HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
to, inform the house, that it was, in 
some respects, rather a substitution 
of other taxes to those that had 
been relinquished, for the ease of 
the public, than the imposition of 
new ones; he also stated, that ser- 
yices unprovided for, and of which 
the propriety was evident, would 
demand the means of performance. 
Having withdrawn the tax on print- 
ed linens and calicoes, calculated 
to produce one hundred and thirty- 
_ five thousand pounds, he would now 
propose to replace that deficiency by 
a tax upon dogs, computed at one 
hundred thousand pounds, and by 
another on hats, estimated at forty 
thousand. To these two taxes he 
would now add one, of twenty 
pounds a ton upon wine, which 
would yield six hundred thousand 
pounds, with very little addition of 
expence to the consumers of this 
article. 
The scarcity of money was, at the 
same time, he noticed, an objeét of 
essential attention to ministry, and 
every effort would be exerted to 
find aremedy. This scarcity pro- 
ceeded, in some measure, from the 
hecessary support of our foreign al- 
lies, and the extraordinaries for our 
numerous forces ; but there were 
-also other causes : the immensity of 
‘commercial speculations, the vast 
-eapital in constant employment, and 
the insufficiency of the pecuniary 
‘medium to answer mercantile de- 
mands. ‘l’o remove this difficulty, 
he proposed to fund the public 
debts remaining unfunded, which 
would enable the bank to make 
Warger advances on their bills to 
Merchants than while it was so 
much applied to for discount, in 
consequence of the debt unfunded. 
_ The total of the sums demanded, 
by Mr. Pitt, for the services unpro- 
, Vou. XXXVIII. 
[65 
vided for, amounted to two mil- 
lions and a half, and the annual 
charge of interest for the sums to be 
levied, in order to provide for those 
services, and for the funding of 
the unfunded debt, arose to tive 
hundred and seventy-six thousand 
pounds. The loan, which was to 
furnish the means of carrying the 
above scheme into execution, would 
amount to seven millions and ahalf, 
at the moderate profit of three 
pounds six shillings and three-pence 
per cent. to the lenders. This, he 
observed, was an incontrovertible 
proof of the flourishing situation of 
this country, of its surprising re- 
sources, and of the confidence re- 
posed in the ministry by people of 
property. It ought to silence the 
misrepresentations of those who 
took such pains to state this country 
as reduced to distress, and who had 
thereby encouraged the French to 
assume the arrogance of diétating the 
terms of a peace, when their own 
finances were wholly shattered, and 
the whole country and nation in- 
volved in eyery species of public 
and private embarrassments, from 
which nothing but a peace could 
possibly extricate them. 
Mr. Grey replied with great 
fervour to Mr, Pitt. He charged 
him with coming to the house no 
less than three times in fourteen 
months, with three different bud- 
gets, asif he well knew that he 
had only to ask, in order to obtain : 
but the faét was, that the mini- 
ster’s address to the house, on this 
day, was, though an indireét, yet 
a clear acknowledgment of his 
errors and misconduét, and a plain, 
though vainly concealed, endeavour 
to rectify them. Parliament, how- 
ever, was bound, in justice to-its 
constituents, to submit to no fal- 
[EF] lacious 
