HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
other confide eration to revenue, and 
exprefied his fears that the monied 
-interefts had fo totally corrupted all 
ranks of people, that they ‘feemed 
Me ~ ehtirely to have changed and al- 
' tered their notions.upon great po- 
Titical fubjects, on which | formerly 
every man felt alarm and jealoufy. 
_ Mr. Secretary Grenville ftrongly 
" piotefted againft the manner ar’ 
which the quefton had been ar- 
ed, as tending to raife a clamour 
- Sgaint laws, upon which, as thole 
gentlemen well new, the whole 
_ national credit, and with it the 
very exiftence of the empire de- 
_ pended. x 
_ . The members for the city of Lon- 
don and for Southwark {poke in 
fayour of the motion; and Mr. 
heridan, after a long: reply, hav- 
ng altered the quettion to a motion 
for leave to bring in a bill to repeal 
the tobacco aét, the committee at 
Mngth divided —ayes 147 —noes 
191. 
¥ An aé& was afterwards pafied to 
periain and amend the act of the 
daft year, and to relieve the manti- 
~ faéturers from certain hardthips 
- therein. Upon the third reading 
bs ~ of this ast, Sir Watkin Lewis mov- 
ed that a claufe fhould be inferted, 
giving the right of a trial by jury 
all the perions fubje& to the aét. 
The Attorney General objected 
to the claufe, as‘a cangerous expe- 
timent upon what conilituted one- 
ird of the revenue . the king- 
He remarked, t t the mode 
collecting. the oni tee “had ftood 
OW near acentury anda half; yet 
Was never, during that time, cif- 
vered that any danger arofe to 
: conftitution from it. He con- 
a; 
—— he 
w%--* 
Wsaes 
aoe er 
ons 
t. Beaufay replied, and in 
took 
x: 
ftrong terms reprobated the encroach- 
ments which the excife was making 
on the liberty of the people, and 
con‘ended for the neceffity of in- 
ferting the claafe: as did Mr. She- 
ridan, Mr. Watfon, Mr. Sawbridge, 
and Mr. Martin; but upon a divifi- 
on of the Houfe,the noes were 100, 
ayes 22—-majority againft the claufe 
78. 
On the rgth of April the Chan- 
cellor of the Exchequer opened the 
budget for the year 1790, the par- 
ticulars of which our readers wit 
find in its ufwal place. He began 
by congratulating the committee 
upon the profperous ftate of the f- 
nances of the country, which he 
was that day enabled to lay before 
them, not upon {peculation and from 
conjefture, but upon fats. Arter 
ftating the items of the fupplies 
voted, and of the w ays and means, 
he cailed the attention of the com- 
mittee to the fum ftated as the furplus 
of the confolidated fund—This he 
faid was eftimated upon an average 
of the three laft years, which would 
give an average of 500,000l. lefs 
than the produce of the laft year,» 
and which, confequently, could not» 
be confidered as an unfair one; and, 
by that eftimate, it would appear 
that the growing furplus of the con- 
folidated. fund was 1,903,000l.; to 
this was to be added an encreaie 
on taxes not taken into that efti- 
mate, amounting to 60,cool. He- 
for balances of arrears 
100,000]. and: for an increafe on 
the tobacco duties another 103,000], 
He was fanguine in his expectation 
of the produce from the arrears of 
afleffed taxes, which in the laft year 
amounted to 240,0ocol, over the 
permanent aff-ifment; there fill 
remained out-flanding arrears to the 
amount of 600,001, which gradu. 
ally 
