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average of four years. The year preceding the laft produced 16,437,000l. (omitting the produce of the 53d week) which gave an average of 16,583.000l. but to which was to be added one fixth of the produce of the 53d week, and the total average for the two last years would then be 16,615,000l. the average for the three last years was 16,418,000l.-and a year kill further back, 16,212,000l. Gentlemen, he faid, would therefore clearly fee, that the produce of the permanent taxes for the last year had exceeded the average of four years by above 400,000l. that it had exceeded the average of three years by about 300,000l.—the average of two by about 100,000l-and that it had exceeded the produce of the year preceding the laft, in but little fhort of 300,000l.

It was his wish not to state any fum for the probable future permanent income of the country, which could fairly be confidered as too fanguine, he would therefore reft on the average of the four years of 16,212,000l.-which the future permanent income of the country was not likely to fall below; and with fuch income he would proceed to compare the expenditure; and would, in the statement of fuch expenditure, take the calculations of the revenue committee of the last year as the bafis, correcting and adding to fuch calculations, fuch alterations or additions as may have been made fince the report of that committee.

The future permanent expenditure of the kingdom, as eftimated by the committee, amounted to 15,969,000l. to which was to be added 12,000l. voted in the latt feflion as an annuity to the duke of Clarence; 12,000l. for the establishments in Upper Canada; and fome further fums in confequence of the happy event of the marriage of the duke of York, to whofe household, he was convinced, every reafonable addition would be readily granted; the fum he intended to propofe on a future day, would be 18,000l. a year, chargeable upon the confolidated fund.

Having thus ftated to the committee the increase of the permanent expenditure of the nation fince the estimate of the revenue committee, he would also state the annual reduction that would take place upon the expenditure, and likely to be permanent. Firft on the navy; he hoped it would not be neceffary in future to exceed the vote of the prefent feffion, of 16,000 feamen, 2000 lefs than on the former votes, and which would produce a faving of 104,000l. -Savings by regulations in the dock

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yards, 10,000l.-Saving upon the army establishment, after defraying the expences of the late regulations for the comfort of the common foldier, &c. 50,000l.-By the expiration of the fubfidy with the prince of Heffe, 36,000l.-making together a reduction of 200,000l. which, after taking the additions to the expenditure before stated, would leave, as the total of the permanent expenditure, the fum of 15,811,000l.

The income, therefore, of the last year, exceeded the establishment, including the million for the difcharge of the national debt, by nine hundred and nineteen thoufand pounds; and had exceeded the average expenditure of the country for the last four years, by 401,000l.

He next stated the supply and ways and means for the prefent year; first giving, as ufual, the fupply already voted, and the estimates of what was likely to be voted. The navy Ordinary Extraordinary Reduction of navy debt

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832,000

672,000

350,000

131,000

1,985,000

1,814,000

423,000 145,000

436,000

320,000

100,000 400,000

5,654,000

He then proceeded to a statement of the ways and means for railing the supply; and commenced by ftating, as ufual, for the land and malt, 2,750,000l. and for the actual furplus of the confolidated fund on the 5th of January, 1792, which in the three quarters preceding, had not only produced what he had eftimated for the four quarters, but had left a furplus of 155,000l. leaving alfo for the public fervice whatever might be the furplus of the remaining quarter to the 5th of April,

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REPEAL of TAXES. He then went into a statement of the taxes he conceived the house ought firft to repeal; they were the affeffed taxes, which were immediately transferred to the purfe of the exchequer from the pockets of the public; there were alfo certain taxes on articles of confumption, the taking off of which would afford a reasonable profpect of the public feeling the relief in the fame degree they would feel the repeal of affeffed taxes.

The taxes he proposed to repeal were, the last tax on malt, the female fervants tax, the tax on waggons and carts, the 38. tax on houfes under feven windows, and the halfpenny a pound duty on can

dles.

To prove the fafety with which the committee ought to proceed to the repeal of the taxes, he showed the prospect of the income of the country being confiderably increased, and particularly noticed the power of reducing the four per cents, but whether to three or to three and a half, would be matter for their future difcuffion. As foon as poffible, he fhould avail himfelf of the right of reduction, which would occafion a confiderable future faving to the public; to which alfo was to be added, that in four years fubfequent to the prefent period, the American debentures would be nearly difcharged; and if the public fhould continue after that period a lottery, which he had no doubt would produce 300,000l. annually, he would propofe to divide the fum 10 railed,1 50,000l. to the annual reduction of taxes, and

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150,000l. to the acceleration of the dif charge of the national debt: calculating upon these grounds, he said, in four years, allowing for the reduction of the four per cents, for the appropriation of the prefent 200,000l. and for the 150,000l. arifing from a lottery, fufficient progrefs would be made to purchase 25,000,000 of the debt, and enable the public to reduce the fives in eight years.

To prove ftill further that the repeal of the taxes he had mentioned might be fafely granted, he would enter into a statement which could not fail of giving pleasure to every man that heard it, and which would fhow that the increase of our revenue was likely to be permanent, as it had arisen by a continued gradation for fome years back. The revenue of the present year he stated to have exceeded the revenue of the year 1786, by 2,300,000l.; that it had exceeded the revenue of 1783 in a fum very little fhort of 4,000,000l.; and that, excepting the year 1786, which fuffered very materially in confequence of the pending negociations for the com mercial treaty with France, the increase had been from 1783, to the present time, progreffive.-Upon examination in what manner the revenue had arisen 4,000,000l. above the year 1783, it would be found, that one million of the increase was on new taxes; one million on articles in which frauds had been prevalent, but which frauds were now checked'; and two millions would be found diffused over the general articles of confumption, showing the beft of all caufes for the increase of the revenue, the increase of the confumption and the wealth of the country. During that period the customs had been in a continued ftate of increase. merated several heads of imports, as raw and throwing filk, the increased import of which was the beft proof against the affertion that the filk manufacture of this country was declining; the increased import of wood, of bar iron, and of nearly every other article except hemp, which might be occafioned by temporary circumitances; and linen, which probably was diminished by the increafe of our own manufacture of that article. The increase of the excite alfo pointed out the permanency of the revenue, and the increased population and profperity of the kingdom; the articles on which the chief rife was, were beer and ale, which had been uniformly progreffive; on home-made spirits; on candles, foap, tobacco, wine, bricks, tiles, ftarch, and other articles, all uni

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formly increafing in their produce and affording a fure proof that fuch rife was founded on the increased prosperity of the kingdom, and not upon any temporary circumstance. Every branch of the revenue proved the fame with the customs and the excife;-the duties raised by ftamps had rifen fince the war more than 700,000l. and produced in the last year 1,200,000l. The poft office, in 1785, produced 238,ocol.-in 1786, 277,000l. and in the lat 388,000l. Thefe circumftances ferved to illuftrate each other, and incontrovertibly to establish the fact of the rife of the revenue being founded on the actual profperity of the kingdom.

The increase of the manufactures and commerce of the kingdom, the fureft and beft fources for the revenue, could alfo incontrovertibly, be proved; he then proceeded to ftate from cuftom-houfe documents, the progreffive increase of our imports and exports from the year 1783 to 1790, and 1791.

Imports in 1782, were in value 9,714,000l.

They had been gradually rifing, and amounted in the year 1790, which was the latest account made up of the imports, to 19,130,000l.

The value of the exports of British manufactures in 1783, was-9,109,000l. In the following year-10,409,000l. In the year 1790-14,921,000l.—And In 1791, the accounts of which were just made up, 16,420,0col.

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Seeing this general increase of our profperity, might we not, he faid, be permitted to confider the caufes? They appeared to him to be the natural industry, and the energy of the country but other caufes must have operated with them to promote it, or it could not fo far have outrun all former experience. Thefe aiding caufes, he faid, were skillin improvements, fimplifications in the execution of our works, and a peculiar facility of credit, which not only enabled the merchant to obtain the fpeedy execution of his orders at home, but gave him a decided preeminence in the foreign market. The fuccefs of our fifheries, and of enterprizes of all kinds aided it;-the commercial treaty with France, though her market was much abated by her prefent diftracted ftate, alfo aided it; but the extentive and permanent caufe of our profperity and preeminence in commerce and manufactures, was the increase of our capital, which must have a rapid and aftonishing effect indeed, when once arrived at an ad

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vanced period. The profits of one year produced profits on another, and operated as compound intereft; but great as thofe profits have been, the increase of capital thereby, must render them in future ftill greater; its velocity carried every thing before it, and would counteract the mifchiefs which it might in future suffer by an interruption of the peace of the kingdom; but if peace fhould continue for any length of time, the ultimate increase of the capital of the kingdom could not be calculated while one spot of her ground remained uncultivated, to its utmost perfection, or while a foreign market remained to be explored. But important as thefe confiderations were, they were but fecondary objects, connected with the more important ones of the fecurity of the kingdom from foreign attack, with the prefervation of tranquillity at home, and with the fupport and zealous maintenance of a well-regulated government. Since the acceffion of the prefent family to the throne, the people had enjoyed domeftic tranquillity undisturbed, for a period longer than they had ever before experienced; they had felt the happy effects of a constitution fettled at the end of the last century, a conftitution which, by blending liberty and law, erected a barrier against the innovation of power, and the rude hand of violence. It was a conftitution that formed and protected the national character; that promoted her profperity and happinefs; that fet in motion every fpring to the advancement of her empire; that promoted industry in the peasant, skill in the artif, fpirit in the merchant, and unanimity in all; these were the bleffings derived from the fecurity afforded by our conftitution; and in our hands refted the maintenance of our profperity.

The people had a right to entertain the pleafing hope that their time of tryal was paft. They had to look with fatisfaction at the prefent, and with confidence to the future: on this fituation of our affairs, he congratulated the house, and he congratulated the country, and expreffed his anxious prayer that there might be no intermillion in the vigilance of the legiflature; that they might attend ftrictly to every object of the finance and welfare of the kingdom, that the people might, as they deferved, have continued to them, under the blefling of a divine and gracious providence, the happiness and profperity they were now actually enjoying. He concluded by moving,

That it is the opinion of this committee

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mittee that the laft additional duty on malt do ceafe and determine on the 5th of April, 1792."

Mr. Sheridan questioned the fact of the finances of the country being in fo flourishing a condition as they had been reprefented, and cenfured the mode in which Mr. Pitt had declared he meant to apply the furplus of revenue that actually exifted, or might at any future time remain to the country. He had been long in the habit of oppofing the right honourable gentleman on the fubject of finance, because he had always difputed the reality of his statements on that head, and on examining the papers on the table, he found no reafon to alter his opinion.

Mr. Fox obferved, that though he faw little inclination in the houfe to differ in opinion on the propriety of eafing the people of the taxes with which they were burthened, and of reducing that great enemy to the constitution, the national debt, to as great an extent as circumstances would allow; yet he should neglect his duty to his conftituents, if he should continue altogether filent on the prefent occafion. It was not without infinite regret that he heard that part of his majesty's fpeech which recommended it to them to take off the taxes which had been imposed on his fubjects. The precedent was unconftitutional and dangerous; it was was an interference of the executive power that tended to abridge the deliberative rights of the reprefentatives of the people. With regard to himself, it placed him in a moft delicate, unpleafant, and cruel fituation. Many of the taxes that were propofed to be taken off had been opposed by him at the time they were firft brought forward in that houfe, and had always experienced his strongest disapprobation: the malt tax and that on female fervants were particularly in this predicament: of course it was not to be fuppofed he should vote otherwife than for their repeal. If his opinion, however, were asked, as to the prudence of the meafure, whatever lofs he might fuftain in refpect to popularity, he certainly should not deem it prudent to take off taxes under the prefent circumftances; for he did not conceive that they warranted fuch a procedure.

Mr. Pitt replied to Mr. Fox's fpeech, which he termed an animated rhapfody.

The motion was put and carried, as were the refolutions for the repeal of the four laft taxes mentioned by Mr. Pitt.

On Monday, Feb. 20, Mr. Grey made motion for the production of certain pa

pers (befide thofe on the table) concerning the late Ruffian armament, which was negatived by 235 to 120. As the ar guments adduced in the debate met with a more ample difcuffion on a fubfequent motion by Mr. Whitbread, we shall not notice them here. On the fame account, it will be unneceffary to mention the debate on the fame fubject, which took place in the house of lords, on Monday the 27th of February, which terminated in a majority of 79 in favour of adminiftration.

The next day, Mr. Whitbread moved, that the papers relative to the late Ruffian armament should be immediately taken into confideration in a committee of the whole houfe. But Mr. Pitt objecting to this motion, Mr. Whitbread confented to withdraw it. He then again rose, and contended, that by the papers on the table, mutilated as they were, it was evident that minifters had, in their conduct relative to the war between the empress and the Porte, done violence to the conftitution, and to the interest and honour of their country. He hoped the refolutions he should fubmit to the house, might not be blinked by a previous question; and that the houfe might not permit the last rampart of their privileges to be thrown down, the privilege of inquiry. The British character had been degraded, and the British interests injured, by the misconduct of minifters, in hazarding a war, contrary to the fenfe of the people, and for purposes in which they were not interefted. He rejoiced, in having been one of the refpectable minority, who, in the laft feffion, acted (as had fince been acknowledged) in unifon with the voice o f the people, in arrefting the minifter in a fyftem that had produced a difgraceful armament, which might have involved us in a war that might have led to national bankruptcy, and which war must have ended in ignominy. He obferved the many advantages arifing to our navy, commerce, and manufactures, by our trade with Ruffia; the interruption to which advantages, upon fight and unjust grounds, could not be too feverely reprobated. In the commencement of the armainent, minifters had enveloped themfelves in political myftery; but, by the papers on the table, it appeared, that the war had been commenced by the Porte, in order to refcue from Ruffia the fo vereignty of the Crimea, which had been folemnly made over to her by treaty. The war, therefore, was evidently a war of Ff aggref

aggreffica on the part of the Porte.The chief fact he wished to imprefs upon the houfe was, that the armament was continued, and the country left in the apprehenfion of war, long after the propofals of the Emprefs were made, which propofals fhe never deviated from, and on which peace was made; the propofals of May 1790 being precifely the fame with thofe agreed to in 1791. The Emprefs, in thofe propofals, demanded only, as a compenfation for the war fhe had been forced into, the ceflion of Oczakow, and the district between the Bog and the Dneifter. In this ceffion, Britain was neither commercially nor politically interested: nor was Pruffia; unless upon a private article of the treaty between that power and this country, which article, he was confident, would not be depended upon as a defence of the armament. It might have been, by that article, the intereft of the king of Pruffia to hold out to the Empreis an oppofition to her poffeffing Oczakow and the district, unless fhe would confent to permit Pruffia to take poffeffion of Thorn and Dantzick. Upon no other grounds could it be shewn, that either England, or her ally, was in terested, whether Oczakow, and the diftrict, remained in poffeffion of the Porte or of Ruffia. He reprobated the confidence which had been given to the minister, as the means by which he had been enabled to commence an armament, and to reduce his country to the most abject state of humiliation, by giving up every object for which he had armed. He dwelt upon the fupplicating tone of our memorial to Ruffia, and afked what had happened to our allies during our contemptible nego tiation? Hoftilities had not been stopped: on the contrary, they had been carried on with the greatest vigour, to the effufion of Turkish blood. But he would afk alfo, were the Turks our allies? Did they confider our conduct as ferviceable to them? He feared they did not. We were placed by minifters in the difgraceful ftate of having no friend who would avow us, and no enemy that feared us; for Ruffia had not been induced to give better terms for our interference. This grofs misconduct of ministers had been aggravated by continuing the armament to the diftrefs of the country, when the object for which it had been made was entirely abandoned. The domeftic mifery fpring ing from this fyftem of armaments, was a great evil. If we could not difpenfe with it, we ought not to have recourse to it

upon every trifling occafion. The ma riner ought not to be torn from his family and his employment, to be fent on board fhips of war, for no other purpose than to vomit him forth, miferably unprovided for. Adminiftration had attempted to glofs over their mifconduct by the gaudy veil of national profperity, and by a reference to the high price of the funds; the first of which arofe from accidental caufes, and was not occafioned by the minifter; and the latter, although, in general, a political barometer, was not always to be confidered as fuch.-Great magnanimity had been attributed to administration, for having given up their opinion to that of the public; but fuch conduct was not praife-worthy; for if a minifter had formed an opinion for the good of his country, he ought rather to part with place, and with life, than, unconvinced, to depart from that opinion; he feared, however, that the minister had in the present instance made a comparison between opinion and place, and had given the preference to the worst and laft. He concluded by moving three refolutions

First, that the poffeffion by Ruffia of Oczakow, and the district between the Bog and the Dneifter, did not affect the intereft of this country, or justify the armament.

Secondly, That the negotiation between this country and Ruffia, had been wholly unfuccefsful.

Thirdly, That his majefty's ministers had been guilty of grofs misconduct; tending to increase the expence, and diminish the influence, of Great Britain.

Col. McLeod rofe in fupport of the motions. He reprobated the armament as impolitic and unjuft, and declared, that the conduct of adminiftration in the late negotiation, had induced him to withdraw all confidence from them.

Mr. Jenkinfon (fon of lord Hawkesbury) gave his maiden fpeech in fupport of adminiftration. He fhould endeavour, he said, to prove the fyftem taken up by administration, and the principles upon which they had acted, to be fuch as the wifeft policy, at the time, dictated. It had been admitted by the first politicians in this country, that the principles upon which England ought to act, were to eftablifh continental alliances; to confider France as our rival; to keep Holland from falling into her hands; to obtain, by alliance, a fufficient land force to protest Holland; and, upon every occafion, to divide the power of France. Thefe

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