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REPLY TO FINANCIAL MISTATEMENTS,. 
$51 
Art. L. Reply to some Financial Mistatements in and out of Parliament. 8vo. pp. 68. 
THE impudence of peculation which 
had introduced itself among the estab- 
lishments dependent on the admiralty, 
during Lord Spencer’s superintendance, 
must have convinced ministers, as well 
as the public, that enormous abuses fre- 
quently prevail in subordinate offices, 
and that vigilance in a financier is as 
productive as a budget. We have little 
doubt that ministers are grossly deceiv- 
ed in the supposed produce of the seve- 
ral taxes; and that the revenue exceeds 
by many millions annually the timid and 
mutilated statements which are shown 
about to excite our patriotic pity, when 
they come a begging to parliament. 
O fortunates nimium sua si Lona norint. 
It cannot be doubted that the public 
is in the habit of undervaluing its pros- 
perity, and of thinking too meanly of its 
resources; because a portion of them 
never meets the general eye at all, but 
passes from hand to mouth, without first 
being dished out on the government 
table. This writer endeavours to infuse 
a rational confidence; to cast up stock 
for the nation on as favourable a foot- 
ing as if the creditors were to be called 
together ; to estimate our well-being by 
the weight of our burdens, and place, 
_ like caryatids, our perfection in our sup- 
portance. For instance, 
«* The first point to be examined in this 
t of the subject, is the account of ships 
Baile and registered in Great-Britain, which 
Mr. Cobbett professes to have given in a 
complete statein his Supplement. But, with- 
out troubling our readers to refer to that 
work, we shall completely dispel all the ap- 
prehensions they may have been disposed to 
entertain, by quoting the following very 
short official abstract, signed by the register 
general, viz. 
‘That the average number of ships built 
« and registered in the different ports of Great 
«« Britain in three years, ending 5th Jauuary 
*© 1793, was 618, and the amount of 
** their tonnage 60,949. That in three years, 
“ending Sth January, 1802, the nakrabiae of 
ie vessels was 817, and their tonnage 103,071. 
© And that in the year 1802, the number 
*©of vessels was 967, and their tonnage 
“104,789.” 
« We could here, if it were necessary, 
pursue the comparison further, by examining 
the accounts of the different ports; but we 
wae 
think it will be more satisfactory to observe, 
that the number of vessels belonging to the 
British empire, which, on the 30th of Sep- 
tember, t801, amounted to 19,772, their tou- 
nage. being 2,037,000, and the number of 
men employed 143,987, had, in the year 
1802, increased to 20,060 vessels, 2,078,561 
tons, and 152,269 men, although the re- 
turns are stated to be incomplete. But Mr. 
Cobbett observes, that ‘an account of the 
number of men and tons of shipping in the 
merchant service, sailing inwards and out- 
wards during the aforementioned years, 
would have been more satisfactory, parti- 
cularly if made up with a due regard to the 
spirit of truth; but, as no such account has 
yet been presented, we must, for the present 
at least, look upon that which we have just 
examined as containing a proof of a small 
positive decline, and of a very considerable 
comparative decline, in the nrercantile marine 
of the country.” 
«* As Mr. Cobbet must have known, long 
before his letters were reprinted, that such an 
account had been presented in the usual re- 
gular and official form, we must su »pose that 
he objects to it as wanting erktine that 
‘ spirit of truth’ which so evidently charac- 
terises his own publications. We shall, 
however, take the liberty to state the result. 
«« In the year 1802, the number of ves- 
sels and their tonnage, which entered inwards 
and cleared outwards, wasas follows, viz. 
“* Inwards, 17,355 vessels, 2,273,504 tons. 
<¢ Outwards, 16,364 vessels, 2,087,789 tonse 
«Whereas in the year 1801, as may be 
seen by a reference to the accounts for that 
year, they amounted only to 15,844 vessels, 
2,158,775 tons, entered inwards ; and 15,908 
vessels, 2,150,501 tons, cleared outwards.”. 
When one considers the easy taxability 
of the rent derived from all this ship- | 
ping, and of that yielded by our lands, 
houses, machines of manufacture, and 
canal-craft ; when one considers that 
coals, cattle, and many other objects of 
popular consumption, are not yet touclied 
by the Midas fingers of the chancellor 
of the exchequer; when one considers 
that a land-tax, co-extensive with the 
whole mass of our colonial possessions,: 
would be but a just retribution for the 
utility of our protection,—one is tempted 
to suspect that taxation is yet in its in- 
fancy, and that the sprawling arms of 
the full-grown giant will at once open 
loans in Calcutta, and budgets at Suri- 
nam, 
