Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/371

used all the art and industry he was master of, to have it pass; though the money was applied in it to the building of one arsenal only, and ammunition and other stores proportionable, without one word of the militia. So the arsenal was conceived and afterward formed in a proper manner; but when it came to be brought forth, his excellency, took it out of the hands that had formed it, as far as he could, and contrary to all precedents, put it out of the care of the ordnance board, who were properly to have taken care of the receipt and payment of the money without any farther charge to the publick, and appointed his second secretary, Mr. Denton, to be paymaster, whose salary was a charge of above five hundred pounds in the whole: then, thinking this was too small a charge to put the publick to for nothing, he made an establishment for that work, consisting of one superintendant at three pounds per week, eight overseers at seven pounds four shillings a week, and sixteen assistants at seven pounds four shillings a week, making in all seventeen pounds eight shillings a week: and these were, for the greatest part, persons who had no knowledge of such business; and their honesty was equal to their knowledge, as it has since appeared by the notorious cheats and neglects that have been made out against them; insomuch that the work they have overseen, which, with their salaries, has cost near three thousand pounds, might have been done for less than eighteen hundred pounds, if it had been agreed for by the yard, which is the usual method, and was so proposed in the estimate: and this is all a certainty, because all that has been done, is only removing earth, which has been exactly com-

puted