Browsing: Papers of John Adams, Volume 9

1. Edmund Burke's economical reform bill abolished the third secretary of state, for the colonies, and the Board of Trade and Plantations, but it did not seek to examine or eliminate existing pensions, only to reduce the funds available for future pensions. On 2 March, during the debates over whether to consider Burke's bill on that day or postpone it until the following Wednesday, Charles James Fox reportedly declared that “he hoped, that as the thirteen colonies were now actually lost, . . . the public was to have a great saving, and he hoped to hear that the pensions given to the American governors would be discontinued, and particularly that granted to governor Hutchinson, who had been the fore-runner and very firebrand of the rebellion on the other side of the Atlantic” ( Parliamentary Hist. , 21:111–112, 118–122, 153; Ian R. Christie, Wilkes, Wyvill and Reform, London, 1962, p. 87–88).