66] ANNUAL REGISTER, 1816. 



CHAPTER VI. 



The Budget. 



THE House of Commons hav- 

 ing on May 27th, resolved 

 itself into a committee of Ways 

 and Means, the Chancellor of the 

 Exchequer said, that in rising to 

 submit to the committee the ge- 

 neral provisions which he had 

 thought it necessary to make for 

 the service of the year, he found 

 it impossible to disguise the fact, 

 that the proposition with which 

 he should conclude, grew out of 

 the circumstance of the Hou-^e 

 having judged it wise to take a 

 course different from that which 

 he had thought it his duty to re- 

 commend. The nature of the 

 arrangements for the service of 

 the year were necessarily much 

 altered by the rejection of the 

 property tax ; ' but whatever pain 

 he might feel that the House had 

 determined against that line of 

 conduct which in his opinion 

 would have been most beneficial 

 to the country, i\ ^vas neverthe- 

 less his duty to bow to their de- 

 cision, and to submit to them the 

 ways and means which remained, 

 for meeting the supplies neces- 

 sai'ily demanded for the service 

 of the year. He should do this 

 with the most sincei-e desire that 

 the result mig'.it be such as to 

 leave the House nothing to re- 

 gret. He should explain the 

 reasons which had influenced him 

 in making those arrangements, 

 which, under existing circum- 



stances, he thought most advisa: 

 ble, and furnish that general 

 view of the subject, which, in- 

 deed, without a dereliction of his 

 duty he could not omit, and 

 which, from the situation he had 

 the honour to hold, he might, 

 perhaps, be thought more com- 

 petent to supply than any other 

 person. In doing this, he had 

 the satisfaction to know, that the 

 statement he should have to sub' 

 niit to the committee would be 

 upon the whole consolatory, as 

 he should not be imder the neces- 

 sity of presenting to them any 

 discouraging view of the state of 

 public credit, and as the country 

 was amply possessed of the means 

 of meeting thatexpenditure which 

 the public service demanded. 



Before he proceeded to take a 

 general view of the supplies and 

 ways and means of the year, it 

 would be proper for him to call 

 the attention of the committee to 

 the more immediate object of the 

 resolutions which he should have 

 the honour to submit to them, 

 which arose out of a proposition 

 communicated to him in a letter 

 which he had received from the 

 Bank of England, and which had 

 been laid before the House. For 

 the coiu'se pursued in this in- 

 stance two precedents had oc- 

 curred within no great distance 

 of time from each other. One 

 was the proposition made by the 



Bank, 





