••( A.) r8.'] Commiffioners on FEES, G R A T U I T I E S , & c. cxix that part of the fum charged by the Clerk for a Newspaper'remaining after the price paid font to the Printer has been deducted, and confequently as the Clerk charges 3. 8. 3. a year for a Paper furnifhed to a fubfcriber three times a week 2( J7t 7e° Ur Tf Pnnter 7- Ws Krofs profits on fuch Pape^ amount to £ 16. 8 If, however, the Clerks be accountable for their grofs profits it won d feem that the Returns made by them in 1S02, fhould have been framed upon the lame principle, but as we find that they contain Statements of their net profits, it would follow either that their original Returns are likewife fraudulent, or that it was not intended by Government or the Clerks that they Should exhibit Accounts of grefs profits. It can fcarcely be pre fumed, that Government would have confented to compenfate the Clerks for the deficiency of their grofs profits, for ns the grofs profits are chargeable with the expence of management, and as lofl'es more or lefs will occur in conducting the bufinefs of the Roads, the net profits or actual income mull always be lefs than the grofs profits, fo that a Clerk would in fueh cafe derive a greater income from the number of Papers in which ihe circulation of his Road was deficient, than if fuch number had been actually iffucd, and the charge on the Revenue would be increafed in proportion. Thus, according to the quantity of Papers returned as circulated in the Lei lifter Road, the grofs profits or nominal income of Sir John Lees on the average thereof, in the three years ending 5th January 1801, would have amounted to .£. 1,592; and in the year ending 5th January 1803, they would have amounted to £. 1,076 ; confequently the Clerk of the Leiufter Road, if compenfation had been granted for a deficiency of grofs profits, would have received in this year a fum of £. 516, fubje'ft to no deduction whatfoever, although his actual income was computed by his annual Return to be only deficient in a fum of£. 270. 17. 2. It may be faid, that had the Clerks ftated in their original Returns the amount of their grofs profits, their application for compenfation would not have been acceded to— This, however, cannot be fairlvafiumed, as we apprehend Government in that cafe would have decided, not from a view of their nominal but of their actual incomes, upon the alledged diminution whereof the arrangement of 1802 appears to have been founded. In this light it muft have been nnderftood by Sir John Lees, for it cannot be fuppofed that having fo long poO'efTed the Leinfter Road he was ignorant of the rate of its grofe profits; befides AVC find that about this period his attention had been particularly directed to the income he derived from it, having, as appears from a paper in his own hand- writing, produced to us by Mr. Armit, been employed in the month of September preceding the application of the Clerks, in making up an Account of his official emoluments derived from every fource whatfoever, in which he ftated thofe produced by his privilege of circulating Newspapers to amount to the fum at which we find they were afterwards returned, on taking their average in the three vears ending 5th January 1801. The Poftmafters General alfo, who vouched for the truth of the Statements made by the Clerks, would, when they enquired into the fubjecl, as they profeded to have done, have detected their fraud; but when the Clerks, on applying for a permanent charge on the Revenue, founded their claims on an alledged diminution of actual income, and Itatcd at the foot of their firft Returns that the apparent difference of the amount of the cal- culations arofe from the different expence attending the collection, they manifeftly • ffiowed that they did not mean to exhibit in the two years to which fuch Returns • refer, a view of their grofs profits but of their net profits; and though their application for a permanent grant, was refufed, the principle upon which the Account was made up was not objeaed to, but rather recognized in Mr. Marfden's fubfequent letter, nor were Government or the Poftmafters General unapprised, that the Clerks profefled to frame the Statements of the three years average on the fame principle, for in order to ( how that they had not feleftcd the year iSoc, as one the moft favorable to themfelves on account of the extent of its circulation, they ftate, that their annual profits on the average that had been taken exceeded their profits in that year, a comparifon that would not have holden, if the one Account contained abatement of grofs and the other of net profits; befides, when it was directed that the Revenue fhould be charged with whatever fum the profits of the Clerks iheuld be deficient in any year of their average amount, in the three years while any furplus thereof was to be applied to makeup the deficiency of the profit's of the other Clerks in aid of the Revenue, we confider it to have been clearly intended lo fecureto thefe Officers adual incomes; whereas fhould they be charged with their oTofs profits, as propofed by the Poftmafters General, a furphis might appear and be accordingly paid over by a Clerk, while his net profits might be lef> Appendix