I. The attempt to supersede the regular method of professional remuneration by the offer of a fixed sum for the completion of the work _was practically abandoned by the Government_. The question between them and the architect turned on the amount of the percentage (whether it should be four or five per cent.), a question which made a difference to him of some 23,000_l._, but which did not settle any great principle, or materially affect the public interest, in the general question of the relations of the Government to the architects employed in public works. II. It cannot be questioned that the Government made use of their power to enforce an acquiescence in their terms, irrespectively of the arguments by which they sustained them. This they did (as will be noticed)-- 1. By not unfrequent interpositions of delay. 2. By an attempt (afterwards withdrawn) to construe the acceptance of a payment on account, due on any supposition, to be an acquiescence in the principle of their proposal. 3. By ordering all payments whatever to be withheld until the architect yielded to their terms, and by ignoring all claims for interest, on payments thus deferred and afterwards acknowledged to be due. 4. By refusing all arbitration, either on the general question or on that of the “special services.” III. It is evident that the real ground of their action, and the reason why that action was allowed to pass almost unquestioned in Parliament,[89] was the great increase of expenditure on the building, the delay in its completion, and the unpopularity into which, from these and from other causes, it had been brought. But for these things, the whole responsibility for which they were inclined to throw upon the architect, they would not have ventured, and probably would not have wished, to deal with him on a principle, which, in no other case (not even in the completion of the New Palace itself) did they show any determination to enforce. How far their course can be justified by these grounds of proceeding, it must be left to others to decide. Such is the general narrative of the erection of the building. It has been given at some length, as forming a curious and not unimportant chapter in the history of modern English architecture. Such critical notice of it, as is necessary here, must be reserved for the next chapter. CHAPTER VII. THE NEW PALACE AT WESTMINSTER.