielders of the destinies of armies must not be sought for in the Horse Guards, but in the neighbouring Downing-street. In The administration of the army under the Secretaries of State is entrusted to executive officers, who are appointed by, and receive their orders directly from, the King or his Secretaries. The finance of the army is kept rigidly separated from its discipline and promotion: the financial arrangements are the business of the Secretary-at-War; the discipline and promotion, of the Commander-in-Chief as regards the Household Brigade, Cavalry and Line, and of the Master-General of the Ordnance. Two of these demi-gods of the army exercise their functions at the Horse Guards. The The financial arrangements of the army, as a system, the exclusive control over the public money voted for military purposes, rests with the Secretary-at-War, who transacts business at the Horse Guards. office was established in 1666. The Secretary-at-War has access to the Sovereign. He prepares and submits the Army Estimates, and the annual Mutiny Bill to Parliament, and frames the Articles of War. The expenditure of sums granted by Parliament for the exigencies of the army takes place by warrants on the Paymaster-General, signed by the Secretary-at-War. In every regiment there is a paymaster not appointed by or under the control of the Commander-in-Chief, but under the control of the Secretary-at-War. The accounts of the regimental paymasters, and of other officers charged with the payment of other branches of the service, are examined and audited in the War Office. The insertion of all military appointments and promotions in the Gazette' pass through the Secretary-at-War, and he is the channel for obtaining the authority of the Secretary of State for issues of arms by the Ordnance when required by the military authorities. In concert with the Commander-in-Chief, to time make alterations in the rates of pay, half-pay, allowances and pensions. The Secretary-at-War may be regarded as the civil officer of the army. and with consent of the Treasury, he may from time | entific with mere professional services. The MasterGeneral, however, directs personally, and without the assistance of the Board, all those matters which, in the case of the rest of the army, come within the province of the Commander-in-Chief. The Master-General of the Ordnance has the title and powers of Colonel of what is called the 'regiment' of Artillery—absurdly enough, for the body is increased in time of war to 24,000 men. An officer, with the title of Deputy Adjutant-General of Artillery, who is in no way dependent on the Adjutant-General of the British Forces, is at the head of the Artillery Staff. The Board of the Deputy Adjutant-General of Artillery is at Woolwich; which may be considered as the head-quarters of this arm of the service. The corps subject to the Ordnance are the Artillery and the Engineers. The Commander-in-Chief has his office at the Horse Guards also. He, too, has access to the King, and may either receive orders direct from him or from the Secretary of State. He has always been held a simply executive not a ministerial officer. The business of the Commander-in-Chief's office is despatched by an Adjutant-General and a Quarter-Master-General, with their subordinate functionaries. Both of these officers are appointed by the King, on the recommendation of the Commander-in-Chief. The Adjutant-General has under him a Deputy Adjutant-General, an Assistant and a Deputy Assistant Adjutant-General, appointed also by the King, and a number of clerks, messengers, &c. appointed by himself. Everything relating to the effective or non-effective state of the troops to formation, instruction and discipline; to the direction and inspection of the clothing and accoutrements of the army; to recruitments, leaves of absence; to the employment of officers of the staff; and to ordinary or extraordinary returns relative to other matters, falls under his department. All regulations and instructions to the army are published through this officer, by direction of the Commander-in-Chief. The Adjutant-General prepares monthly returns of the troops stationed in Great Britain or Ireland, and of the home and foreign force. The principal duties of the QuarterMaster-General are to prescribe routes and marches, to regulate the embarkation and disembarkation of troops, to provide quarters for them, to mark out ground proper for encampments, to execute military surveys, and to prepare plans and arrange dispositions for the defence of a territory, whether such defence is to be effected by the troops alone or by means of field-works. Attached to the office of Quarter-MasterGeneral of the Forces is a board of topography, with a depôt of maps, plans, and a library containing the best military works that have been published in different countries. Every British army, when in the field, has a special Quarter-Master-General and staff, organised in exact analogy with that of the permanent officer at the Horse Guards. We must now turn our steps towards Pall Mall, and visit the Ordnance Office, in order to prosecute our analysis of the composite organisation of the British army. The Master-General of the Ordnance stands in the same relation to the King and Secretaries of State, in his department, as the Commander-in-Chief. Like that officer and the Secretary-at-War, he has access to the Sovereign, and takes his orders direct from the King or his Secretaries of State. This is a very complicated department: it combines within itself both civil and military functions, which are not separated as in the army of the line, and has moreover taken on its hands since the peace a great number of other departments. This complexity is in a great measure unavoidable, for the Ordnance combines sci The Board of Ordnance takes upon it those duties which are more especially termed civil. The MasterGeneral attends its meetings only on rare and very particular occasions. All its proceedings, however, are regularly submitted, in the form of minutes, for his approval, and are subject to his control. His authority is supreme in all matters, both civil and military; and he, not the Board, is considered responsible for the manner in which the business of the department is managed. The three Board-officers of the Ordnance are, the Surveyor-General, the Clerk of the Ordnance (at Pall-Mall), and the principal Storekeeper. Upon the Clerk devolves the duty of preparing and carrying the Ordnance Estimates through Parliament. The business of the Board comprehends, with regard to the Ordnance corps, the greater part of the business which, as relates to the rest of the army, is transacted in the War Office. But by far the greater part of the duties of the Board have reference to matters not merely concerning their own particular branch of the military service, but the whole army, and even the navy. Arms, ammunition, and military stores of every description (including guns and carriages for the navy), are sup plied by them to both services. Besides the clothing of the artillery and engineers, they furnish also that of part of the militia, of the police force in Ireland, and of some corps belonging to the army, and the great coats for all; they are likewise charged with the issue of various kinds of supplies, as of fuel, light, &c., both in Great Britain and abroad, and, with respect to the troops in Great Britain, of provision and forage. The construction and repair of fortifications, military works, and barracks, is another branch of the business of the department. The Commissariat is a department of the Treasury, the business of which is defined in a Treasury memorandum by the Assistant-Secretary, dated 6th March, 1844, to be, to raise, keep, and disburse, according to fixed regulations, the whole of the funds required to carry on the foreign expenditure of the country; that is to say, principally, in time of peace, the expenditure of our colonies and other dependencies. "The Commissariat officers," says the Memorandum, 66 act, in effect, as Sub-treasurers to the Lords Commission |