94^ 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1818. 



CHAPTER IX. 



The Budget. 



T 



iHE House having resolved 

 itself into a Committee of 

 Ways and Means, 



The Chancellor of the Exche- 

 quer expressed his regret, that 

 what he had to state that evening 

 should cause the slightest delay 

 in any other proceeding before 

 the House; but he wished to 

 press upon the attention of the 

 committee a subject of peculiar 

 importance, and hon. gentlemen 

 must be aw'are, that whenever 

 pecuniary transactions had taken 

 place between the government 

 and individuals it had always been 

 deemed proper, in order to avoid 

 all risk, and to prevent all misap- 

 prehension, to submit a state- 

 ment of them to parliament as 

 soon as possible. It was, there- 

 fore, the practice to allow the 

 consideration of a loan to take 

 precedence of all other business. 

 Under these circumstances he 

 sliould claim the indulgence of 

 the committee while he made a 

 statement to them of the highly 

 favourable terms on which a 

 bargain had been arranged for a 

 very large sum of money ; and 

 which, although not completely 

 carried into effect, was so within 

 the comparatively small sum of 

 seven or eight hundred thousand 

 pounds. But even this slight 

 deficiency was in such progress 

 of fulfilment, that he should be 



v/anting in justice to the subscri!)- 

 ers and to the public if he did 

 not take this early opportunity of 

 calling for the approbation of the 

 committee, and for their sanction 

 to the terms on which the transac- 

 tion had been arranged. Before, 

 however, he proceeded to detail 

 those terms, it might be expected 

 from him that he should enter 

 into that general statement of the 

 financial operations for the year 

 with which it was usual to ac- 

 company the communication of 

 tlie most important financial mea- 

 sure for the session. It was his 

 intention briefly to do this ; 

 although he was sensible that he 

 should address the committee to 

 some disadvantage, because the 

 papers containing the annual 

 accounts of the year had not been 

 presented, and tlierefore gentle- 

 men -would not be able imme- 

 diately to verify his statements, 

 or to obtain that full information 

 which they would have possessed 

 had the subject been brought 

 forward at a later period of the 

 session. But as those accounts 

 would soon be laid on the table of 

 the House, any hon, gentleman, 

 in the future stages of the pro- 

 ceeding that might arise out of 

 the propositions of that evening, 

 would enjoy an ample opportunity 

 of supplying any deficiency that 

 appear in his (the chan- 

 . cellor 



might 



