Under the head of repayments to the bank, he propofed the fum of 1,054,000l. and the fam of 1,370,000l. to difcharge exchequer bills iffued on the credit of the confolidated fund for 1796, and paid alfo by the bank. The next fum was 1,110,000l. for the discharge of navy and exchequer bills, raifed by an act of the preceding feffion, upon a vote of credit in 1796 The deficiency of the confolidated fund required the fum of 2,177,000l. The laft fum he alluded to was the vote of credit to the amount of 3,000,000l. As 500,000l. had been paid to the emperor, he wished to be provided with the further fum of 2,500,000l. in order that further advances might be made to him as exigencies might require. Thus the minifter went through the whole of the fupply, all the particular articles of which he obferved it was not poffible to calculate foon enough to infert them in the budget which he had opened before Christmas. For the fake of perfpicuity the following recapitulation of the whole fupplies for the year 1797 is inferted. Deficiency of land and malt £1,000 - 12,661,000 6,600,000 3,387,000 2,088,000 4,000,000 1,623,000 737,000 929,000 600,000 500,000 Annual addition to the finking fund 200,000 350,000 Repayment to the bank for advances to the confolidated fund of 1795 !} 1,054,000 Ditto for 1796 Further deficiencies of land and malt Deficiency of the consolidated fund To difcharge exchequer bills iffued on the credit of the confolidated fund for 1796 Vote of credit for 1797 Mr. Pitt next ftated the ways and means by which this large fum was to be raised. A loan of 18 millions had already been voted, 2,750,000l. for the land and malt, and 420,000l. for the furplus of grants for the year 1796. He obferved, that of the 18 millions to 1,370,000 900,000 2,177,000 1,110,000 - 2,500,000 Total of fupplies £. 42,786,000 be borrowed, one million and a half was for the fifter kingdom of Ireland, of which the intereft was to be provided by the Irish parliament; another million and a half was to be lent to the emperor, to enable him to repay the million and a half advanced by this coun try. try. He propofed a further loan of two millions, if fanctioned by parliament, to affift our faithful ally in The land and malt Surplus of grants his prefent ftruggle. The aggregate of the ways and means in the two budgets was as follows: Loyalty loan, according to the first budget Exchequer bills Growing produce of the confolidated fund, by eftimation Total of ways and means for the year 1797 £. 42,870,000 He then stated the terms of the new loan of 18 millions as follows: For every 100l. subscribed, the subscriber was to have Every 100l. fubfcribed, to have the value of £. 104 17 From hence, he faid, there would be a profit of 41. 17s. for every fubfcription of 100l. which, except in a period of fuch difficulty as the prefent, was larger than he fhould be willing to allow; but this was not the whole of the profit; there was a discount to be added, which he had felt it his duty to make higher than ufual. The common rate was three per cent. ; he proposed to make it four per cent. in order to encourage the prompt payments upon the loan; the whole bonus, therefore, would be 61 175. per cent. to every fubfcriber when the difcounts for prompt payments were taken in. The chancellor of the exchequer next proceeded to what he called the unpleasant talk of enumerating the new taxes he had to propose for raifing the intereft upon the feveral fums borrowed, of which the following is a fummary statement. The confolidated duties on stamps in general, doubled 320,000 Tax on property transferred by private contract, at 4d. per pound 170,000 Copies of deeds to be given in evidence to be ftampt 40,000 On the probates of wills above the fum of 300l. 40,000 An additional duty of 1d. upon the stamps of each newspaper 114,000 Increased duty on advertisements 20,000 On attorneys' certificates 15,000 On ornamented plate 30,000 Duty equal to the tolls on all carriages paffing turnpikes 450,000 £199,000 1797. D Here Here the minifter omitted three articles which he supplied the next day upon a suggestion of Mr. Fox, namely, On bills of exchange Infurance from fire Omitted in the fums mentioned on the produce of the stamps on copies of deeds Thefe fums, being added, the whole produce of the new taxes made the fum of Mr. Fox rofe, and obferved, that however unfounded the financial calculations of the chancellor of the exchequer had formerly been, they were even exceeded in delu fion by his statements that day, which were altogether unprecedented in the history of finance. He came forward in December laft, and having fucceeded in obtaining a fupply of 18 millions, he came forwards again in April, and repeated the experiment by calling upon parliament for the fame fum. The minifter ought to be reminded, that, on the 7th of December, he told the house, that the 18 millions then advanced were given not fo much with an idea of profecuting the war, as with an earnest hope of enabling him to forward the defirable work of peace, and that he ftated that fum to be an ample fupply for the exigencies of the ftate. After making fome obfer. vations upon the statements given in, of the produce of the taxes, Mr. Fox contended, that there still remained a deficiency of 357,000l. though he did not from thence argue, that, because the minifter was minus for that fum, he fhould have immediately proceeded to provide for it; but he would contend, that for him to maintain that he had a furplus when he was actually deficient, was an illufion of too grofs and palpable a nature to impofe upon the understanding. But if the taxes of 1796 produced the £. 40,000 35,000 10,000 1,284,000 fum it was intended they fhould, there would then be a deficiency of 88,000l. and that, according to the report of the felect committee, at the beginning of the feffion there was a deficiency of 357,000l. and in October the right honourable gentleman came forward and funded his navy bills, and in December he made his loan; he ought then to have announced that the produce of the taxes was not equal to meet the public exigencies. Inftead of the taxes which had been propofed, it appeared that the fum of 1,800,000l. in taxes, would not have been too much for the various exigencies of the moment. The report of the felect committee, he said, did not deferve the eulogium which had been paffed upon it: according to their account, the deficiency a mounted to 210,000l. whereas he (Mr. Fox) calculated it at 470,000l. He next examined the estimates for the navy fervice. In December the minifter ftated, that the proba ble increase of the navy debt would be two millions and a half, and this he called a very ample estimate; next he raised it to four millions; and, laftly, in April, when he brought forward his fecond budget, he called for 8,764,000l. more. The number of men voted for the fervice of 1795 was 110,000, the vote for the current year was for 120,000 men. Instead, therefore, of making the increase lefs than it had been in the preceding year, the chancellor chancellor of the exchequer fhould have made it proportionably greater; it ought to have been 6 or 700,000l. more than his eftimate. "Notwithstanding all the heavy burdens," faid Mr. Fox, "and all the dreadful taxes we are about to impofe this day, we have still one million more to provide for the exigencies of the public fervice." With respect to the propofed loan of 200,000l. to the emperor, to enable him to pay the intereft of a fum which he had formerly borrowed of this country, Mr. Fox obferved, that this was very different language from that held out by the minifter when he applied to the people to be fecurity for the houfe of Auftria, and when he extolled the good faith of the bank of Vienna. The loan was made to him in critical circumstances, and he was not to pay the intereft then due because he still remained in critical circumftances. The houfe was called upon near the end of April to provide 18 millions additional. Three payments only had then been made good upon the loyalty loan, and there were still feven-tenths to be paid, which amounted to 12,600,000l.; fo that, between then and the first day of the next January, the enormous fum of 30,600,000l. was to be collected for the public exigencies. In 1796 the fubjects were burdened with new taxes which produced the annual fum of three millions; but the taxes impofed for 1797 amounted, by eftimate, to feven millions and a half. What arguments were ufed to reconcile them to bear quietly fuch a load? Indeed, they had been told very rhetorically, that "they had not been fcratched by the war," but he feared thefe new impofitions would lead them to conclude that they fhould be desperately wound -ed by it. Mr. Grey faid, there was an article in the report of the felect committee which he wished to have explained. There was a fum of 1,500,000l. ftated to be unfunded debt, unprovided for. He wished to know, whether certain fums had not been fecifically granted laft feffion of parliament for the payment of this charge, the money for which had however been diverted to other purposes? If his were the cafe, the right honourable gentleman had violated the acts of appropriation, and diverted the money granted to parliament in a manner highly cri ninal. The chancellor of the exchequer replied, that the objection which had just been made, was founded entirely in mifconception. The fum alluded to had not been granted by parliament for that specific purpose, nor had there been any violation of the appropriation act. When the loan was made for the purpofe of paying off the debt on the exchequer bills, the bank had not availed themfelves of the opportunity to fubfcribe, and there was power by the act of appropriation to pay them in cath. This at the end of the year, made the grant exceed the fupplies, and the fum of 1,500,000l. mentioned by Mr. Grey, fo far from being concealed, was comprehended in the laft budget, and was paid out of the fupplies of the year 1797. The refolutions were then put, and all agreed to without divifion, except that which impofed an additional tax of 14d. on newspapers. On this head the house divided Ayes 151Noes 43. The feveral bills for impofing the new taxes propofed by Mr. Pitt in his statements in the two budgets for the current year, were regularly and fucceffively brought into both houfes of parliament, and most of them were paffed with few alteraD 2 tions; tions; but near the close of the feffion, on the 30th of June, the houfe of commons having refolved itself into a committee, the chancellor of the exchequer role, and stated to the confideration of the committee, certain fubftitutes for the deficiencies which had taken place in the estimated product of the late taxes. In the first place, it would be neceffary to find a fubftitute for the propofed toll duty, which had been eftimated at 450,cool. but which, Toll duty from fome ftrong objections to the mode of collecting, had been given up. The tax upon the transfer of property had been estimated at 170,000l. but he now took it at no more than 80,000l. The proposed duty upon advertisements had been given up, which created a further deficiency of 40,000l. The whole deficiency, therefore, for which he then propofed a new provifion, stood as follows: Inland navigation duty, by fome new regulations, would cause 6. 450,000 90,000 40,000 80,000 Total deficiency £. 660,000 Thefe deficiencies Mr. Pitt proposed to supply by the following new taxes: Surplus on Scotch fpirits On horfes employed in agriculture Mr. Sheridan ftrongly oppofed the tax on horfes ufed in hufbandry. Mr. Burdon contended for the neceffity there was of the landed intereft coming forward, and fhewing they were willing to take their fhare of the burden. He wifhed to fee an additional land-tax upon a more equal fcale, in which he was feconded by Mr. Dent. The committee divided on the horfetax-for the refolution 83-against it 8. The other refolutions were carried, and the bills paffed with little variation. On the 29th of April, the chancellor of the exchequer prefented to the house of commons a meffage from his majefty, recommending it to them to enable his majesty to make remittances from time to time, to be applied to his fervice in Ireland, in fuch manner as fhould be approved by the parlia ment of that kingdom, to an a mount not exceeding 1,500,000l. on provifion being made by them for discharging the interest and charges of a loan to that amount; and alfo to confider of guaranteeing a loan on the account of his ally the emperor, to be applied in making good the advances to the amount of 1,600,000l. which had been |