Then, Sir, there remains another, and a leading consideration. I have already stated the grounds on which I build my plan for raising seven millions of the nineteen that are necessary for the supply of the year. This leaves, as I have before mentioned, a sum of twelve millions to be raised by loan. And here a point, separate, indeed, in its nature, but not less important in its consequences, properly claims your attention. I have stated that the sum of seven millions, to be levied in a direct way by increased assessments, is intended to make the quantum of the loan more moderate. But I shall now state another principle which would lay the security, the credit, the efficient powers, and the resources of the country on a firm and immovable foundation - a principle that will tend not to effect a diminution of our burdens for the present, but to prevent an accumulation of them for the future. The House will recollect that, by means of the sinking fund, we had advanced far in the reduction of the national debt previous to the loans necessarily made in the present war, and every year was attended with such accelerated salutary effects as outran the most sanguine calculation. But having done so, we have yet far to go as things are circumstanced, if the reduction of the debt be confined to the operations of that fund, and the expenses of the war continue to impede our plans of economy: we shall have far to go before the operation of that fund, even under the influence of peace, can be expected to counteract the effects of the war. Yet there are means by which, I am confident, it would be practicable in not many years to restore our resources, and put the country in a state equal to all exigencies. It is impossible, Sir, but we must feel ourselves bound by duty, if we wanted the encouragement of success, to proceed in the business, and to complete the work which has already had so much success, and even to provide, if it shall be found expedient or necessary, for more rapidly accomplishing that desirable object. Not only, Sir, do I think that the principle is wise, and the attempt practicable, to provide large supplies out of the direct taxes of the year, but I conceive it to be equally wise, and not less practicable,

to make provision for the amount of the debt incurred and funded in the same year; and if the necessity of carrying on the war shall entail upon us the necessity of contracting another debt, the principle I have in view is such, that, with the assistance of the sinking-fund to co-operate, we shall not owe more than at the beginning. I cannot, indeed, take upon me to say, that the war will not stop the progress of the plan of liquidation; but if the means to which I look be adopted, it will leave us at least stationary-it will leave us where we were; and besides the salutary influence it will have upon our credit and resources at home, it will produce the happy effect of demonstrating to the enemy, that, whatever the nature of the contest may be, or whatever its duration, our strength is undiminished, our resources unexhausted, and our general situation unimpaired; that the hopes they entertain of destroying the country through the medium of its finance are as vain as their designs are wicked; and that, whatever measures they may think proper to adopt against this country, they will find us not at all disabled for the contest. But, Sir, it is necessary for me to be more explicit; and I will endeavour to make the point appear as clear to the House as it now appears to me.

If I must borrow twelve millions, four of those may be borrowed without making any additional debt; for the sinking-fund will pay so much. There then will remain eight millions, which would be an additional permanent capital if suffered to be funded for these eight millions, therefore, I would make a different provision, that is to say, I would propose that the increased assessed taxes, the plan of which I have already laid before the House, be continued till the principal and interest be completely discharged; so that, after seven millions have been raised for this year, the same taxes in one year more, with the additional aid of the sinking-fund, will pay off all that principal and intermediate interest. My proposition, therefore, if carried into effect, would not only furnish a current supply, but quicken the redemption of the national debt, without bearing harder on

unimpaired even by this wasteful war; on any other account no difference can possibly arise upon this day. In the interval between this and the day on which I shall finally bring this subject before you, I will receive with attention any observations that gentlemen may please to suggest; and I hope all will agree with me, that the question for consideration is not, whether the burdens proposed are heavy or unprecedented, but whether there is any option left to us whether they are not dictated by unavoidable necessity, and whether any, better adapted to the circumstances of the country, can be devised to supply their places?

Sir, having said so much, I will not follow it up with particulars, but move a resolution conformable to the general design I have laid before the committee; and I will postpone the particular parts of the plan to another day — the earliest that circumstances will allow.

to:

He then moved the following resolution, which was agreed

"That it is the opinion of this committee, that there shall be paid a duty, not exceeding treble the amount of the duties imposed by several acts of parliament now in force, on houses and windows and inhabited houses, by the 6th, 19th, 24th, and 27th Geo. III. and likewise the several additional duties of ten per cent. per annum, imposed thereon by several acts of parliament, with certain exceptions and abatements."

Mr. Tierney rose next; and, after going over the various calculations of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and inferring from thence the declining state of the national resources, he declared, that, with the present administration, he held it impossible that this country could have peace. The right honourable gentleman, he affirmed, wanted the requisites to bring about a peace; he possessed not the confidence and respect either of France, or of any of the European powers.

Mr. PITT replied:

I shall endeavour to follow the honourable gentleman who has just sat down, in some of the observations he has thought proper to make. Knowing, as I do, the ingenuity of that gentleman, and recollecting his declaration in this House some time since: knowing that he stands pledged to give His Majesty's present ministers every opposition in his power- when I compare that declaration, and apply it to his speech to-night, a speech certainly not destitute of ingenuity or of preparation, I own I am a little at a loss to find in him that consistency for which he expects to obtain credit, as a man wishing for nothing so much as the welfare of his country. Whatever may be thought of the speech of the honourable gentleman, either by the public or by his own constituents, I shall observe upon parts of his speech as they appear to me. I will endeavour to follow him in his direct and his collateral topics; in some which were certainly not direct, and in others that I cannot say were collateral, because they had no reference to the subjects now before the committee, either collaterally or otherwise. He begins by complaining of excess, and he comments on the navy estimates, in which his zeal has misled him. He talks of three millions, and a million and a half, as sums I took credit for; whereas I stated the whole sum to which he referred in this part of his speech would be three millions, and that I should provide for half of them by bills, and that a million and a half of them should be outstanding. But he then goes on to state, that I made a mistake of three millions upon the statement of navy extraordinaries. Gentlemen assert things that have no foundation any where but in their own fancy, and they repeat them so often, and with so much confidence, that at last they become the dupes of their own artifice, and believe these assertions themselves. Be it remembered, however, that in the course of every session since the war began, I have, on every occasion, stated that the nature of such extensive transactions, as those of the army and navy, was such as to render accuracy in the estimate unattainable. I do not pretend to it at any time, but I always do my utmost to

approach it, and I do aver that there never was at any time of war more attention paid, than in the whole course of this, to prevent excesses beyond the estimate. True it is, you have had more excesses in this than in any other war, nor is it marvellous, for it is a war of a different kind, and of a more complicated nature than any other you were ever before engaged in. But the honourable gentleman, in his public zeal to detect the fallacy of my statements, assures the committee, that, in stating the sum of five millions upon the article of the navy, I have committed an error of three millions. This he states as being the excess upon one article, which amounts, I own, to only five millions: but the excess fairly applies to the whole sum of seventeen millions, of which these five were a part; and instead of taking the whole and considering that excess as applying to the whole, he applies it to one part, merely because the whole of the sum was voted by separate votes on different heads, and compares that excess with one branch of the whole. I shall say no more than that I leave the committee to judge of the fairness of such a mode of reasoning.

The honourable gentleman says, I do not now speak with confidence on the produce of the taxes, and yet he allows the revenue to be flourishing, in which too, it seems, he rejoices. He says I have put into the mouth of the King what has not been uttered out of my own this night. Nothing has been said by me upon that subject to-night-I mean upon the flourishing state of our revenue. No, Sir, it is not out of my mouth that expression came to-night, and which the honourable gentleman censures me for omitting, but out of his own; and when the honourable gentleman thinks he sees a smile from this side of the House, he magnifies it into a horse-laugh in consequence of what he advances. I am afraid he gives credit to some part of the House for more attention than they deserve. All these considerations induce me to suspect, that, if I had stated many things which he expected me to state concerning the prosperity of the country, he was prepared with a long speech to contradict me