Chapter XCIX: Section VII: How Words Influence the Passions (3)

At the end of the war, the interest payable on her debt amounted to upwards of seven millions sterling. M. de la Verdy, the last hope of the French finances, was called in, to aid in the reduction of an interest, so light to our author, so intolerably heavy upon those who are to pay it. After many unsuccessful efforts towards reconciling arbitrary reduction with public credit, he was obliged to go the plain high road of power, and to impose a tax of 10 per cent upon a very great part of the capital debt of that kingdom; and this measure of present ease, to the destruction of future credit, produced about 500,000_l._ a year, which was carried to their _Caisse d'amortissement_ or sinking fund. But so unfaithfully and unsteadily has this and all the other articles which compose that fund been applied to their purposes, that they have given the state but very little even of present relief, since it is known to the whole world that she is behindhand on every one of her establishments. Since the year 1763, there has been no operation of any consequence on the French finances; and in this enviable condition is France at present with regard to her debt.

Everybody knows that the principal of the debt is but a name; the interest is the only thing which can distress a nation. Take this idea, which will not be disputed, and compare the interest paid by England with that paid by France:

Interest paid by France, funded and
unfunded, for perpetuity or on lives,
after the tax of 10 per cent L6,500,000
Interest paid by England, as stated by
the author, p. 27 4,600,000
----------
Interest paid by France exceeds that
paid by England L1,900,000

The author cannot complain, that I state the interest paid by England as too low. He takes it himself as the extremest term. Nobody who knows anything of the French finances will affirm that I state the interest paid by that kingdom too high. It might be easily proved to amount to a great deal more: even this is near two millions above what is paid by England.

There are three standards to judge of the good condition of a nation with regard to its finances. 1st, The relief of the people. 2nd, The equality of supplies to establishments. 3rd, The state of public credit. Try France on all these standards.

Although our author very liberally administers relief to the people of France, its government has not been altogether so gracious. Since the peace, she has taken off but a single _vingtieme_, or shilling in the pound, and some small matter in the capitation. But, if the government has relieved them in one point, it has only burdened them the more heavily in another. The _Taille_,[65] that grievous and destructive imposition, which all their financiers lament, without being able to remove or to replace, has been augmented no less than six millions of livres, or 270,000 pounds English. A further augmentation of this or other duties is now talked of; and it is certainly necessary to their affairs: so exceedingly remote from either truth or verisimilitude is the author's amazing assertion, _that the burdens of France in the war were in a great measure temporary, and must be greatly diminished by a few years of peace_.

In the next place, if the people of France are not lightened of taxes, so neither is the state disburdened of charges. I speak from very good information, that the annual income of that state is at this day thirty millions of livres, or 1,350,000_l._ sterling, short of a provision for their ordinary peace establishment; so far are they from the attempt or even hope to discharge any part of the capital of their enormous debt. Indeed, under such extreme straitness and distraction labors the whole body of their finances, so far does their charge outrun their supply in every particular, that no man, I believe, who has considered their affairs with any degree of attention or information, but must hourly look for some extraordinary convulsion in that whole system: the effect of which on France, and even on all Europe, it is difficult to conjecture.

In the third point of view, their credit. Let the reader cast his eye on a table of the price of French funds, as they stood a few weeks ago, compared with the state of some of our English stocks, even in their present low condition:--

French. British.
5 per cents 63 Bank stock, 5-1/2 159
4 per cent (not taxed) 57 4 per cent cons. 100
3 per cent " " 49 3 per cent cons. 88

This state of the funds of France and England is sufficient to convince even prejudice and obstinacy, that if France and England are not in the same condition (as the author affirms they are not) the difference is infinitely to the disadvantage of France. This depreciation of their funds has not much the air of a nation lightening burdens and discharging debts.

Such is the true comparative state of the two kingdoms in those capital points of view. Now as to the nature of the taxes which provide for this debt, as well as for their ordinary establishments, the author has thought proper to affirm that "they are comparatively light"; that "she has mortgaged no such oppressive taxes as ours"; his effrontery on this head is intolerable. Does the author recollect a single tax in England to which something parallel in nature, and as heavy in burden, does not exist in France; does he not know that the lands of the noblesse are still under the load of the greater part of the old feudal charges, from which the gentry of England have been relieved for upwards of a hundred years, and which were in kind, as well as burden, much worse than our modern land-tax? Besides that all the gentry of France serve in the army on very slender pay, and to the utter ruin of their fortunes, all those who are not noble have their lands heavily taxed. Does he not know that wine, brandy, soap, candles, leather, saltpetre, gunpowder, are taxed in France? Has he not heard that government in France has made a monopoly of that great article of _salt?_ that they compel the people to take a certain quantity of it, and at a certain rate, both rate and quantity fixed at the arbitrary pleasure of the imposer?[66] that they pay in France the _Taille_, an arbitrary imposition on presumed property? that a tax is laid in fact and name, on the same arbitrary standard, upon the acquisitions of their _industry_? and that in France a heavy _capitation-tax_ is also paid, from the highest to the very poorest sort of people? Have we taxes of such weight, or anything at all of the compulsion, in the article of _salt_? do we pay any _taillage_, any _faculty-tax_, any _industry-tax?_ do we pay any _capitation-tax_ whatsoever? I believe the people of London would fall into an agony to hear of such taxes proposed upon them as are paid at Paris. There is not a single article of provision for man or beast which enters that great city, and is not excised; corn, hay, meal, butcher's-meat, fish, fowls, everything. I do not here mean to censure the policy of taxes laid on the consumption of great luxurious cities. I only state the fact. We should be with difficulty brought to hear of a tax of 50_s._ upon every ox sold in Smithfield. Yet this tax is paid in Paris. Wine, the lower sort of wine, little better than English small beer, pays 2_d._ a bottle.

We, indeed, tax our beer; but the imposition on small beer is very far from heavy. In no part of England are eatables of any kind the object of taxation. In almost every other country in Europe they are excised, more or less. I have by me the state of the revenues of many of the principal nations on the Continent; and, on comparing them with ours, I think I am fairly warranted to assert, that England is the most lightly taxed of any of the great states of Europe. They, whose unnatural and sullen joy arises from a contemplation of the distresses of their country, will revolt at this position. But if I am called upon, I will prove it beyond all possibility of dispute; even though this proof should deprive these gentlemen of the singular satisfaction of considering their country as undone; and though the best civil government, the best constituted, and the best managed revenue that ever the world beheld, should be thoroughly vindicated from their perpetual clamors and complaints. As to our neighbor and rival France, in addition to what I have here suggested, I say, and when the author chooses formally to deny, I shall formally prove it, that her subjects pay more than England, on a computation of the wealth of both countries; that her taxes are more injudiciously and more oppressively imposed; more vexatiously collected; come in a smaller proportion to the royal coffers, and are less applied by far to the public service. I am not one of those who choose to take the author's word for this happy and flourishing condition of the French finances, rather than attend to the changes, the violent pushes and the despair of all her own financiers. Does he choose to be referred for the easy and happy condition of the subject in France to the remonstrances of their own parliaments, written with such an eloquence, feeling, and energy, as I have not seen exceeded in any other writings? The author may say, their complaints are exaggerated, and the effects of faction. I answer, that they are the representations of numerous, grave, and most respectable bodies of men, upon the affairs of their own country. But, allowing that discontent and faction may pervert the judgment of such venerable bodies in France, we have as good a right to suppose that the same causes may full as probably have produced from a private, however respectable person, that frightful, and, I trust I have shown, groundless representation of our own affairs in England.

The author is so conscious of the dangerous effects of that representation, that he thinks it necessary, and very necessary it is, to guard against them. He assures us, "that he has not made that display of the difficulties of his country, to expose her counsels to the ridicule of other states, or to provoke a vanquished enemy to insult her; nor to excite the people's rage against their governors, or sink them into a despondency of the public welfare." I readily admit this apology for his intentions. God forbid I should think any man capable of entertaining so execrable and senseless a design. The true cause of his drawing so shocking a picture is no more than this; and it ought rather to claim our pity than excite our indignation; he finds himself out of power; and this condition is intolerable to him. The same sun which gilds all nature, and exhilarates the whole creation, does not shine upon disappointed ambition. It is something that rays out of darkness, and inspires nothing but gloom and melancholy. Men in this deplorable state of mind find a comfort in spreading the contagion of their spleen. They find an advantage too; for it is a general, popular error, to imagine the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare. If such persons can answer the ends of relief and profit to themselves, they are apt to be careless enough about either the means or the consequences.

Whatever this complainant's motives may be, the effects can by no possibility be other than those which he so strongly, and I hope truly, disclaims all intention of producing. To verify this, the reader has only to consider how dreadful a picture he has drawn in his 32nd page, of the state of this kingdom; such a picture as, I believe, has hardly been applicable, without some exaggeration, to the most degenerate and undone commonwealth that ever existed. Let this view of things be compared with the prospect of a remedy which he proposes in the page directly opposite, and the subsequent. I believe no man living could have imagined it possible, except for the sake of burlesquing a subject, to propose remedies so ridiculously disproportionate to the evil, so full of uncertainty in their operation, and depending for their success in every step upon the happy event of so many new, dangerous, and visionary projects. It is not amiss, that he has thought proper to give the public some little notice of what they may expect from his friends, when our affairs shall be committed to their management. Let us see how the accounts of disease and remedy are balanced in his "State of the Nation." In the first place, on the side of evils, he states, "an impoverished and heavily-burdened public. A declining trade and decreasing specie. The power of the crown never so much extended over the great; but the great without influence over the lower sort. Parliament losing its reverence with the people. The voice of the multitude set up against the sense of the legislature; a people luxurious and licentious, impatient of rule, and despising all authority. Government relaxed in every sinew, and a corrupt selfish spirit pervading the whole. An opinion of many, that the form of government is not worth contending for. No attachment in the bulk of the people towards the constitution. No reverence for the customs of our ancestors. No attachment but to private interest, nor any zeal but for selfish gratifications. Trade and manufactures going to ruin. Great Britain in danger of becoming tributary to France, and the descent of the crown dependent on her pleasure. Ireland, in case of a war, to become a prey to France; and Great Britain, unable to recover Ireland, cede it by treaty," (the author never can think of a treaty without making cessions,) "in order to purchase peace for herself. The colonies left exposed to the ravages of a domestic, or the conquest of a foreign enemy."--Gloomy enough, God knows. The author well observes,[67] _that a mind not totally devoid of feeling cannot look upon such a prospect without horror; and an heart capable of humanity must be unable to hear its description_. He ought to have added, that no man of common discretion ought to have exhibited it to the public, if it were true; or of common honesty, if it were false.

But now for the comfort; the day-star which is to arise in our hearts; the author's grand scheme for totally reversing this dismal state of things, and making us[68] "happy at home and respected abroad, formidable in war and flourishing in peace."

In this great work he proceeds with a facility equally astonishing and pleasing. Never was financier less embarrassed by the burden of establishments, or with the difficulty of finding ways and means. If an establishment is troublesome to him, he lops off at a stroke just as much of it as he chooses. He mows down, without giving quarter, or assigning reason, army, navy, ordnance, ordinary, extraordinaries; nothing can stand before him. Then, when he comes to provide, Amalthea's horn is in his hands; and he pours out with an inexhaustible bounty, taxes, duties, loans, and revenues, without uneasiness to himself, or burden to the public. Insomuch that, when we consider the abundance of his resources, we cannot avoid being surprised at his extraordinary attention to savings. But it is all the exuberance of his goodness.

This book has so much of a certain tone of power, that one would be almost tempted to think it written by some person who had been high in office. A man is generally rendered somewhat a worse reasoner for having been a minister. In private, the assent of listening and obsequious friends; in public, the venal cry and prepared vote of a passive senate, confirm him in habits of begging the question with impunity, and asserting without thinking himself obliged to prove. Had it not been for some such habits, the author could never have expected that we should take his estimate for a peace establishment solely on his word.

This estimate which he gives,[69] is the great groundwork of his plan for the national redemption; and it ought to be well and firmly laid, or what must become of the superstructure? One would have thought the natural method in a plan of reformation would be, to take the present existing estimates as they stand; and then to show what may be practicably and safely defalcated from them. This would, I say, be the natural course; and what would be expected from a man of business. But this author takes a very different method. For the ground of his speculation of a present peace establishment, he resorts to a former speculation of the same kind, which was in the mind of the minister of the year 1764. Indeed it never existed anywhere else. "The plan,"[70] says he, with his usual ease, "has been already formed, and the outline drawn, by the administration of 1764. I shall attempt to fill up the void and obliterated parts, and trace its operation. The standing expense of the present (his projected) peace establishment, _improved by the experience of the two last years, may be thus estimated_"; and he estimates it at 3,468,161_l._

Here too it would be natural to expect some reasons for condemning the subsequent actual establishments, which have so much transgressed the limits of his plan of 1764, as well as some arguments in favor of his new project; which has in some articles exceeded, in others fallen short, but on the whole is much below his old one. Hardly a word on any of these points, the only points however that are in the least essential; for unless you assign reasons for the increase or diminution of the several articles of public charge, the playing at establishments and estimates is an amusement of no higher order, and of much less ingenuity, than _Questions and commands_, or _What is my thought like_? To bring more distinctly under the reader's view this author's strange method of proceeding, I will lay before him the three schemes; viz. the idea of the ministers in 1764, the actual estimates of the two last years as given by the author himself, and lastly the new project of his political millennium:--

Plan of establishment for 1764, as by
"Considerations," p. 43 [71] L3,609,700
Medium of 1767 and 1768, as by
"State of the Nation," p. 29 and 30 3,919,375
Present peace establishment, as by the
project in "State of the Nation," p. 33 3,468,161

It is not from anything our author has anywhere said, that you are enabled to find the ground, much less the justification, of the immense difference between these several systems; you must compare them yourself, article by article; no very pleasing employment, by the way, to compare the agreement or disagreement of two chimeras. I now only speak of the comparison of his own two projects. As to the latter of them, it differs from the former, by having some of the articles diminished, and others increased.[72] I find the chief article of reduction arises from the smaller deficiency of land and malt, and of the annuity funds, which he brings down to 295,561_l._ in his new estimate, from 502,400_l._ which he had allowed for those articles in the "Considerations." With this _reduction_, owing, as it must be, merely to a smaller deficiency of funds, he has nothing at all to do. It can be no work and no merit of his. But with regard to the _increase_, the matter is very different. It is all his own; the public is loaded (for anything we can see to the contrary) entirely _gratis_. The chief articles of the increase are on the navy,[73] and on the army and ordnance extraordinaries; the navy being estimated in his "State of the Nation" 50,000_l._ a year more, and the army and ordnance extraordinaries 40,000_l._ more, than he had thought proper to allow for them in that estimate in his "Considerations," which he makes the foundation of his present project. He has given no sort of reason, stated no sort of necessity, for this additional allowance, either in the one article or the other. What is still stronger, he admits that his allowance for the army and ordnance extras is too great, and expressly refers you to the "Considerations";[74] where, far from giving 75,000_l._ a year to that service, as the "State of the Nation" has done, the author apprehends his own scanty provision of 35,000_l._ to be by far too considerable, and thinks it may well admit of further reductions.[75] Thus, according to his own principles, this great economist falls into a vicious prodigality; and is as far in his estimate from a consistency with his own principles as with the real nature of the services.

Still, however, his present establishment differs from its archetype of 1764, by being, though raised in particular parts, upon the whole, about 141,000_l._ smaller. It is improved, he tells us, by the experience of the two last years. One would have concluded that the peace establishment of these two years had been less than that of 1764, in order to suggest to the author his improvements, which enabled him to reduce it. But how does that turn out?

Peace establishment[76] 1767 and 1768, medium L3,919,375
Ditto, estimate in the "Considerations," for 1764 3,609,700
---------
Difference L309,675

A vast increase instead of diminution. The experience then of the two last years ought naturally to have given the idea of a heavier establishment; but this writer is able to diminish by increasing, and to draw the effects of subtraction from the operations of addition. By means of these new powers, he may certainly do whatever he pleases. He is indeed moderate enough in the use of them, and condescends to settle his establishments at 3,468,161_l._ a year.

However, he has not yet done with it; he has further ideas of saving, and new resources of revenue. These additional savings are principally two: 1st, _It is to be hoped_,[77] says he, that the sum of 250,000_l._ (which in the estimate he allows for the deficiency of land and malt) will be less by 37,924_l._[78]

2nd, That the sum of 20,000_l._ allowed for the Foundling Hospital, and 1800_l._ for American Surveys, will soon cease to be necessary, as the services will be completed.

What follows, with regard to the resources,[79] is very well worthy the reader's attention. "Of this estimate," says he, "upwards of 300,000_l._ will be for the plantation service; and that sum, _I hope_, the people of Ireland and the colonies _might be induced_ to take off Great Britain, and defray between them, in the proportion of 200,000_l._ by the colonies, and 100,000_l._ by Ireland."

Such is the whole of this mighty scheme. Take his reduced estimate, and his further reductions, and his resources all together, and the result will be,--he will _certainly_ lower the provision made for the navy. He will cut off largely (God knows what or how) from the army and ordnance extraordinaries. He may be _expected_ to cut off more. He _hopes_ that the deficiencies on land and malt will be less than usual; and he _hopes_ that America and Ireland might be _induced_ to take off 300,000_l._ of our annual charges.

If any of these Hopes, Mights, Insinuations, Expectations, and Inducements, should fail him, there will be a formidable gaping breach in his whole project. If all of them should fail, he has left the nation without a glimmering of hope in this thick night of terrors which he has thought fit to spread about us. If every one of them, which, attended with success, would signify anything to our revenue, can have no effect but to add to our distractions and dangers, we shall be if possible in a still worse condition from his projects of cure, than he represents us from our original disorders.

Before we examine into the consequences of these schemes, and the probability of these savings, let us suppose them all real and all safe, and then see what it is they amount to, and how he reasons on them:--

Deficiency on land and malt, less by L37,000
Foundling Hospital 20,000
American Surveys 1,800
-------
L58,800

This is the amount of the only articles of saving he specifies: and yet he chooses to assert,[81] "that we may venture on the credit of them to reduce the standing expenses of the estimate (from 3,468,161_l._) to 3,300,000_l._"; that is, for a saving of 58,000_l._ he is not ashamed to take credit for a defalcation from his own ideal establishment in a sum of no less than 168,161_l._! Suppose even that we were to take up the estimate of the "Considerations" (which is however abandoned in the "State of the Nation"), and reduce his 75,000_l._ extraordinaries to the original 35,000_l._, still all these savings joined together give us but 98,800_l._; that is, near 70,000_l._ short of the credit he calls for, and for which he has neither given any reason, nor furnished any data whatsoever for others to reason upon.

Such are his savings, as operating on his own project of a peace establishment. Let us now consider them as they affect the existing establishment and our actual services. He tells us, the sum allowed in his estimate for the navy is "69,321_l._ less than the grant for that service in 1767; but in that grant 30,000_l._ was included for the purchase of hemp, and a saving of about 25,000_l._ was made in that year." The author has got some secret in arithmetic. These two sums put together amount, in the ordinary way of computing, to 55,000_l._, and not to 69,321_l._ On what principle has he chosen to take credit for 14,321_l._ more? To what this strange inaccuracy is owing, I cannot possibly comprehend; nor is it very material, where the logic is so bad, and the policy so erroneous, whether the arithmetic be just or otherwise. But in a scheme for making this nation "happy at home and respected abroad, formidable in war and flourishing in peace," it is surely a little unfortunate for us, that he has picked out the _Navy_, as the very first object of his economical experiments. Of all the public services, that of the navy is the one in which tampering may be of the greatest danger, which can worst be supplied upon an emergency, and of which any failure draws after it the longest and heaviest train of consequences. I am far from saying, that this or any service ought not to be conducted with economy. But I will never suffer the sacred name of economy to be bestowed upon arbitrary defalcation of charge. The author tells us himself, "that to suffer the navy to rot in harbor for want of repairs and marines, would be to invite destruction." It would be so. When the author talks therefore of savings on the navy estimate, it is incumbent on him to let us know, not what sums he will cut off, but what branch of that service he deems superfluous. Instead of putting us off with unmeaning generalities, he ought to have stated what naval force, what naval works, and what naval stores, with the lowest estimated expense, are necessary to keep our marine in a condition commensurate to its great ends. And this too not for the contracted and deceitful space of a single year, but for some reasonable term. Everybody knows that many charges cannot be in their nature regular or annual. In the year 1767 a stock of hemp, &c., was to be laid in; that charge intermits, but it does not end. Other charges of other kinds take their place. Great works are now carrying on at Portsmouth, but not of greater magnitude than utility; and they must be provided for. A year's estimate is therefore no just idea at all of a permanent peace establishment. Had the author opened this matter upon these plain principles, a judgment might have been formed, how far he had contrived to reconcile national defence with public economy. Till he has done it, those who had rather depend on any man's reason than the greatest man's authority, will not give him credit on this head, for the saving of a single shilling. As to those savings which are already made, or in course of being made, whether right or wrong, he has nothing at all to do with them; they can be no part of his project, considered as a plan of reformation. I greatly fear that the error has not lately been on the side of profusion.

Another head is the saving on the army and ordnance extraordinaries, particularly in the American branch. What or how much reduction may be made, none of us, I believe, can with any fairness pretend to say; very little, I am convinced. The state of America is extremely unsettled; more troops have been sent thither; new dispositions have been made; and this augmentation of number, and change of disposition, has rarely, I believe, the effect of lessening the bill for extraordinaries, which, if not this year, yet in the next we must certainly feel. Care has not been wanting to introduce economy into that part of the service. The author's great friend has made, I admit, some regulations: his immediate successors have made more and better. This part will be handled more ably and more minutely at another time: but no one can cut down this bill of extraordinaries at his pleasure. The author has given us nothing, but his word, for any certain or considerable reduction; and this we ought to be the more cautious in taking, as he has promised great savings in his "Considerations," which he has not chosen to abide by in his "State of the Nation."

On this head also of the American extraordinaries, he can take credit for nothing. As to his next, the lessening of the deficiency of the land and malt-tax, particularly of the malt-tax, any person the least conversant in that subject cannot avoid a smile. This deficiency arises from charge of collection, from anticipation, and from defective produce. What has the author said on the reduction of any head of this deficiency upon the land-tax? On these points he is absolutely silent. As to the deficiency on the malt-tax, which is chiefly owing to a defective produce, he has and can have nothing to propose. If this deficiency should he lessened by the increase of malting in any years more than in others, (as it is a greatly fluctuating object,) how much of this obligation shall we owe to this author's ministry? will it not be the case under any administration? must it not go to the general service of the year, in some way or other, let the finances be in whose hands they will? But why take credit for so extremely reduced a deficiency at all? I can tell him he has no rational ground for it in the produce of the year 1767; and I suspect will have full as little reason from the produce of the year 1768. That produce may indeed become greater, and the deficiency of course will be less. It may too be far otherwise. A fair and judicious financier will not, as this writer has done, for the sake of making out a specious account, select a favorable year or two, at remote periods, and ground his calculations on those. In 1768 he will not take the deficiencies of 1753 and 1754 for his standard. Sober men have hitherto (and must continue this course, to preserve this character,) taken indifferently the mediums of the years immediately preceding. But a person who has a scheme from which he promises much to the public ought to be still more cautious; he should ground his speculation rather on the lowest mediums because all new schemes are known to be subject to some defect or failure not foreseen; and which therefore every prudent proposer will be ready to allow for, in order to lay his foundation as low and as solid as possible. Quite contrary is the practice of some politicians. They first propose savings, which they well know cannot be made, in order to get a reputation for economy. In due time they assume another, but a different method, by providing for the service they had before cut off or straitened, and which they can then very easily prove to be necessary. In the same spirit they raise magnificent ideas of revenue on funds which they know to be insufficient. Afterwards, who can blame them, if they do not satisfy the public desires? They are great artificers but they cannot work without materials.

These are some of the little arts of great statesmen. To such we leave them, and follow where the author leads us, to his next resource, the Foundling Hospital. Whatever particular virtue there is in the mode of this saving, there seems to be nothing at all new, and indeed nothing wonderfully important in it. The sum annually voted for the support of the Foundling Hospital has been in a former Parliament limited to the establishment of the children then in the hospital. When they are apprenticed, this provision will cease. It will therefore fall in more or less at different times; and will at length cease entirely. But, until it does, we cannot reckon upon it as the saving on the establishment of any given year: nor can any one conceive how the author comes to mention this, any more than some other articles, as a part of a _new_ plan of economy which is to retrieve our affairs. This charge will indeed cease in its own time. But will no other succeed to it? Has he ever known the public free from some contingent charge, either for the just support of royal dignity or for national magnificence, or for public charity, or for public service? does he choose to flatter his readers that no such will ever return? or does he in good earnest declare, that let the reason, or necessity, be what they will, he is resolved not to provide for such services?

Another resource of economy yet remains, for he gleans the field very closely,--1800_l._ for the American surveys. Why, what signifies a dispute about trifles? he shall have it. But while he is carrying it off, I shall just whisper in his ear, that neither the saving that is allowed, nor that which is doubted of, can at all belong to that future proposed administration, whose touch is to cure all our evils. Both the one and the other belong equally (as indeed all the rest do) to the present administration, to any administration; because they are the gift of time, and not the bounty of the exchequer.

I have now done with all the minor, preparatory parts of the author's scheme, the several articles of saving which he proposes. At length comes the capital operation, his new resources. Three hundred thousand pounds a year from America and Ireland.--Alas! alas! if that too should fail us, what will become of this poor undone nation? The author, in a tone of great humility, _hopes_ they may be induced to pay it. Well, if that be all, we may hope so too: and for any light he is pleased to give us into the ground of this hope, and the ways and means of this inducement, here is a speedy end both of the question and the revenue.

It is the constant custom of this author, in all his writings, to take it for granted, that he has given you a revenue, whenever he can point out to you where you may have money, if you can contrive how to get at it; and this seems to be the masterpiece of his financial ability. I think, however, in his way of proceeding, he has behaved rather like a harsh step-dame, than a kind nursing-mother to his country. Why stop at 300,000_l._ If his state of things be at all founded, America and Ireland are much better able to pay 600,000_l._ than we are to satisfy ourselves with half that sum. However, let us forgive him this one instance of tenderness towards Ireland and the colonies.

He spends a vast deal of time[82] in an endeavor to prove that Ireland is able to bear greater impositions. He is of opinion, that the poverty of the lower class of people there is, in a great measure, owing to _a want_ of judicious taxes; that a land-tax will enrich her tenants; that taxes are paid in England which are not paid there; that the colony trade is increased above 100,000_l._ since the peace; that she _ought_ to have further indulgence in that trade; and ought to have further privileges in the woollen manufacture. From these premises, of what she has, what she has not, and what she ought to have, he infers that Ireland will contribute 100,000_l._ towards the extraordinaries of the American establishment.

I shall make no objections whatsoever, logical or financial, to this reasoning: many occur; but they would lead me from my purpose, from which I do not intend to be diverted, because it seems to me of no small importance. It will be just enough to hint, what I dare say many readers have before observed, that when any man proposes new taxes in a country with which he is not personally conversant by residence or office, he ought to lay open its situation much more minutely and critically than this author has done, or than perhaps he is able to do. He ought not to content himself with saying that a single article of her trade is increased 100,000_l._ a year; he ought, if he argues from the increase of trade to the increase of taxes, to state the whole trade, and not one branch of trade only; he ought to enter fully into the state of its remittances, and the course of its exchange; he ought likewise to examine whether all its establishments are increased or diminished; and whether it incurs or discharges debts annually. But I pass over all this; and am content to ask a few plain questions.

Does the author then seriously mean to propose in Parliament a land-tax, or any tax for 100,000_l._ a year upon Ireland? If he does, and if fatally, by his temerity and our weakness, he should succeed; then I say he will throw the whole empire from one end of it to the other into mortal convulsions. What is it that can satisfy the furious and perturbed mind of this man? is it not enough for him that such projects have alienated our colonies from the mother-country, and not to propose violently to tear our sister kingdom also from our side, and to convince every dependent part of the empire, that, when a little money is to be raised, we have no sort of regard to their ancient customs, their opinions, their circumstances, or their affections? He has however a _douceur_ for Ireland in his pocket; benefits in trade, by opening the woollen manufacture to that nation. A very right idea in my opinion; but not more strong in reason, than likely to be opposed by the most powerful and most violent of all local prejudices and popular passions. First, a fire is already kindled by his schemes of taxation in America; he then proposes one which will set all Ireland in a blaze; and his way of quenching both is by a plan which may kindle perhaps ten times a greater flame in Britain.

Will the author pledge himself, previously to his proposal of such a tax, to carry this enlargement of the Irish trade? If he does not, then the tax will be certain; the benefit will be less than problematical. In this view, his compensation to Ireland vanishes into smoke; the tax, to their prejudices, will appear stark naked in the light of an act of arbitrary power and oppression. But, if he should propose the benefit and tax together, then the people of Ireland, a very high and spirited people, would think it the worst bargain in the world. They would look upon the one as wholly vitiated and poisoned by the other; and, if they could not be separated, would infallibly resist them both together. Here would be taxes, indeed, amounting to a handsome sum; 100,000_l._ very effectually voted, and passed through the best and most authentic forms; but how to be collected?--This is his perpetual manner. One of his projects depends for success upon another project, and this upon a third, all of them equally visionary. His finance is like the Indian philosophy; his earth is poised on the horns of a bull, his bull stands upon an elephant, his elephant is supported by a tortoise; and so on forever.

As to his American 200,000_l._ a year, he is satisfied to repeat gravely, as he has done an hundred times before, that the Americans are able to pay it. Well, and what then? does he lay open any part of his plan how they may be compelled to pay it, without plunging ourselves into calamities that outweigh tenfold the proposed benefit? or does he show how they may be induced to submit to it quietly? or does he give any satisfaction concerning the mode of levying it; in commercial colonies, one of the most important and difficult of all considerations? Nothing like it. To the Stamp Act, whatever its excellences may be, I think he will not in reality recur, or even choose to assert that he means to do so, in case his minister should come again into power. If he does, I will predict that some of the fastest friends of that minister will desert him upon this point. As to port duties he has damned them all in the lump, by declaring them[83] "contrary to the first principles of colonization, and not less prejudicial to the interests of Great Britain than to those of the colonies." Surely this single observation of his ought to have taught him a little caution; he ought to have begun to doubt, whether there is not something in the nature of commercial colonies, which renders them an unfit object of taxation; when port duties, so large a fund of revenue in all countries, are by himself found, in this case, not only improper, but destructive. However, he has here pretty well narrowed the field of taxation. Stamp Act, hardly to be resumed. Port duties, mischievous. Excises, I believe, he will scarcely think worth the collection (if any revenue should be so) in America. Land-tax (notwithstanding his opinion of its immense use to agriculture) he will not directly propose, before he has thought again and again on the subject. Indeed he very readily recommends it for Ireland, and seems to think it not improper for America; because, he observes, they already raise most of their taxes internally, including this tax. A most curious reason, truly! because their lands are already heavily burdened, he thinks it right to burden them still further. But he will recollect, for surely he cannot be ignorant of it, that the lands of America are not, as in England, let at a rent certain in money, and therefore cannot, as here, be taxed at a certain pound rate. They value them in gross among themselves; and none but themselves in their several districts can value them. Without their hearty concurrence and co-operation, it is evident, we cannot advance a step in the assessing or collecting any land-tax. As to the taxes which in some places the Americans pay by the acre, they are merely duties of regulation; they are small; and to increase them, notwithstanding the secret virtues of a land-tax, would be the most effectual means of preventing that cultivation they are intended to promote. Besides, the whole country is heavily in arrear already for land-taxes and quit-rents. They have different methods of taxation in the different provinces, agreeable to their several local circumstances. In New England by far the greatest part of their revenue is raised by _faculty-taxes_ and _capitations_. Such is the method in many others. It is obvious that Parliament, unassisted by the colonies themselves, cannot take so much as a single step in this mode of taxation. Then what tax is it he will impose? Why, after all the boasting speeches and writings of his faction for these four years, after all the vain expectations which they have held out to a deluded public, this their great advocate, after twisting the subject every way, after writhing himself in every posture, after knocking at every door, is obliged fairly to abandon every mode of taxation whatsoever in America.[84] He thinks it the best method for Parliament to impose the sum, and reserve the account to itself, leaving the mode of taxation to the colonies. But how and in what proportion? what does the author say? O, not a single syllable on this the most material part of the whole question! Will he, in Parliament, undertake to settle the proportions of such payments from Nova Scotia to Nevis, in no fewer than six-and-twenty different countries, varying in almost every possible circumstance one from another? If he does, I tell him, he adjourns his revenue to a very long day. If he leaves it to themselves to settle these proportions, he adjourns it to doomsday.

Then what does he get by this method on the side of acquiescence? will the people of America relish this course, of giving and granting and applying their money, the better because their assemblies are made commissioners of the taxes? This is far worse than all his former projects; for here, if the assemblies shall refuse, or delay, or be negligent, or fraudulent, in this new-imposed duty, we are wholly without remedy; and neither our custom-house officers, nor our troops, nor our armed ships can be of the least use in the collection. No idea can be more contemptible (I will not call it an oppressive one, the harshness is lost in the folly) than that of proposing to get any revenue from the Americans but by their freest and most cheerful consent. Most moneyed men know their own interest right well; and are as able as any financier, in the valuation of risks. Yet I think this financier will scarcely find that adventurer hardy enough, at any premium, to advance a shilling upon a vote of such taxes. Let him name the man, or set of men, that would do it. This is the only proof of the value of revenues; what would an interested man rate them at? His subscription would be at ninety-nine per cent discount the very first day of its opening. Here is our only national security from ruin; a security upon which no man in his senses would venture a shilling of his fortune. Yet he puts down those articles as gravely in his supply for the peace establishment, as if the money had been all fairly lodged in the exchequer.

American revenue L200,000
Ireland 100,000

Very handsome indeed! But if supply is to be got in such a manner, farewell the lucrative mystery of finance! If you are to be credited for savings, without showing how, why, or with what safety, they are to be made; and for revenues, without specifying on what articles, or by what means, or at what expense, they are to be collected; there is not a clerk in a public office who may not outbid this author, or his friend, for the department of chancellor of the exchequer; not an apprentice in the city, that will not strike out, with the same advantages, the same, or a much larger plan of supply.

Here is the whole of what belongs to the author's scheme for saving us from impending destruction. Take it even in its most favorable point of view, as a thing within possibility; and imagine what must be the wisdom of this gentleman, or his opinion of ours, who could first think of representing this nation in such a state, as no friend can look upon but with horror, and scarcely an enemy without compassion, and afterwards of diverting himself with such inadequate, impracticable, puerile methods for our relief! If these had been the dreams of some unknown, unnamed, and nameless writer, they would excite no alarm; their weakness had been an antidote to their malignity. But as they are universally believed to be written by the hand, or, what amounts to the same thing, under the immediate direction, of a person who has been in the management of the highest affairs, and may soon be in the same situation, I think it is not to be reckoned amongst our greatest consolations, that the yet remaining power of this kingdom is to be employed in an attempt to realize notions that are at once so frivolous, and so full of danger. That consideration will justify me in dwelling a little longer on the difficulties of the nation, and the solutions of our author.

I am then persuaded that he cannot be in the least alarmed about our situation, let his outcry be what he pleases. I will give him a reason for my opinion, which, I think, he cannot dispute. All that he bestows upon the nation, which it does not possess without him, and supposing it all sure money, amounts to no more than a sum of 300,000_l._ a year. This, he thinks, will do the business completely, and render us flourishing at home, and respectable abroad. If the option between glory and shame, if our salvation or destruction, depended on this sum, it is impossible that he should have been active, and made a merit of that activity, in taking off a shilling in the pound of the land-tax, which came up to his grand desideratum, and upwards of 100,000_l._ more. By this manoeuvre, he left our trade, navigation, and manufactures, on the verge of destruction, our finances in ruin, our credit expiring, Ireland on the point of being ceded to France, the colonies of being torn to pieces, the succession of the crown at the mercy of our great rival, and the kingdom itself on the very point of becoming tributary to that haughty power. All this for want of 300,000_l._; for I defy the reader to point out any other revenue, or any other precise and defined scheme of politics, which he assigns for our redemption.

I know that two things may be said in his defence, as bad reasons are always at hand in an indifferent cause; that he was not sure the money would be applied as he thinks it ought to be, by the present ministers. I think as ill of them as he does to the full. They have done very near as much mischief as they can do, to a constitution so robust as this is. Nothing can make them more dangerous, but that, as they are already in general composed of his disciples and instruments, they may add to the public calamity of their own measures, the adoption of his projects. But be the ministers what they may, the author knows that they could not avoid applying this 450,000_l._ to the service of the establishment, as faithfully as he, or any other minister, could do. I say they could not avoid it, and have no merit at all for the application. But supposing that they should greatly mismanage this revenue. Here is a good deal of room for mistake and prodigality before you come to the edge of ruin. The difference between the amount of that real and his imaginary revenue is, 150,000_l._ a year at least; a tolerable sum for them to play with: this might compensate the difference between the author's economy and their profusion; and still, notwithstanding their vices and ignorance, the nation might he saved. The author ought also to recollect, that a good man would hardly deny, even to the worst of ministers, the means of doing their duty; especially in a crisis when our being depended on supplying them with some means or other. In such a case their penury of mind, in discovering resources, would make it rather the more necessary, not to strip such poor providers of the little stock they had in hand.