wm^w€-: 
 
 \i..--'4;;:".;;tif.:-..:;:M^.-.-->-
 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 33S 
 B875 
 
 yy.-3'm 
 
 ^;;i^.■'./•::^•;■^::^i;|■'Mt
 
 ><■;/ 
 
 
 :"P'4.
 
 SUBSTANCE 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 or 
 
 W. HUSKISSON, ESQ. 
 
 IN THE 
 
 HOUSE OF COMMONS, 
 
 IN A COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE HOUSE, 
 'upon the 
 
 RESOLUTIONS 
 
 PROPOSED BY THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER 
 
 RESPECTI^fG THE 
 
 STATE OF THE FINANCES 
 
 AND THE 
 
 OF 
 
 GREAT BRITAIN, 
 
 071 Thursday/, the Q5th of March 1813. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR JOHX MURRAY, 
 
 50, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 
 1813.
 
 SUBSTANCE, 
 
 MR. LUSHINGTONj 
 
 Much as we must all have lamented 
 the circumstance which occasioned the frequent 
 postponement of this debate ; the delay, I trust, 
 has been attended with this good effect, that it 
 has enabled Gentlemen to examine more atten- 
 tively the principles of the measure which is 
 now under our consideration. In rising to sub- 
 mit to the Committee such observations as have 
 occurred to me on the subject, I can assure you. 
 Sir, that I never offered myself to their notice 
 under feelings of anxiety equal to those which 
 I experience at this moment: — an anxiety 
 arising not from any apprehension that I shall 
 not be heard by the Committee with their usual 
 kindness and indulgence, but from the deep 
 sense which I entertain of the vast importance 
 of the question now before us, compared with my 
 own conscious inability to do any thing like jus- 
 tice even to the view which I feel myself com- 
 
 B
 
 pelled to take of it. Nor is this my only difficulty. 
 There are others arising out of the very nature 
 of the subject itself. A measure, in my opinion, 
 more important in all its bearings, in all its ef- 
 fects and consequences, never was agitated in 
 this House ; but at the same time it is one devoid 
 of every thing which can give attraction to de- 
 bate ; one not very familiar perhaps to many Gen- 
 tlemen now present, and requiring therefore, on 
 the part of the person who undertakes to ex- 
 plain its tendency, a degree of clearness and 
 perspicuity which I cannot flatter myself that I 
 sihall be able to bring to the discussion. Not- 
 withstanding all these difficulties, and the con- 
 sequent dread of failing in the task which I 
 liaye imposed upon myself, I feel still more 
 strongly that it would be a dereliction of duty 
 were I to shrink from the attempt, and not 
 to endeavour to claim for this subject, som^ 
 share of that public attention which has lately 
 been painfully engrossed by concerns of a very 
 different description — concerns which I trvus.t 
 will never again occupy this House, and of which 
 tlie agitation out of doors cannot be too much 
 or too soon discouraged by every man vho va- 
 lues the best interests of the country, or has <^ 
 proper feeling for thehonour ^nd character o£%\w 
 age in which we live^
 
 Before "I enter upon the Resolutions now under 
 discussion, I cannot refuse to myself the satis- 
 fection of acknowledging the uniform courtesy 
 and attention of the Chancellor of the Exche- 
 quer, in furnishing, me with every facility of in- 
 fonnation. On my part, I trust my Right 
 Hon. Friend will not think me unwarranted in 
 referring to my past conduct as the best gua- 
 rantee that I am not actuated by any disposi- 
 tion to throw difficulties in the way of his finan- 
 cial arrangements. I hope therefore, that, both 
 with him and the Committee, I shall have 
 credit for sincerity, when, as the result of the 
 most anxious and deliberate consideration which 
 I have been able to give to the present plan, 
 I am compelled to declare my conscientious 
 conviction, that, by adopting it, we should in^ 
 cur the risk of losing- the fruits of all the 
 sacrifices which we have made for the last 
 twenty years ;-^that we should lay ourselves 
 open not to the mere possibility, but, as it ap- 
 pears to me, to the probable and imminent dan- 
 ger (in the event of a long continuance of the 
 war), of undermining, if not destroying altoge- 
 ther, that system of public credit which is the 
 foundation of our present safety and indCr 
 pendence, and the best support of that pre-emi- 
 nent rank which we are now struggling to 
 maintain among the nations of the world. 
 B 2
 
 There is another question of a magnitude not 
 inferior to this, which cannot be put out of sight 
 in the examination of these proposals^ — a ques- 
 tion respecting which the feelings of Gentlemen 
 will not be less alive, nor their understandings 
 less anxious to arrive at a satisfactory result, 
 than even upon a matter so nearly connected 
 with the public safety : I mean, Sir, the main-, 
 tenance of public faith, on all occasions so es- 
 sential to the honour of the country, and, in 
 this instance, more especially so to the honour 
 and character of Parliament. The highest con-» 
 siderations of public policy and public justice 
 are therefore equally involved in the present dis- 
 cussion. To these I must be allowed to add an- 
 other consideration, of a more limited nature 
 certainly ; but at the same time one which has 
 great weight with me, and will, I trust, have 
 its weight with many other Gentlemen iii this 
 House. The edifice of the Sinking Fund, which 
 we are this day called upon to disfigure and half 
 pull down, is perhaps the proudest monument 
 which was raised by the virtues and genius of 
 Mr. Pitt to his own fair fame. So it was held 
 in his own estimation ; so it is held in the estima- 
 tion of his friends, and not only of his friends, 
 but of those who were his political enemies, and 
 of the whole world. Upon his friends then I 
 call, from the reverence and affection which
 
 they feel for his memory ; upon those who were 
 his enemies I call, from their love of justice 
 and of their country, to lend their aid to my 
 feeble efforts for preserving this monument of 
 public utility and individual fame, unmutilated 
 and entire, in all the beauty of design, in all the 
 strength and symmetry of proportion, assigned 
 to it by the hands of its immortal author. 
 
 The name of Mr. Pitt naturally brings me to 
 the origin of this great measure of a permanent 
 Sinking, Fund, and to a short review of its pro- 
 gress and completion under his auspices, as pre- 
 paratory to the examination of those proposals 
 of my Right Hon. Friend the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, which I cannot but consider as au 
 invasion of it, 
 
 When^ Mr. Pitt was called to the head of 
 affairs, and to the management of our finances, 
 at the close of the American war, credit was at 
 its lowest ebb, our revenue deplorabl}' deficient, 
 and our resources for improving it apparently 
 exhausted. Yet such at that time were the 
 real resources of the country, when properly 
 called forth, and wisely administered, that ia 
 the year 178fi, Mr. Pitt was enabled, after ma- 
 king provision for the interest of the public 
 debt, and for all the expenses of a peace es-
 
 
 
 tablishment, to set aside and appropriatse a sur* 
 plus of income, amounting to one million an*= 
 nually, as the foundation of a Sinking Fund for 
 the redemptix)n of the then existing debt of 238' 
 millions. By the Act of Parliament which was 
 passed for this purpose (26 Geo. III. cap. 3l), it 
 was provided, that this sum of one million should 
 be laid out, either in the redemption of stock, if a<? 
 par, or, if under par, in the purchase of it in the 
 openmarket at the current price of the day ;— that 
 the interest arising from all stock so redeemed 
 should be added to the principal, and be laid out in- 
 the same manner, until, by their joint accumula- 
 tion at compound interest, they should amount td* 
 the annual sum of four millions ; — that, wheiv 
 this Sinking Fund had reached that amount, it 
 should continue from thenceforth to be laid o^a^ 
 at simple interest only, leaving the amount of in- 
 terest annually redeemed at the disposal of Par- 
 liament. Such is the outline of the original plan 
 devised by Mr. Pitt for the reduction of the Na- 
 tional Debt, which, up to the year 1786, had been 
 allowed to accumulate without any permanent 
 provision being made for its gradual and ulti- 
 mate liquidation. But he did not stop here. 
 He wished, in the event of any future war, to 
 guard the country against the evils arising from 
 too rapid an accumulation of debt, and conse- 
 quent depression of public credit; ^nd to plac©
 
 us beyond the reach of that lielplessness, de- 
 spondency, and alarm, which had hrought the 
 finances of the country to the hrmk of ruin in the 
 American war. ^Ir. Pitt felt at that time, that the 
 greatest difficulty whicli he had to contend with, 
 in £vsi.mmg awy perma7ient system of a Sinking 
 Fund, was to find the means of protecting it from 
 the danger of future alienation, before it should 
 have accomplished the purpose for which it was 
 formed. The plan which he submitted to Par- 
 liament in 1792 was framed with the specific 
 view of guarding against this danger, and of 
 balding out to the Public a guarantee, that any 
 future debts Avhich the State might have occa* 
 sion to contract, should, from the moment oif 
 their being incurred, be placed in a course ,af 
 liquidation, uniform and unalterable. This plan 
 contained within itself a principle of perma- 
 nency, which, being applied to every loan at the 
 time of making the contract, could not, from 
 that moment, be varied or departed from, with- 
 out a breach of such contract. Under this plan, 
 not only the Si«king Fund which it provides, 
 but the application and accumulation of that 
 Sinking Fund, are so interwoven and bound up 
 with the contract for the loan, as to remain a 
 condition Ix^tweeu the borrower and the lender, 
 until every obligation of that contract shall 
 Ue cancelled by tliie extinction of the loan
 
 kself* That such was Mr. Pitt's understandiit^ 
 of the plan which he proposed to Parliament in 
 1792, is, I think, placed beyond all doubt (if, 
 indeed, there could exist a doubt on the sub- 
 ject) by what passed in this House on that 
 occasion. It was made an objection to the 
 measure (and I entreat Gentlemen to recol- 
 lect this circumstance when we come to the 
 discussion of the present proposals) that it 
 would place the reimbursement of all future 
 loans beyond the discretion and control of Par- 
 liament, — an objection which was answered by 
 Mr. Pitt in such a manner as to show that, in 
 his judgment, this very objection was the prin- 
 cipal merit and recommendation of his plan. 
 Another advantage of the plan is, that by the 
 mode in which it is carried into effect, the power 
 of the vS inking Fund is always necessarily in- 
 creased, directly in proportion as public credit is 
 depressed at the time of making the loan to 
 which such Sinking Fund is annexed. 
 
 These were the principles laid down by Mr* 
 Pitt in 179s, as the foundation of a Sinking 
 Fund applicable to the liquidation of any new 
 debt. The mode provided by him for carrying 
 these principles into effect is so simple, that^ 
 for the explanation of it, little more can be ne- 
 cessary than to refer to that portion of the Act
 
 9 
 
 (52 Geo. Ill* cap. S5) which providfes for this 
 measure. Indeed, Sir, the words of the enact* 
 nient which particularly relate to this purpose, 
 are so essential to a fair discussion of the propo- 
 sals now hefore us, that I must request that 
 the third section of this Act may be read. [The 
 section in question was here read by the Clerk *.] 
 
 The enactment, therefore, applicable to e very- 
 loan that should be raised after 1792, is simply 
 
 • " And, for more effectually preventing the inconvenient and 
 dangerous accumulation of del t hereafter , in consequence of any 
 future loans, be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid. 
 That whenever any sums of money shall hereafter be raised by 
 loans for public purposes, a separate account shall be kept, at 
 the receipt of His Majesty's Exchequer, of the annuities or an* 
 nual interest to be incurred in respect of the same j and in case 
 the said loan shall be raised for any pthei purpose than that of 
 paying off some existing capital stock, bearing a higher rate of 
 interest than the capital stock to be created by such loan, and 
 shall be raised by perpetual redeemable annuities, and provi- 
 sion shall not have been made by Parliament for paying off, 
 within forty-five years, the whole of the capital stock to ba 
 created by such loan, from thenceforth, at the end of every 
 quarter subsequent to the day on which the Act or Acts of Par- 
 liament, by which such loans shall be created, shall have re- 
 ceived the Royal Assent, an additional sum shall be set apart 
 out of the monies composing the consolidated fund, and 
 shall be issued at the said receipt of the Exchequer to tho 
 Governor and Company of the Bank of England, to be by 
 them placed to the account of the Commissioners for the re- 
 duction of the national debt j the total annual amount of 
 which additional sum shall be equal to one hundredth part of 
 the capital stock created by such loans." 
 c
 
 10 
 
 this ; — that either some specific provision should 
 be made at the time of such loan being raised, 
 for paying it off within a period which might 
 extend to, but should not exceed, forty-fiva 
 years ; or, in default of such provision, that a 
 Sinking Fund, equal to one per cent, not on the 
 amount of the money borrowed, but of the ca- 
 pital stock created, should "from thenceforth^* 
 issue from the Exchequer, and be applied at 
 compound interest to the liquidation of such 
 loan. It is therefore obvious, that, at the time 
 of inaking a loan, the Government is at liberty 
 to adopt either of these modes for its gradual 
 redemption. It may declare to the parties witH 
 whom it may be dealing, first, that it will pro- 
 vide for paying off in each year one forty-fifth of 
 the capital to be borrowed ;— or, 2dly, that it will 
 raise the loan by granting an annuity termi- 
 nable in forty-five years ; — or, Sdly, that, instead 
 of making provision, in one or other of these 
 modes, for paying off any portion of such loan 
 immediately, a Sinking Fund shall be assigned, 
 to begin to operate at some future period, and 
 of such an amount, as to ensure the extinction 
 of the loan between the date of the commence- 
 ment of such Sinking Fund, and the end of 
 the prescribed term of forty-five years. But if 
 no specific provision is made for the redemp- 
 tion of the loan, at the time of contracting 
 for it, then, and thenceforth^ the other alterna-
 
 11 
 
 dve of a one per cent. Sinking Fund takes effect 
 quite aB a matter of course. 
 
 The principle upon which the period of forty- 
 five years was fixed upon as the extreme term 
 beyond which the liquidation of any future 
 debt should in no case be protracted, may, I 
 think, be collected from this circumstance ; that 
 a Sinking Fund of one per cent, operating at 
 compound interest, and supposing tlie rate of 
 that interest to be invariably three per cent, will 
 redeem a capital equal to one hundred times its 
 amount, in little more than forty-five years. 
 It may here be necessary to remind the Com- 
 mittee, that we are not at liberty to compel 
 the public creditor to accept the repayment 
 of his stock at any price below par : — at par 
 every portion of the public debt is redeem- 
 able; but below that price, the State, like any 
 other purchaser, may go into the market, and 
 buy at the price of the day. Now, the great 
 bulk of our debt, as every body knows, con- 
 fists of a three per cent, stock ; and we have 
 none which has been funded at a lower rate. 
 Consequently, the lowest rate of compound in- 
 terest, at which the Sinking Fund can improve, 
 is three per cent. It is the rate at which it 
 would improve, if the three per cent, stock was 
 uniformly paid off at par. In proportion as 
 the stock, instead of being paid off, is purchased 
 c 2
 
 12 
 
 below par, is that rate of improvement of the 
 Sinking Fund increased. But, forasmuch as a 
 one per cent. Sinking Fund, constantly ope- 
 rating at three per cent, would redeem the 
 capital of any loan in a period of about forty- 
 five years, it follows, from there being no stock 
 below that rate of interest, that forty-five years 
 is the ultimate term to which the liquida- 
 tion of any debt, having a Sinking Fund of 
 one per cent, can, by possibility, be post- 
 poned. It is the maximum of time which the 
 redemption would require, on the supposition 
 of the Sinking Fund being uniformly restrain- 
 ed, by the most flourishing state of public 
 credit, to the minimum of velocity at which it 
 can proceed. Now it is a fact, not imma- 
 terial to the present discussion, that for the 
 last fifty years, the three per cents have never 
 once been at par; that, within that period, 
 they have been below fifty, and that for the 
 last twenty years (that is, since this law of 
 1792 began to take effect), their average price 
 has not exceeded sixty-seven. 
 
 Let us, then, see what has been, and is, the 
 practical apphcation of this law of 179^ to the 
 loans which, since that j^ear, have been raised 
 for the public service. When a loan is wanted, 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer, acting on be- 
 half of the Public, signifies to the parties dis- 
 posed to lend their money, the particular stocks
 
 13 
 
 in which he means to fund the loan. If, at the 
 same time, or at any time before the contract, 
 he has it in contemplation to make any provision 
 for the redemption of such loan, other than a 
 one per cent. Sinking Fund, he would of course 
 apprize the parties of the nature of that provi- 
 sion ; but if he should remain silent on tiiis 
 point, the law declares to them, without any 
 confirmation from him (and, in point of fact, 
 I believe I may add, that on no occasion have 
 they ever demanded or received any such con- 
 firmation), that a Sinking Fund of one per cent, 
 "will issue of course, and will be employed at 
 compound interest, for the gradual redemption 
 of the new stock about to be created. Know- 
 ins: this, the lenders are well aware that the effi- 
 cacy of this Sinking Fund will be in proportion 
 to the depression of the stock which they are 
 to receive in return for their money ; — if a three 
 per cent, stock, for instance, be what they are to 
 receive, and the price at which it is taken be 
 50; the Sinking- Fund will be equal to too per 
 cent, on the money capital borrowed ; and the 
 rate, in point of time, at which the redemption 
 will then proceed, will be that of about twenty- 
 three, instead of forty-five years. Thus, in pro- 
 portion to the depression existing at the time, 
 does this Sinking Fund operate at once as an 
 improved check to prevent a further fall, and as a 
 powerful lever to produce, at no distant period, 
 a probable rise in the market. What is the con-
 
 14 
 
 sequence ? Why, that the lenders are enabled 
 and induced, or, if you will, by the competi- 
 tion which exists among them, compelled, to 
 give better terms to the Public. These better 
 terms are the advantage which, in every past 
 loan, the country has derived from a one per 
 cent. Sinking Fund ; but it is, as I conceive, aft 
 advantage obtained by incurring an obligation, 
 from which we are not now at liberty to depart. 
 The advantage and the obligation are reciprocal ; 
 they both commence with the commencement of 
 the contract, and from that moment we are not 
 at liberty to keep the one and to disregard the 
 other. 
 
 If I have had the good fortune to make my- 
 self understood in the principles which I have 
 ^ow stated, I should hope that Gentlemeri 
 would be able to follow me in the application 
 of them to the existing state of our Sinking 
 Fund, and to the plan now under consideration. 
 
 The loans made since the year 1792, with 
 some exceptions, which I shall have occasion 
 to explain presently, have been made with a 
 Sinking Fund of one per cent. If Gentlemen 
 recollect what has been the general price of the 
 stocks since the breaking out of the war, tliey 
 will, I am sure, think that Government acted 
 very wisely in preferring this mode of redemp-
 
 15 
 
 tion to the less efficacious modes which were open 
 to them under the other alternative of the Act. 
 
 The foundation of the new system now pro- 
 posed to us is this : — my Right Honourable 
 Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, con- 
 strues the Act of 1792, as leaving Parliament at 
 liberty to regulate and modify, according to its 
 discretion, in any manner , and at any time, the re- 
 demption of the whole debt contracted under 
 the terms of that Act, provided the final liquid* 
 ation of each of those separate loans, which to- 
 gether constitute the aggregate of that debt, is 
 not protracted beyond the full period of forty- 
 five years. 
 
 The question of public faith which arises upon 
 this construction is : — whether, having made 
 our option, at the tiyne of the contract for each 
 loan, in favour of a one per cent. Sinking Fund, 
 and having received the benefit accruing from 
 that option, the issue of that one per cent, 
 from the Exchequer, and its progressive accu- 
 mulation, and uninterrupted application, be not 
 thenceforth conditions of the contract itself, 
 fr<?ra which w^ are not at liberty to deviate, so 
 long as any part of that loan shall continue un- 
 redeemed ? 
 
 Now, that there is nothing in the clause 
 which has been read to authorize any option sub- 
 lequent to the time of making the contract, is
 
 16 
 
 quite clear. The enactment is imperative, tlie 
 words of it are peremptory, and admit but cr^ 
 one construction : " If provision shall not have 
 *' been made by Parliament for paying off within 
 " forty-five years the whole of the capital 
 " stock to be created by such loan." These 
 words cannot be understood as having refer- 
 ence to any but a provision antecedent to, or, 
 at the utmost, actuall}^ concurrent with, the 
 formation of the contract. Well, Sir, the clause 
 proceeds thus : *' From the7iceforih, at the end 
 *' of eveiy quarter^ subsequent to the day on 
 " which the Act of Parliament by which such 
 ** loan shall be created, shall have received the 
 " Royal Assent, an additional sum shall be set 
 *' apart out of the monies composing the Conso- 
 *' lidated Fund, and shall be issued at the 
 " said receipt of the Exchequer, to the Go- 
 ** vernor and Company of the Bank of Eng- 
 ** land, to be by them placed to the account of 
 " the Commissioners for the reduction of the 
 "national debt; the total annual amount of 
 " which additional sum shall be equal to one 
 " hundredth part of the capital stock created by 
 " such loans." Flere the enactment ends. If it 
 had been the intention of the Legislature to re- 
 serve to itself a subsequent power of reverting 
 to the first alternative of forty-five years, should 
 we not have found at the end of this clause 
 some words declaratory of this intention? — 
 some " ^m///," or other such word, to qualify that 
 peremptory " thenceforth" which governs thi^
 
 17 
 
 part of the enactment ? It is just as clear, then, 
 from the whole of this clause, both from what 
 it says, and from what it omits to say, that wc 
 have no subsequent option, as it is clear that we 
 have such an option at the time of making the 
 contract. By the fifth section of the same Act, 
 it is directed that " The Sinking Fund of eaqh 
 " separate loan shall be set apart, and issued at 
 ** the receipt of the Exchequer at the end of 
 ** each quarter in the order in which such loam 
 ** shall have respectively taken place."" And the 
 eighth section provides, that all such Sinking 
 Funds shall be applied to the redemption of 
 debt ; — that all stock redeemed shall be transferred 
 to the account of the same Commissioners for the 
 reduction of the national debt, to whom the one per 
 cents are issued, and be placed to their account ; 
 and lastly, that the separate Sinking Fund of 
 each new loan, and also the dividends payable 
 on any stock redeemed or purchased in each 
 quarter, shall be placed to a separate account in 
 the name of the said Commissioners, to be. kept 
 in consequence of every such loan respectively. 
 
 This Act, therefore, positively enjoins threa 
 things to be done with respect to every loan that 
 has been raised with a one per cent. ^Sinking 
 Fund : first, the regular quarterly issue of tlvat 
 one per cent, from the Exchequer, to belaid out 
 qviai terly in the redemption or purchase of stock ; 
 
 D
 
 18 
 
 secondly, that all stock so redeemed or pur- 
 chased shall be transferred to the Commis- 
 sioners for the reduction of the national debt, 
 and the dividends of such stock carried to 
 the same account as the one per cent, issued 
 quarterly from the Exchequer; and, thirdly, 
 that a distinct account shall be kept of the pror 
 gress made by each separate one per cent, and 
 the dividends arising from it, in the redemptioii 
 of the specific loan for the liquidation of which 
 that one per cent, was assigned. 
 
 The Act does not in terms prescribe any period 
 when the issue of the one per cent on each se- 
 parate loan, and its accumulation at compound 
 interest, shall cease and determine ; but, as by 
 this Act each loan is a separate debt with its 
 own distinct Sinking Fund; and as that Sinking 
 Fund can have no other application than the li" 
 quidation of the particular loan in respect of 
 which it was originally issued ; there can be no 
 doubt that, according to the intent and meaning 
 of the Act, the whole charge of such loan, as 
 well for interest as for Sinking Fund, is set free, 
 and reverts to the Consolidated Fund as soon as 
 that liquidation is completed. This construc- 
 tion of the law will not be disputed by any one. 
 
 Let us now examine whether the present plan 
 of my Right Honourable Friend is consistent
 
 19 
 
 With the three conditions prescribed by this Act. 
 With the quarterly issue from the Exchequer 
 of the several one per cents in respect of each 
 loan, the plan does not interfere. But does it 
 not break in upon the concurrent application of 
 these several one per cents to the reduction of 
 their respective loans, as well as upon the trans- 
 fer of the stock purchased by each of these 
 separate Sinking Funds, and the application of 
 the dividends arising from that stock ? That it 
 does, and to what degree it does so, must be 
 obvious to every one, from the simple state- 
 ment that my Right Honourable Friend's prac- 
 tical measure, for withdrawing in the next four 
 years, between seven and eight millions from 
 the aggregate Sinking Fund, rests altogether 
 upon the assumption, that no one of the several 
 Sinking Funds which have been issued in re- 
 spect of the different loans made since 1793 
 (that is, in respect of the whole debt of the pre- 
 sent war, to which alone they are applicable), 
 has yet begun to operate: — that the loan of 1793, 
 for instance, and so on of every subsequent year, 
 remains as'yet unassailed by its specific Sinking 
 Fund. My Right Honourable Friend having 
 thus, very conveniently for his purpose, as- 
 sumed that the whole of the public debt con- 
 tracted since 1792, has hitherto had no Sinking 
 Fund at all applied to it; he, with equal ease, as- 
 sumes, in the next place, that the whole of the
 
 20 
 
 debt prior to 1792 is actually paid off. Now thb 
 debt amounted to 238 millions ; and for its se- 
 parate liquidation, Mr. Pitt established the ori- 
 ginal Sinking Fund of one million in 1786. That 
 million (which, for the sake of distinguishing 
 it from the one per cent. Sinking Funds, I shall 
 call the old Sinking Fund) with some other aid 
 afforded to it, having continued to accumulate 
 at compound interest ever since 1786, has ac- 
 tually reduced about 97 out of the 238 millions, 
 which formed the old debt. Of the new debt 
 about 116 millions have been paid off by the 
 several one per cents issued from the Exchequer 
 for that purpose. This is the abstract of the 
 iiccount as it actually stands in the books of the 
 Commissioners for the reduction of the na- 
 tional debt. But, in the face of this account, we 
 are now called upon to resolve, that the whole of 
 the old, and not one shilling of the new debt, 
 has been redeemed. How my Right Honourable 
 Friend can reconcile such a resolution with the 
 Act of 1792, 1 am utterly at a loss to conjecture. 
 
 But, leaving this task to his ingenuity, I must 
 observe to the Committee, first, that the very 
 foundation of his assumption that the old debt 
 has been paid off, is laid in the circumstance of 
 our having incurred a new debt of a much larger 
 amount; and secondly, that, even allowing him 
 that assumption, he would not have been able to
 
 erect his present scheme upon it, if the credit 
 of the country had not been for the last twenty 
 years materially impaired by the pressure of 
 that new debt. On the one hand, had the 
 jinking Fund been operating at three per cent, 
 during that period, he could not have touched 
 it, even under his own construction of the Act 
 of 1792: on the other hand, had the price of 
 the stocks been still lower than it has been, 
 he would have taken from that Sinkingr Fund 
 still more largely than he is now, according to 
 his own rule, enabled to take. This then is 
 the new doctrine of the Sinking Fund; — that 
 having been originally established *' to pre- 
 " vent the inconvenient and dangerous ac- 
 " cumulation of debt hereafter" (to borrow the 
 very words of the Act), and for the support and 
 improvement of public credit; it is in the ac- 
 cumulation of new debt that my Right 
 Honourable Friend finds at once the means and 
 the pretence for invading that Sinking Fund : 
 and the degree of the depression of public 
 credit, is with him the measure of the ex- 
 tent to which that invasion may be carried. 
 And this is the system of which it is gravely 
 predicated, that it is no departure from the 
 letter, and no violation of the spirit of the Act 
 of 1792; and of which we are desired seriously 
 to believe, that it is only the following up and 
 improving upon the original measure of Mr.
 
 22 
 
 Pitt ! — of which measure the clear and govern- 
 ing intention was, that every future loan should, 
 from the moment of its creation, carry with it the 
 seeds of its destruction ; and that the course of 
 its reimbursement should, yro/w that moment, be 
 placed beyond the discretion and the controul 
 of Parliament. 
 
 It appears to me to be so impossible that any 
 man should entertain a serious opinion that the 
 measure of my Right Honourable Friend can be 
 carried into effect without a departure from the 
 Act of 1792, and a consequent violation of the 
 contracts made under that Act, that I could 
 really wish, before we proceed one step in this 
 business, that the intended arrangement of my 
 Right Honourable Friend should be submitted 
 as a case for legal opinion with a reference to 
 that Act. This, I think, is the least that we 
 can do in fairness to the whole body of the. 
 public creditors of the State; who, be it re- 
 membered, when they are at issue with you 
 upon the extent of the obligations which their 
 contract has imposed upon you, have no appeal 
 but from your power to your justice. Let us 
 show them, if we can, by the authority of the 
 great luminaries of the law, that we have right 
 on our side, when we are about to interfere with 
 the accumulation, and to interrupt the appli- 
 cation, of the one per cent. Sinking Funds issued
 
 2S 
 
 under the Act of 1792, I should wish to ask 
 those who are best qualified to expound this 
 statute, and I now ask my Right Honourable 
 Friend; — If, under this statute, we can carry 
 our interference to the extent proposed, what 
 is there to prevent our going a step further, and 
 meddling with the issue of the one per cent, 
 itself? The issue, the application, the accu- 
 mulation, are all governed by the same enact- 
 ments, without any proviso or exception, to 
 enable us to vary or modify the one more 
 than the other. I should also wish that my 
 Right Honourable Friend would tell me how 
 soon, after contracting for a loan with a one per 
 cent. Sinking Fund, he conceives this right of 
 interference on the part of the Public to com- 
 mence? Does it begin with the first quarterly 
 issue, or with the tenth or twentieth? If not 
 with the first, why not as well with the first as 
 with any subsequent one? And, if with the 
 first, does my Right Honourable Friend con- 
 ceive, that, after bargaining for a loan (that 
 of last year for instance) he would be at li- 
 berty, without the consent of the contractors, 
 to direct the dividends arising from the first 
 quarterly issue of the one per cent. Sinking 
 Fund annexed to that loan, not to be applied in 
 aid of the second quarterly issue, in the pur- 
 chase of stock? If this would be a breach of 
 faith towards the original contractor, in the
 
 • 24 
 
 first year of the loan, how would it be con- 
 sistent with faith towards the alienee of that 
 contractor, in any subsequent year of the 
 same loan ? And how is my Right Honourable 
 Friend to distinguish between the stockholders, 
 who are the original contractors, and those who 
 have since purchased from them ? 
 
 In a case of this nature it is not immaterial 
 to inquire what has been the general under- 
 standing upon the subject. I will not detain 
 the Committee with what has been said and 
 written out of doors, though I could accumu- 
 late from that source many great authorities; 
 but I will refer them at once to one originating 
 among ourselves, sanctioned by the Report of 
 a Committee of this House, never referred to, 
 but with the just praise which is due to accurate 
 research, sound decision, and correct discri* 
 raination ; a Report, for which we are more 
 immediately indebted to the most distinguished 
 authority in this House*; now, in virtue of his 
 high office, himself one of the Commissioners 
 for the reduction of the national debt. Sir, the 
 First Report of the Committee of Finance of the 
 year 1797 relates to the public debt and the 
 Sinking Fund ; and it concludes with these re-» 
 markable words; "The old Sinking Fund, after 
 
 * The present Speaker, who was Chairman of the Com- 
 rabUee of Finance in 1797.
 
 25 
 
 " reaching the sum of four millions, is no longer 
 " made applicable by law to the discharge at 
 ** compound interest of what may then remain 
 ** of the old debt ; but the operation of the new 
 ■** Sinking Fund is to continue at compound in- 
 " terest till the new debt shall be totally di^- 
 ** charged." It is impossible to mistake the ob- 
 jector meaning of this sentence^ By marking the 
 difference between the old Sinking Fund and the 
 new, between the law of 1786 and that of 1792, 
 it most forcibly delineates the true character of 
 the latter. Respecting the most distinguished 
 Committee that made this Report, it is only ne- 
 cessary to ask, with your present Speaker for 
 its Chairman, if it is too much to assunie that 
 the Public had a right to look to this Report 
 for the true construction of the Act of 1792, 
 and to rest upon it, as a guarantee that that 
 construction would be faithfully adhered to and 
 observed? 
 
 But my Right Hon". Friend mainly rests his 
 present construction of this Act upon what he 
 infers vimt have been the opinion of Mr. Pitt; 
 and this inference he draws partly from certain 
 financial arrangements which ]\Ir. Pitt brought 
 forward between the years 179H and 1800, and 
 partly from his concurrence in tlic arrangement 
 of Mr. Addington (now Lord Sidmouth), iu the 
 year 180i2.
 
 Z6 
 
 If my Right Hon. Friend had been able to 
 call to his aid the clear and positive authority of 
 Mr. Pitt, much as I venerate that authority, I 
 could not, in such a case as this, allow it to 
 confound the plain and obvious meaning of a 
 contract founded upon the letter of an Act of 
 Parliament. But the facts to which my Right 
 Hon. Friend refers, seem to me in no degree 
 to warrant the conclusion which he attemptsi 
 to draw from them. 
 
 What^re those facts? Why, that, in 17S8, 
 1 799y and 1 800, Mr. Pitt raised a part of the 
 loan wanted for the service of those years with- 
 out a one per cent. Sinking Fund ; and that he 
 concurred in a similar course adopted by Mr. 
 Addington in 1802. The first question that 
 arises upo^ the statement of this fact, is this : 
 did Mr. Pitt and Mf. Addington, at the time of 
 making those loans, propose no other pj-ovision 
 for their redemption within forty-five years? Be- 
 cause, if they did propose any other, it is obr 
 vrous that they 6nly availed themselves of that 
 alternative which was left to them by the law. 
 Now, in the first place, what did Mr. Pitt do? 
 In 1798, for the first time, he had recourse to a 
 plan for raising a large portion of the supplies 
 within the year. His avowed object in this bold 
 measure, was tb prevent the too rapid accumur 
 lation of debt, and to restore public credit, at
 
 27 
 
 4;hat time very much depressed. As an essenHal 
 part of his plan, he therefore laid down the 
 principle, that, in whatever amount the sum bor- 
 rowed within the year should exceed the sum 
 redeemed by the ordinary Sinking Fund, provi- 
 sion should be made for paying off such ^an ex- 
 cess within a very few years, by some more 
 powerful means than a one per cent. Sinking 
 Fund. For executing this purpose, he charged 
 the interest of so much of the loan of the year 
 (considering that portion of it as a temporary or 
 war-loan only) as exceeded the amount of the 
 whole Sinking Fund, upon the total produce of 
 the war-taxes; and instead of an immediate one 
 per cent. Sinking Fund, he assig;ned the whole 
 amount of those taxes, except what was requisite 
 for the payment of the interest of the v;ar-Ioan, 
 to the exclusive purpose of entirely liquidating 
 that loan ; such liquidation to commence with 
 the close of the war ; and the war-taxes to be 
 continued until it was completed. Now in what 
 terms does my Right Hon. Friend allude to this 
 measure in his printed Statement? He says 
 (page 2), that it was " to repay, within a fev 
 *' ytars after the conclusion of peaces all debt 
 *• contracted beyond the amount of the Sinking. 
 ** Fund in each year." Then if ** these few 
 " years" were likely to fall within forty-five 
 years from 1798, Mr. Pitt was completely war* 
 ranted, by the letter of the law, in aubsututing
 
 this reversionary Sinking Fund for an immai 
 diate one per cent. The intention with which 
 Mr. Pitt acted is obvious, tliat of greatly- 
 adding to, instead of impairing, the strength 
 of the Sinking Fund. But then, said my Right. 
 Hon. Friend in his opening speech, " the war 
 ** might have continued forty- five years ; and in 
 *' that case these war-taxes could not have been 
 " appiied to the purpose of redeeming debt." 
 What inference he wishes us to draw from this 
 rather stVained supposition, I am at a loss to un- 
 derstand ; but before he can avail himself of it, 
 as bearing in any way upon Mr. Pitt's autho-, 
 rity, he must begin by shewing not only iha,% 
 when the plan of 1798 was brought forward by 
 Mr. Pitt, he contemplated the possibility of the 
 war being protracted to forty-five years from that- 
 time; but also, that having such contingency 
 in his contemplation, he had further made up his 
 mind, in the event of its being realized, not to, 
 provide any other Sinking Fund for the re- 
 demption of these war-loans. This is a task 
 which I think my Right Hon. Friend wiU 
 scaxcely attempt. 
 
 We now come to ,Mr. Addington's measure, 
 lii 1S02 (being somewhat less than forty-five, 
 years from 1798) peace had been made. It waa. 
 then thought expedient at once to repeal the 
 income-tax, instead of continuing it until the ^
 
 29 
 
 liquidation of the war-loansr^iad been effected. 
 It is not material now to consider whether 
 tliis measure was very politic, or altogether" 
 consistent with the pledge given to the public^ 
 creditor for the redemption of the war-loans by 
 tlie continuance of the income-tax. But what 
 is much to the present purpose, is to ascertain, 
 whether, when these war-loans, by the repeal of 
 this tax, were thrown back upon the ordinary 
 provision of the Act of 1792, a Sinking Fund 
 consistent with that Act was or was not pro- 
 vided? These war-loans, together with the loan 
 raised for the service of the year 1 S02, amount- 
 ed to a capital of near 90 millions of stock. To 
 this capital no one per cent, was allotted ; but 
 was not recourse ha<l to the other alternative of 
 tlie Act? Most certainly it was. Without going 
 into minute details, it may be sufficient to state- 
 that a reversionary Sinking Fund was created, 
 to commence indeed in about twelve to fifteen 
 years from that time, but to be of such efficacy 
 when it should commence, and to be so greatly 
 accelerated by subsequent additions in its pro- 
 gress, as. Under the most unfavourable suppo- 
 sition, to be certain of reducing the whole of this 
 debt within forty-five years. This reversionary 
 Sinking Fund was to arise in the following man- 
 nei': — by continuing the old Sinking Fund at 
 compound interest affer it should have reached 
 it* ?naj?imum of four millions; and by continuing
 
 50 
 
 also the nerv Sinking Fund or aggregate of the 
 one per cents of the loans since 1792, after 
 auch one per cents should have liquidated the 
 several loans in respect of which they were 
 originally issued. Elaborate Tables were laid 
 before the House, clearly shewing that these 
 funds would be fully adequate to the object. 
 There is nothing, therefore, in the Act of 1802 
 which is a departure from the spirit of the 
 Act of 1792. 
 
 Tlie Act of 1 802, it is true, has prescribed a 
 mode of executing its intended purpose very 
 inconvenient in other respects ; but in principkf 
 it affords neither justification nor precedent for 
 the measure now in contemplation. It is in 
 substance no more a departure from the spirit 
 of the Act of 1792, than the Sinking Fund of 
 five per cent, annexed to the loan of 1 807, or 
 any other specific mode of redemption different 
 from a one per cent. The one per cent, is the 
 general rule ; the other is the exception, but it 
 is an exception to which we have a right to re- 
 sort, at the time of making a new loan, as oftei^ 
 as we think it is for the general interest so ta 
 do. 
 
 Having now examined the inferences upon 
 which Mr. Pitt's authority in favour of the 
 plan is assumed, I might safely leave them to
 
 31 
 
 the judgment of the Committee and of the 
 Public ; but I must go one step further. A 
 sense of the duty which I owe as well to the 
 Public, as to Mr. Pitt's memory, induces me 
 to state the fact which I am now about to 
 mention; and for the accuracy of which I am 
 ready, if necessary, to pledge my honour and 
 every thing most dear to me in the world. 
 
 In 1802, when men's minds were turned to 
 these subjects by the plan then before the 
 House, a person of great skill in calculation, 
 and of great ingenuity in subjects of political 
 economy, put into my hands some observa- 
 tions which he had committed to writing on 
 the subject of consolidating the old and new 
 debts, and the old and new Sinking Funds. 
 The conclusion to which he came was this, 
 that we ought, at stated intervals (I think of 
 seven years), to measure the proportion of the 
 whole Sinking Fund to the whole debt; and 
 that, whatever might be the excess of the 
 Sinking Fund over and above what would be 
 requisite for extinguishing the unredeemed debt 
 in forty-five years, such excess might be placed 
 at the disposal of Parliament. I own that I was 
 struck with the plausibility of this scheme, 
 at least as applicable to a state of peace ; and 
 having obtained the author's permission, if not 
 at his request (I now forget which) I communi-
 
 cated his scheme to Mr. Pitt. Mr. Pitt rejected 
 it at once with the most pointed reprobation of 
 its principle; and I perfectly recollect, that when 
 I rather stood up for the measure as a peace ar- 
 rangement, he said, that whenever the time 
 should come that the diminution of the rate 
 of interest was felt to be an evil, he had other 
 ideas as to the best mode of obviating that evil, 
 by converting it to a great public advantage; 
 and that, in a state of war, the plan would be 
 ruinous and inadmissible. I well remember 
 some still harsher terms which Mr. Pitt ap- 
 plied to this suggestion, but I will not repeat 
 them, because it is in principle and in effect 
 the same measure as that of ray Right Hon, 
 Jriend. But if they are the same in principle, the 
 .circumstances of the present time and of 1802, 
 are widely different. In 1802 we were in a state 
 of peace; credit was high, the accumulation of 
 imredeemed debt was much smaller than at pre- 
 sent, without any expectation at that moment 
 that it would be necessary soon to add to that 
 accumulation. In 1813, we are engaged in a most 
 extensive war, our credit very much impaired, 
 our unredeemed debt increased, and now annu- 
 ally increasing in a most alarming degree. 
 
 Here then is the direct testimony of Mr. Pitt, 
 in opposition to vague inferences; and I have no 
 manner of doubt that, if his voice could now be
 
 S3 
 
 heard amongst us, my Right Hon. Friend's plan 
 would not endure for a single hour. 
 
 That plan, in its principle, may truly be de* 
 Scribed as an expedient for pushing the debt 
 in time of war to the maximum of its amount, 
 by reducing the Sinking Fund to the minimum 
 of its power. 
 
 It is an error which must sooner or later 
 prove fatal to our credit, that we are doing 
 enough, if wfe reserve such a Sinking Fund 
 as would redeem our debt in forty-five years, 
 "Without reference to the total amount of 
 that debt. The proportion of the Sinking 
 Fund to the unredeemed debt is but a secondary 
 consideration : the actual amount of that debt 
 ought to be the first object of our solicitude. It is 
 undeniable in theory, that a debt of 1000 millions 
 would as certainly be liquidated in forty-five 
 years by a Sinking Fund of ten millions, as that 
 a debt of 100 millions would be liquidated by a 
 Sinking Fund of one miUion. But in practice a 
 debt of 100 millions might be safe, and possibly 
 salutary to the State, even without any Sinking 
 Fund at all; whilst lOOO millions of unredeemed 
 debt, all liable to be brought into the market, 
 might, under many conceivable circumstances, 
 entirely break down that credit, which the smaller 
 turn would in no degree impair. Comparisons of 
 
 9
 
 54 
 
 this nature, in proportion as they are true in arith- 
 metic, are dangerous in the concerns of nations. 
 Whilst they gratify ingenuity in the closet, 
 they may undermine our resources upon the 
 Stock Exchange. 
 
 I shall probably be reminded, that, whatever 
 there may be in common between the plan re- 
 jected by Mr. Pitt in 1802, and the measure now 
 before us, the latter comes recommended by 
 many peculiar ads'antages, which more than 
 counterbalance the objections to which it may 
 be liable. Any proposal which postpones the 
 necessity of adding to our burdens, however 
 pregnant with difficulty and danger that pro- 
 posal may be in its probable and not distant 
 consequences, cannot fail, especially if those 
 consequences are kept out of sight, to be fa- 
 vourably received by this House and the Public. 
 The plan of my Right Hon. Friend possesses^ 
 undoubtedly, that claim to favour. If he had 
 called for your support upon that claim only, 
 the discussion would have been much simplified. 
 But, in my Right Hon. Friend's Statement, this 
 benefit, which I have no wish to undervalue, is 
 obscured and lost amidst the blaze of more 
 brilliant advantages and dazzling prospects, 
 w^hich have been opened to us on this occa- 
 sion.
 
 35 
 
 From the very sincere respect wliich I feel 
 for my Right Hon. Friend, it really gives me 
 pain to be obliged to refer at all to these other 
 advantages of his plan. For I cannot help saying, 
 and he will excuse me for taking this liberty 
 with them, that they appear to me calculated to 
 confuse and perplex, without at all meliorating 
 his system. v 
 
 These other advantages of the plan amount to 
 four : first, that it provides for a gradual and 
 equable reduction of the national debt : se- 
 condly, that it provides against the evils likely 
 to arise from too rapid a diminution of the rate 
 of interest : thirdly, that it provides an im- 
 tnediate subsidy of 120 millions, for carrying 
 on the present war : and fourthly, that it pro- 
 vides for the accumulation of a treasure of 100 
 millions, in time of peace, as a reserve for any 
 future war. 
 
 With respect to the first of these advantages, 
 I know not in what terms to express my asto- 
 nishment. " A gradual and equable reduction 
 " of the national debt !" as if that reduction was 
 at this moment too rapids — as if there was any 
 thing arbitrary and capricious in the present 
 mode of applying the Sinking Fund ! Again, 
 as if we had already done too much in the way 
 f2
 
 56 
 
 of reduction of a debt, which, when the new 
 Sinking Fund began, was little more than 200 
 millions, and which now exceeds 600 millions 
 unredeemed, — as if it were necessary, in order to 
 make that reduction more equable, to diminish 
 the amount of the Sinking Fund of the year, in 
 proportion as the amount of the loan is increased, 
 — as if it were particularly wise and pressing to 
 begin to check the growth of the Sinking Fund 
 in the present year, when the loan to be raised, 
 joined to what remains unredeemed of that of 
 last year, will make a greater addition to the 
 debt, than all that was added to it in the six pre* 
 peding years of the war I 
 
 That my Right Hon. Friend should have spent 
 his valuable time in providing, at this moment, 
 for the second of these advantages, is to me still 
 more surprising. " The eviMikely to arise from 
 *' too rapid a diminution of the rate of in* 
 " terest," — when, with all the aid which credit 
 has derived from the present rapidly growing 
 Sinking Fund,— ^with all the improvements, 
 wonderful and extensive beyond the hopes of 
 the most sanguine, in our political situation, — 
 with all the temptation which a nominal capi* 
 tal holds out to the lender in the three per 
 cents, — my Right Hon. Friend is not able, 
 even in that favourite fund, to raise a single 
 ^00/. within the legal rate of interest ! Witl\
 
 37 
 
 these circumstances before him,' — ^with a loan 
 to be negotiated for the service of the year^ 
 tvhich cannot be much short of forty millions, 
 what is the step taken by my Right Hon. Friend 
 with a view to an immediate practical effect? 
 Why, a successive diminution of the Sinking 
 Fund, infinitely more rapid than its growth has 
 ever been, to be accompanied with a series of 
 loans much larger than were ever before raised 
 in this country. What is the disease which 
 now affects our public credit ? When my Right 
 Hon. Friend was first called in, he did not 
 hesitate to declare, that his patient was " labour^ 
 *f ing" (to use his own expression) under great 
 weakness and depression; but, by way of com- 
 fort, he assured us that at his next call he 
 should be prepared with some very invigorating 
 remedy. This is his second visit, for which we 
 have been looking forward with so much hope. 
 The symptoms of the disease continue nearly the 
 same, or rather worse ; but what says the phy- 
 sician? He tells you, that, in turning the case in 
 his mind, it has occurred to him, that his patient, 
 if he should not sink under his present exhaust- 
 ing complaint, may possibly be liable at some 
 distant period of his life (as nearly as he can 
 now prognosticate, about the year 1830), to the 
 inconvenience of repletion. Therefore, as an 
 apt remedy for this distant disorder, he pre* 
 scribes, instead of the promised restora*
 
 5S 
 
 tive, a copious bleeding forthwith; and that it 
 should be followed, in rapid succession, by 
 three other bleedings still more severe. If the 
 patient should undergo this discipline, the na- 
 tural consequences must follow ; and I agree 
 with my Right Honourable Friend, that the nu- 
 merous friends of that patient, the whole body 
 of the public creditors, should (as the phrase is) 
 be prepared for the event. By the time of the 
 fourth bleeding, should the present complaint 
 continue, the most sanguine among them will, 
 I think, have little doubt as to the result; and 
 their mourning on the melancholy occasion 
 will, I am satisfied, be not only very general 
 but very sincere. 
 
 But this is a distant danger, which good fortune 
 may, after all, avert ; and, in the mean time, my 
 Right Hon. Friend's plan gives us an immediate 
 subsidy of 120 millions for carrying on the war. 
 When this subsidy was first mentioned, I really 
 imagined that my Right Honourable Friend had 
 at last found that philosopher's stone, which 
 Van Helmont, and so many other ingenious meii 
 of former times, had spent their lives in vain en- 
 deavours to find : or, at least, as was often the 
 case with them, that, in searching for it, he had 
 accidentally stumbled upon some other very use- 
 ful discovery ;— ^that he had found a treasure to 
 this amount in some dark recess or secret drawer
 
 39 
 
 of the Exchequer, where it had heen hoarded and 
 forgotten by one of his predecessors. But when 
 I came to understand what the finding actually 
 was, my hopes were sadly disappointed. All 
 that my Right Honourable Friend has really 
 found out is, that, by contracting a debt of 
 between eight and nine hundred millions, we 
 have paid off one of £20 millions. Does my 
 Right Honourable Friend think that, upon the 
 fair adjustment of such an account as this, 
 there is any balance in our favour ? It is in 
 this balance, however, that my Right Honour- 
 able Friend finds an immediate available subsidy 
 of 120 millions. 
 
 But if this promised treasure is only a golden 
 dream, as to the present, to what bright pro- 
 spects do we not awake for the future ! One 
 hundred millions of public property to be accu- 
 mulated on the restoration of peace ! This, 
 says my Right Honourable Friend, is " the prin- 
 J' cipal advantage of my plan." — This, at least, 
 will be a real treasure; and such a treasure, 
 he well adds, " as no other country ever pos- 
 " sesscd." The whole secret of this great disco- 
 very consists in nothing more than this ; that, 
 having .contracted in the present war a debt, 
 which already exceeds 600 millions, my Right 
 Honourable Friend purposes, if sufficient time 
 is allowed him, to pay off 100 millions of that
 
 40 
 
 debt, between the restoration of peace, aii^ 
 the renewal of wan I perfectly agree with 
 my Right Honourable Friend, that this advan- 
 tage, admirable as it must ^appear for its sittt- 
 plicity when once it is explained, is one that nd 
 other country ever possessed ; chiefly, indeedj 
 because no other country ever possessed the pre- 
 liminary qualification of being sufficiently in 
 debt to enable it to enjoy this advantage. 
 Really, Sir, if any other person than myHight 
 Honourable Friend had stated this as the prin- 
 cipal advantage of his plan (an advantage, by 
 the by, not only not exclusively belonging to 
 this plan, but unavoidable under ant/ plan of a 
 Sinking Fund in time of peace) I should have 
 thought that he was trifling with our under- 
 standings ; that he was treating us as persons 
 incapable of distinguishing between the paying 
 pfFof a small portion of existing incumbrances, 
 and the actual amassing of wealth; — that he 
 was exhibiting to us the amount of the national 
 debt, as so much wealth accumulated, and nOt 
 what it really is, the record of so much wealth 
 consumed. 
 
 The remaining advantage of the plan, 
 then, is the irresistible bait (for such I ap- 
 prehend it will prove) of the postponement 
 of fresh taxes for the next three years. 
 I am act a&aid that any -man in .this House,
 
 41 
 
 or, I hope, out of it, will do me the injustice 
 to suppose tliat I am more insensible than an- 
 other to the pressure of existing burdens upon 
 the people of this country. But I should in- 
 deed be departing from the wise example of 
 former Parliaments, and of the great men of 
 other, and (at least in that respect) better 
 times ; — I should be losing sight of every sound 
 principle of state policy, and of every esta- 
 blished maxim of practical finance, if I were on 
 this occasion to surrender my judgment to my 
 feelings, and to shrink from the duty of a dispas- 
 sionate inquiry, from the dread of its leading me, 
 contrary to my wishes, to a painful conclusion. 
 
 In the existence even of an individual, four 
 years is not a long period : in the existence of 
 a nation it is next to nothing. On occasions 
 like the present, much eloquent declamation 
 is employed, to show how little our predecessors 
 have done for us, and how much we have 
 done for posterity. We advert to the neg- 
 lect of those who have gone before us, in 
 providing for our comfort; and we compla- 
 cently contrast that neglect, with the anxious 
 care that we have manifested for the ease of 
 those who are to follow us. .This, I apprehend, 
 lias been the language of all times, and I am 
 unwilling to disturb a feclins: of so much self- 
 satisfaction. I must own, however, that in the 
 
 G
 
 4* 
 
 unbroken chain of a nation's existence, I know 
 not how to put my hand on the exact Hnk at 
 which posterity commences. But this I know, 
 that the Parhament which succeeded to the debt 
 of the American war, represented themselves as 
 the aggrieved posterity of those who had car- 
 ried on that war. That Parhament was left 
 with an unredeemed debt of near 240 millions, 
 "*nd an annual charge for the interest of that 
 debt of between seven and eight millions. The 
 parliament which may follow the present one, if 
 peace should be then restored, will, I suppose, by 
 a parity of feeling, be the posterity of those who 
 have carried on the present war. That posterity 
 will succeed, if the war should continue but 
 four years longer, to an unredeemed debt of 
 about 700 millions, and to an annual charge for 
 the interest of that debt (exclusive, as in the 
 Other case, of any Sinking Fund), of about 9,6 
 millions. What will be the language of that 
 posterity I will not pretend to anticipate : — as 
 one of their predecessors, I hope it will not be 
 wanting in gratitude for the great exertions 
 which we have been compelled to make. But 
 let us not shut our eyes to facts; and fondly 
 delude ourselves with the idea that we have al- 
 ready done 80 much for the relief of posterity (al» 
 ways recollecting that of the posterity to which 
 I allude, some of us may hope to be members),
 
 45 
 
 that it ought now to be left to shift entkely for 
 itself. 
 
 Looking then at the proposals before us, 
 not with a reference to the year 1912, to which 
 one of my Right Honourable Friend's Tabled 
 carries us forward, but to the reasonable com- 
 pass of the next fifteen or twenty years ; there 
 are three considerations to be attended to in exa- 
 mining the present plan, comparatively with the 
 existing system ; 1st, The whole amount of un- 
 redeemed debt: 2dly, The proportion of the 
 Sinking Fund to that debt: and Sdly, The 
 amount of new taxes that would be requisite 
 under the one system or the other. 
 
 This examination of course proceeds on the 
 supposition of the continuance of war, and of 
 an annual loan of 28 millions being requisite, 
 as assumed by my Right Honourable Friend. In 
 the event of peace, the charge of war, for which 
 his plan is intended to provide, would of course 
 cease: and! cannot help thinking that it will 
 be quite time enough, when peace shall be re- 
 stored, to meet difficulties of an opposite kind, 
 which my Right Honourable Friend apprehends 
 peace may bring upon us : such as the too rapid 
 reduction of debt, and diminution of the rate of 
 interest. 
 
 G «
 
 44 
 
 Well aware as I am, and, indeed, as every man 
 must be, that the whole sum annually raised 
 upon the country, is applied, either to defray 
 the charge of existing debt, or that of our ne- 
 cessary establishments, it appeared to me, from 
 the first glance of my Right Honourable Friend's 
 plan, that it involved this paradox — That, as- 
 suming our establishments to continue the same, 
 this new system professed, not only for the pre- 
 sent, but permanently, to decrease our taxes, 
 while it increased our debt : and further, that it 
 professed ultimately to accelerate the redemption 
 of that debt, while it diminished the Sinking 
 fund. It was some time before I could find 
 any way out of this paradox : but it is, I think, 
 to be found by a close examination of my Right 
 Honourable Friend's Tables. I shall not go 
 through the whole of them ; but I refer parti- 
 cularly to Table A. 1, 2, and 3. 
 
 I am far from wishing to insinuate that there 
 exists any arithmetical inaccuracy in those 
 Tables : but I must say, that they are so con- 
 structed as, although correct in themselves, to 
 convey an impression which is very much other- 
 wise. 
 
 In the column (Table A. 1.) showing the 
 amount of new taxes under the pi^oposed plan, 
 credit is taken in each year in abatement of
 
 45 
 
 those taxes, for the whole sum supposed to be 
 set free by the portion of debt assumed to have 
 been finally paid oif. In the column of the same 
 Table, showing the amount of new taxes that 
 would be necessary under the existing system, 
 no credit is given for the suras that would 
 really be set free by the actual extinction of 
 debt according to the law as it now stands. For 
 instance, in 1821 the charge of the war-loan of 
 1807 w^ould be set free by the cxistiiig system, 
 and ought, therefore, to have been stated as ap- 
 plicable in abatement of taxessetdown opposite to 
 that year: in like manner, in 1829, taxes to the 
 amount of 2 1 millions would be set free, and ought 
 of course to be deducted from the total of new 
 taxes stated in the Table opposite to that year. 
 The result would then be, that the total increase 
 of taxes in the year 1829-30, under the pro- 
 posed plan, would be - - - -a^i 6,734,734 
 Under the existing system - - 9,446,803 
 
 Excess of taxes according to the") _, ^^^ ^^ 
 proposed plan j /,-»/,yji 
 
 If the calculation should be carried on upon 
 the same data, to the last year of that Table, 
 the result would be as follows : 
 
 1837-8.—Proposedplan - - ^24,355,852 
 Existing system - - 20,4 1 3,467 
 
 Excess of taxes according to pro-") « g . ^ ^g , 
 posed plan j" >y >
 
 46 
 
 The two other points of comparison are, the 
 Uuifcdeemed Debt and the Sinking Fund. I 
 have examined them, and if my figures are ac- 
 curate, which I believe them to be, they would 
 stand as follows ; 
 
 Unredeemed Debtir 
 
 1829-30.--Proposed plan - ^938,856,438 
 
 Existing system - 629,736,217 
 
 Excess of unredeemed debt ac- 1 onr, ,o^ r.r>t 
 coramg to proposed plan j 
 
 1837-8.— Proposed plan - ^1,047,677,325 
 Existing system - - 680,944,805 
 
 Excess of unredeemed debt ac-1 ^g^ 70^ ron 
 
 cording to proposed plan 
 
 ac-|. 
 
 The respective Sinking Funds would stand 
 thus : 
 
 1&29-30.— Existing system - ^19,745,200 
 Proposed plan - - 17,820,636 
 
 Difference of Sinking Fund in fa-l . „ . .^^ 
 VQur of existing system - - J ' ' 
 
 1837-8.— Existing system - ^26,858,638 
 Proposed plan - - - 21,917,084 
 
 Difference of Sinking Fund in fa-1 ^ ^^ , ^-^ 
 
 VQur of existing system - 
 
 ^}.< 4,941,^
 
 47 
 
 I am satisfied to leave the result of these 
 comparisons upon two different periods, one of 
 seventeen and the other of twenty-five years, to 
 the judgment of the Committee. But I must 
 just observe, that they are made on the suppo- 
 sition that the annual loan of £8 millions 
 would be raised on terms as favourable under 
 the proposed plan as under the existing system : 
 4 supposition altogether unreasonable, when we 
 consider the greater accumulation of debt, and 
 the diminished power of tlie Sinking Fund un- 
 der the proposed plan. It may be difficult to 
 form any conjecture as to the amount of the 
 difference; but whatever it might be, the re- 
 sult to that amount would be still more un- 
 favourable to the proposed plan. 
 
 Another consideration to which it is most 
 material to advert, in taking this comparative 
 view, is, that it proceeds upon the supposition 
 that the Sinking Fund will not be touched be- 
 yond the amount estimated in my Right Hon. 
 Friend's Tables. These Tables show how far 
 he proposes to go; but the principle of for- 
 t3'-five years, upon which he grounds his 
 right to touch the Sinking Fund at all, 
 would carry us much farther. My Right Hon. 
 Friend says, in his Statement (page 13), " that 
 " the mode of exercising this discretionary power 
 *' of Parliament to cancel such portions of debt
 
 48 
 
 '* as shall have been redeemed, may be varied 
 " as circumstanQes may require ; but, during 
 " war, that which has been pointed out, appears 
 " to be most generally advantageous." Now, 
 if this discretionary power is once established in 
 principle, does any one doubt, that, upon every 
 occasion of temporary pressure, it will be resort- 
 ed to ? Does any one doubt but that we shall 
 go the full length of the principle of never al- 
 lowing the Sinking Fund to exceed the minimum 
 proportion of one to a hundred of the unre- 
 deemed debt ? — and that, once armed with this 
 discretion, wc shall, upon a little further pres- 
 sure, go one step further, and take away the 
 Sinking Fund altogether ? 
 
 In vindication of the plan, I have heard 
 something like this kind of argument; — that, 
 admitting it not to be strictly consistent with 
 justice to the creditor of the State, still, if it 
 promises to operate greatly to the general relief 
 of the Public, without being materially preju- 
 dicial to the public creditor, it ought to be 
 adopted. 
 
 Without dwelling upon such general obser- 
 vations as must occur to every man, upon the 
 great danger of attempting to justify by this 
 doctiine of conveniency a violation of the plain 
 letter of an engagement;— without stopping to
 
 49 
 
 remind the Committee, that, in any such at- 
 tempt, we are at once party and judge, and 
 judge without appeal ; I Avill confine myself to 
 the mere question of probable injury. If not 
 immediately, in the course of no very long pe- 
 riod, the plan must be highly prejudicial to the 
 public creditor. It may not operate imme- 
 diately, because political circumstances are now 
 very favourable to public credit; and also be- 
 -cause, in the first year of this plan, the Sinking 
 Fund will not be materially, if at all, impaired. 
 But what must be its effect in future years, 
 when the Sinking Fund will be diminished be- 
 tween seven and eight millions ; and when the 
 public mind may possibly not be elated with 
 the same sanguine hopes as are justly enter- 
 tained at this moment ? 
 
 A loan is but the sale by Government, at the 
 best price which it can obtain in the open market, 
 of a certain amount of annuities charged upon 
 the income of the nation ; The public debt is 
 the aggregate amount of those annuities already 
 sold and in the market. In that market Go- 
 vernment is both a seller and a buyer : a seller 
 to the amount of the loan : a buyer to the 
 amount of the Sinking Fund. It follows, there- 
 fore, upon the plain principle of supply and de- 
 •mand, that if Government, being compelled, 
 from any circumstance, to sell more, determines 
 u
 
 50 
 
 at the same time to buy less, the price of 
 the article must fall. Now the effect of this 
 plan, and especially in the next four years, is 
 very greatly to increase the difference between 
 the sum to be added to, and the sum to be re^ 
 deemed from, the national debt in each year. 
 The accounts now before us show what has 
 been the effect upon public credit within the 
 last three years of loans very far short in their 
 amount of those now wanted, and not withstand-? 
 jng a constantly growing Sinking Fund. When 
 the excess of our loan above our Sinking Fund 
 did not, upon an average, exceed five millions 
 (money value), as was the case in the five years 
 ending with J811, the three per cents rose to 
 near 70; but no\^, when that excess is more 
 than fifteen millions in each year, they have 
 fallen to 59- Is this a moment for breaking 
 in upon the Sinking Fund, and for taking 
 away from it, by wholesale, in four years, the 
 amount of the accumulations of thirty ? 
 
 My Right Hon. Friend satisfies his own con^ 
 science, however, by the reflection, that he 
 shall compensate to the annuitant this unavoid- 
 able depreciation of his security, by affording 
 him a temporary respite from taxation. Again 
 I must object, when the faith of a qontract is a,t 
 stake, to this doctrine of equivalents, this ba- 
 lance of injury and kindness. How can we
 
 s\ 
 
 know what is an adequate equivalent? The 
 price of the public stocks does not depend upou 
 the value of the dry annuity. It is a joint con- 
 sideration of this annuity, and of the prospect 
 of an increase in the value of the nominal ca- 
 pital, that operates upon the mind of the pur- 
 chaser. I had a pretty strong proof of this 
 when I myself was in office. From a wish to 
 guard the Public against the great loss of re- 
 deemirig, perhaps at par, three per cents which 
 might be borrowed at 60, I proposed to the 
 bidders for the loan to make them redeemable 
 at 80. They would not bid at all upon the 
 proposal. If my Right Honourable Friend 
 doubts whether this prospect of higher prices 
 enters into their calculation, let him try what 
 they would now give for a three per cent, annuity 
 redeemable at 60. 
 
 If the view which I have taken of this plan, 
 90 far as regards the public faith, be correct, it 
 cannot be necessary to show, by many addi- 
 tional arguments, that the whole system, view- 
 ed abstractedly from its justice, is at variance 
 with sound policy. That it would prove so in 
 its ultimate effects, no man, I think, can doubt; 
 but, in the present instance, it will also be found 
 (what may not always, perhaps, be the case), 
 that not only our permanent, but our immediate 
 interest requires of us, not to deviate from the 
 H 2
 
 52 
 
 straight-forward path in which we have hitherto 
 proceeded. 
 
 I have the more confidence in the soHdity of 
 the objections which I take to the mere policy of 
 the measure, because they are ahnost all derived 
 from principles of finance, and lessons of politi- 
 cal economy, for which I am indebted to the 
 great practical masters of this science in modern 
 times ; and mainly, I speak it with unfeigned 
 sincerity, to my Right Hon. Friend himself. 
 
 The Tables to which I have recently referred, 
 establish, beyond all doubt, that the plan cannot 
 be persisted in for three or four years without a 
 serious injury to public credit. But in time of 
 war, when we have to borrow so largely, is not 
 the efficiency of that credit essential to the efii- 
 ciency of the State r Is not its support the true 
 husbanding, and its decline the profuse waste, of 
 our yet remaining resources ? Then what is the 
 state of our credit at the very outset of this 
 plan? Is it not already " labouring" under the 
 vast accumulation of debt? and does it not 
 manifestly sink, in spite of a state of external 
 circumstances so unusually favourable, under 
 the enormous calls that are made upon it 
 by the unparalleled magnitude of our loans? 
 Is it not true, that, by the weight of loans 
 far less than those now required, and not-
 
 63 
 
 withstanding a growing Sinking Fund, the 
 puhlic securities have suffered a deprecia- 
 tion httle short of 20 per cent, within the 
 last three years? Does the Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer consider such a depreciation 
 upon a capital of six hundred millions to be in 
 itself nothing ? Does he think it a matter of 
 indifference whether the interest of money is at 
 six or seven per cent, instead of being at or un- 
 der the usual legal rate? Does he imagine that this 
 depreciation, and this high rate of interest, will 
 have no prejudicial effect upon our industry, 
 our manufactures, our commerce, our internal 
 improvements, and, above all, upon the progress 
 of our agriculture? If the demands of the State 
 are so large, and the temptations which it offers 
 so powerful, as to absorb the innumerable streams 
 and channels by which individual credit is nurtur- 
 ed and supported; the activity which is created, 
 the exertions which are called forth by that cre- 
 dit in every branch of productive industry, must 
 proportionably languish and decay. Does my 
 Right Hon. Friend seriously expect, or docs ex- 
 perience warrant him to hope, as he intimates in 
 his printed Statement (p. 16), that in such a 
 state of credit our permanent revenue can 
 improve ? The prosperity of that revenue de- 
 pends, in a great degree, on the facility with 
 which the active classes of the community are 
 enabled to borrow the capitals requisite for their
 
 54 
 
 various pursuits. However paradoxical it may 
 appear, there is, I will venture to say, no part 
 of our population so neaily interested in the im- 
 provement of public credit as those to whomr 
 these borrowed capitals afford employment; 
 and none, consequently, who ought more cheer- 
 fully to acquiesce in whatever sacrifices may be. 
 necessary for the support of that credit. ' 
 
 I have heard the proposed plan excused and 
 palliated out of doors, by some who cannot ap- 
 prove of its principle, from an expectation that 
 it will give such an impresssion of our resources, 
 as may, in the present state of affairs, be at- 
 tended with the most important consequences: 
 that our friends on the Continent will be elated, 
 and our enemies astounded, by the promulga- 
 tion of a plan for carrying on the war for four 
 years without taxes. 
 
 I trust that this most shallow of all hopes^ 
 this mo^t short-sighted of all the views which 
 can be taken of the subject, is not entertained 
 by His Majesty's Government as any recom- 
 mendation of the plan. 
 
 The governments of the Continent, and the 
 thinking and intelligent part of their subjects, 
 are likely to take a very diflerent impression. 
 They look upon our Sinking Fund as the events
 
 $5 
 
 of the last twenty years ; and not less than the 
 events, our language and our conduct also, have 
 taught them to look upon it as the main stay 
 and prop of our credit — as the perennial source 
 which supplies our annually-growing exertions— 
 as that sacred reserve which no momentary 
 temptation, in the apparent extremity of our 
 fortunes, could for one moment induce us 
 to weaken, or impair. They have seen us in 
 the hour of our severest trials, when the 
 Bank stopped payment, when our fleets muti- 
 nied, when rebellion raged in a sister kingdom, 
 carrying additional aid to that Fund, instead of 
 breaking in upon it. They know what we have 
 done for that Fund ; and, as is often the case with 
 those who are mere spectators of the blessings 
 which others uninterruptedly, and for that rea* 
 son almost unconsciously, enjoy, they also know, 
 perhaps, better than ourselves, what it has done 
 for us. If I wished to illustrate what I believe 
 to be the general feeling of the Continent re- 
 specting our Sinking Fund, I could not do so 
 more forcibly perhaps, than by stating, that in 
 France a Sinking Fund has been established upon 
 the principles of our Sinking Fund ; and esta- 
 blished by whom? By Bonaparte himself; that 
 great despoilcr of the civilized world; that whole- 
 sale plunderer of the accumulations of peaceable 
 industry: by Bonapart^, who thinks that the 
 best system of finance js in the success of his
 
 56 
 
 sword; who acts as if the whole science of poli- 
 tical economy consisted in the transfer of his 
 subjects from productive to unproductive pur- 
 suits. That the Sinking Fund of France is 
 merely a delusion, I perfectly believe. But it has 
 been justly said, that " hypocrisy is the homage 
 *' which vice is forced to pay to virtue;" and 
 there cannot be a clearer proof of the opinion 
 sincerely entertained of the Sinking Fund of 
 England, than this attempt to delude the people 
 of the Continent by a pretended imitation of it. 
 
 If my Right Hon. Friend, therefore, has been 
 induced to adopt this measure, as one likely to 
 overawe the enemy into moderation, I am afraid 
 it will have a very different tendency. If, from 
 any circumstances, he thinks that peace may soon 
 beattained ; why unnecessarily weaken confidence 
 at home, and revi^'e in the breast of Bonaparte 
 those vain hopes of wearing out our resources, 
 which adversity, though it may not have extin- 
 guished them, has probably in some degree sub- 
 dued ? If war is likely to continue, why begin 
 upon a system, which, if pushed to its utmost, 
 may at last drive us to the necessity of signing 
 a precipitate and disadvantageous peace? 
 
 This, it is true, is not the first time that we 
 have had recourse to expedients widely depart- 
 ing from the ordinary and legitimate system of
 
 57 
 
 adding to our income by permanent taxes, in 
 proportion to the increase of permanent charge 
 created by the loan of the year. In 1807, an 
 expectation was held out to the people that no 
 new taxes should be imposed for three years. 
 Accordingly, the loan of that year Avas assigned 
 upon the war-taxes. In 1808, the fiilling in of the 
 Short Annuities, and an advance by the Bank of 
 three millions without interest, enabled Parlia- 
 ment to meet the charge of the small loan re- 
 quired for that year, without materially breaking 
 in upon the assurance that taxation should be 
 suspended for three years. In 1809, the charge 
 of tlie loan was thrown upon the war-taxes. 
 This measure was strongly objected to ; and the 
 ground of its defence, as argued by myself and 
 others, was, not the general policy of the mea- 
 sure, but its particular expediency, and for that 
 year only, as necessary to complete the term of 
 the respite from taxation promised in the year 
 1807. The war-taxes mortgaged for the charge 
 of this loan amounted to one million. It is obvi- 
 ous, that the eilect of this mortgage was of course 
 to diminish your disposable revenue, and to in- 
 crease your loan to the same amount in that and 
 every subsequent year. If, instead of the war- 
 taxes, the million be taken from the Siidcing 
 Fund, a difierence to that amount is cre- 
 ated between the sum borrowed and the sum 
 redeemed. In both cases, the eficct for the 
 1
 
 SB 
 
 first year, with respect to the public credit 
 and the accumulation of debt, is the same; 
 but prospectively that credit will be injured in 
 an infinitely greater degree, by the deduction 
 of a million from the Sinking Fund; because 
 this million would have continued to improve 
 and accumulate at compound interest for the 
 reduction of debt; which of course is not the 
 case with the million of war-taxes. 
 
 Carrying along with us these considerations, 
 and recollecting that the measure of 1809 dipped 
 into the war-taxes for one year, and for one 
 million only; let us see what were the senti- 
 ments of the highest financial authorities upon 
 this measure. 
 
 The first great authority to which I must re- 
 quest the attention of the Committee, and from 
 which, as well from its great excellence, as from 
 the peculiar respect to which it is now entitled 
 from this House, I shall borrow very copiously, 
 is that of my Right Hon. Friend himself. He 
 thought it his diily, at the close of the session 
 of 1809, to move a series of resolutions of Fi- 
 nance. In the course of the following summer, 
 he did himself much honour, and the country 
 much service, by careftdly revising and publish- 
 ing the substance of his observations on that 
 occasion. The extracts from that pubhcation,
 
 59 
 
 which I am now about to read to the Commit- 
 tee, will, I am sure, be, to every Gentleman, the 
 strongest inckiccment carefully to peruse the 
 whole. 
 
 In tlie fiust part of that publication, my Eiglit 
 Hon. Friend has given a very interesting narra- 
 tive of the bold and manly measures adopted by 
 Lord Sidmoutli upon the renewal of the war in 
 1803, for raising a large disposable revenue 
 within the year. As my Right Hon. Friend 
 nuist have had a principal share in maturing and 
 bringing forward those measures, he is well 
 entitled to participate in the just credit which 
 they reflect upon that Administration. My 
 Right Hon. Friend closes his remarks on that 
 part of his subject in the following terms : " In 
 "the statement of liis (Lord Sidmouth's) last 
 *' budget, he strongly urged the importance of 
 "adhering to the same system by an annual 
 " addition of at least one million to' the war- 
 " taxes, till the object of equalizing the incoihe 
 " and the expenditure of the country should b3 
 *' obtained. He knew that when this great point 
 " was attained, the continual accumulation of 
 *' tlie Sinking Fund would speedily afibrd means 
 *' of relief to the Public, which could not be 
 " employed cither with justice to the Stock- 
 " holders, or safety to the State, so hug as tJie 
 " accumuldliun of' debt conlinucd.'' — -With jus-
 
 60 
 
 tlce to the Stockholders, with safdy to the State, 
 so long as the accumulatmi cj' debt continued! 
 Will the Committee forgive me for having de- 
 tained them so long upon the hijustice of the pre- 
 sent proposal, v/hen I might have satisfied them 
 at once by the decided testimony of my Right 
 Hon. Friend ? Will the country forgive me the 
 expression of my apprehensions for its danger, 
 when they are told from such high authority, 
 that the Sinking Fund cannot be touched with 
 safety to the State, so long as the accumulation 
 of debt continues? Will my Right Hon. Friend 
 forgive me, if, in the name of llvdt justice which 
 he acknowledges to be due to the public cre- 
 ditor; if, in the name of that State, of whose 
 safety he is one of the immediate and respon- 
 si^ guardians; if, in the name of his own fair 
 famiC, which is the merited and best reward of 
 his public labours — I conjure him not to persist 
 in a system, which, by anticipation, he has 
 so justly condemned ? 
 
 I now proceed to another part of the publica- 
 tion, in which my Right Hon. Friend expresses 
 himself in these terms: 
 
 " Let me not, Sir, be misunderstood as the advocate of 
 " excessive or unlimited taxation. 1 am aware that all tax- 
 *' ation is in itself an evfl, and I can conceive many circum- 
 *' stances under which 1 should think the Chancellor of
 
 61 
 
 " the Exchequer had acted in the present instance with 
 " prudence and judgment. 
 
 " The first and most obvious of these would be a great 
 " and general impovei iohnient of the country. It might 
 " then happen (as in fact it did towards the close of the 
 " American war), that the imposition of new taxes would 
 *' addnothhig to the revenue, but only depress the produce 
 *' of the old ones. But I would ask the Right Hon. Gen- 
 " tleman, and every Gentlenian present, from whatever 
 " part of the country, rt'//e/e the symptoms of such impo- 
 *' verishnient appear ? Supposing, however, such a decay 
 " to exist, 1 say that the same necessity which contracts 
 ** our means ought to limit our expenses. Shall we be 
 " the richer for plunging deeper in debt? WiU it increase 
 " our resources to consume those which yet remain ?'* 
 
 These are tlie questions which my Right IIoii. 
 Friend put in 1809 : I hope that he is now pre- 
 pared to answer them. 
 
 He proceeds thus ; — 
 
 " In another case of a very opposite kind I might think 
 " it advisable to abstain from further taxation — that of a 
 « very rapid improvement of the existing revenue. Did 
 " our resources appear to be increasing in a degree nearly 
 " commensurate to our wants, I should be unwilling to 
 " endanger so prosperous a stale of things by any uUerfer- 
 " ence, or to abridge the comforts of the Public by any 
 " charge which migiit be safely avoided or deferred. But 
 " though I am convinced that the national wealth is pro- 
 " gressively increasing, I fear we arc far from such a state
 
 62 
 
 " of things. Tlie revenue has of late appeared rather to 
 " decline than to increase." 
 
 I would just ask my Right Hon. Friend 
 whether this remark does not exactly apply to 
 the present state of the revenue.' 
 
 " Another case in which I might approve of the course 
 *' which has been pursued is that of a prospect of immediate 
 " peace, or of a great reduction of expense from any other 
 " cause. But of all suppositions this seems at present the 
 ** most extravagant. The war rages more extensively and 
 " witli greater exasperation than ever, and every day seems 
 " to bring forward some fresh obstacle to accommodation, 
 " and some new call for our exertions. 
 
 " But leaving to the defenders of this measure to point 
 " out such circumstances as may, in their opinion, justify it, 
 *' I shall proceed to state a few of the numerous objections 
 " which induce me to condemn it. 
 
 " In the first place, it is a weak and delusive resource, 
 " which will be speedily exhausted. 
 
 " A second objection to this diversion of the war-taxes 
 " from the purposes for which they w ere originally granted 
 " by Parliament, is, the continual and progressive increase 
 " it must occasion in the difficulty of raising the supplies. 
 ** As the amount of the loan must annually be augmented 
 " by a sum equal to the war-taxes which have been appro- 
 *' priated both by that, and all preceding loans, they would 
 " be most rapidly consumed, by a continual accumulation 
 *' of compound interest j and zohen it shall become nnavoid-
 
 " able to seek for fresh funds for these augmeyited loans, 
 *' zchere •will thei/ befomid, and in what state of credit nill 
 " these loans he raised '^ If the Right Hon. Geutlemaii 
 " thinks that the people, having been Indulged with a respite 
 " from further taxation, will return to it more readily, he is 
 " greatly mistaken. Having once been told by authority, 
 " that further burdens were either intolerable or unnecessary, 
 ** they will readily listen to those who will never be warit- 
 " ing to tell them the same thing again ; and they will be 
 " disposed to countenance wild plans of retrenchment, and 
 *' chimerical schemes of f nance." 
 
 If the Committee will only substitute the 
 words Sinking Fund for W^r-taxes, through 
 the whole of this paragraph, I have no other 
 alteration to otfer cither in the language or in 
 the argument. 
 
 " Another most important objection occurs when we 
 " consider the establishment which it will probably be ne-, 
 " cessary to maintain whenever peace may be concluded. 
 
 " It is an objection not less important, though of a to- 
 " tally different nature from any of the preceding, that the 
 *' system of finance pursued this year, has the strongest 
 " possible tendency to encourage prodigality in the public 
 " expenditure. 
 
 " It is no less true in public than in private economy, 
 *' that what is easily acquired, is often needlessly spent. It 
 " is also the natural bias of every depaitment, and may 
 " even proceed from a laudable though inconsiderate zeal 
 " for the public service, to draw to itself as large a poi-
 
 64 
 
 " tion as possible of the supplies. If this be not checked 
 " (as 1 fear at present it cannot be) by a linn and over- 
 " ruling controul at the Treasury, it naturally leads to an 
 *' indefinite and wasteful expense. But the strongest sti- 
 " mulus to excite the Treasury to perform its duty by a 
 *' vigilant restraint on the public expenditure is wanting, if 
 " supplies can be olUained without an immediate pressure 
 " on the people. The temptations which perpetually occur 
 " to a Minister, of a loose and caieless administration of 
 ** the public purse, are constantly counteracted by the im- 
 " pending and painful task of taxation. 
 
 " It will be evident to every Gentleman, that if the 
 " amount of the loan is reduced, the competition to ob- 
 *' tain it will be increased, and the supply of capital in the 
 " market more abundant, compared with the demand, and 
 *' the sum to be raised will consequently be obtained oa 
 " more favourable terms. The principle of this saving is 
 ** perhaps not less certain than a mathematical demonstra- 
 *'' tion, but the extent of its operation can only be calcu- 
 " lated on hypothetical data, and it may not therefore be a 
 •'^ proper subject for a distinc t Resolution of the House, 
 " Every Gentleman will form his own supposition : I will 
 " just mention one which seems to me supported by a 
 *' strong analogy. In the year 179B, when Mr. Pitt first 
 " proposed his system of war-taxes, the loan was raised at 
 " an interest of above six per cent. In J 800, when they 
 " had been established two years, the interest of the loan 
 " but little exceeded four and a half per cent. * Adding 
 
 * The Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed yesterday 
 (31st March), to the House of Commons, the funding of twelve 
 millions of Exchequer Bills, at an interest of 5/. 15^. 6c?. per 
 cent, and th.it interest to commence from the 5th of January 
 last.
 
 6S 
 
 ** the tme per cent. Sinking Fund to be provided on the 
 ** capital created, the total saving amounted to about two 
 " per cent, on the whole sum raised both by loan and war- 
 
 taxes. 
 
 " Such, Sir, have been the effects of the system which 
 " the Chancellor of the Exchequer has this year forsaken 
 " and impaired : a system sanctioned by general approba- 
 ** tion, and proved by experience to be solid, wise, and 
 " economical. It has indeed required many sacrifices, 
 ** and may require more : but it is a most dangerous delu- 
 *' sion, to expect to perform great achievements without 
 " making great exertions. l( we cannot reduce our ex- 
 ** penses to our income, we must raise our income in pro- 
 " portion to our expenses. I am willing to give credit to 
 " the Right Honourable Gentleman for readiness to effect 
 " every practicable and prudent retrenchment ; and I trust 
 *' still more to the disposition of Parliament and of the 
 " Public to enforce it. But what more is wanting, and 
 ** much more, I fear, must be wanting, we must be pre- 
 ** pared to furnish ; and it has been my wish, in what I , 
 " have said, to strengthen the hands of Government (so 
 " far as my arguments or opinions could have any force), 
 " and to facilitate its resuming the wise, the secure, anid 
 ** honourable course hitherto pursued." 
 
 Let US now see how this measure of withdraw- 
 ing a million from the war-taxes was viewed 
 by other great authorities. 
 
 In the Journals of the House of Lords I find 
 a Protest against the measure, to which the 
 first signature is that of Lord Sidmoutii. Tiie 
 
 K
 
 66 
 
 names of Lords Grenville and Carrington are 
 also subscribed to the same document, in which 
 I find, among others, the following objections ; 
 
 " Because the present measure is subversive of the prin- 
 " ciples on which the Sinking Funds and War-taxes have 
 " been successively established and augmented — principlei 
 " invariably adhered to under every change of men and 
 ** measures during the last three-and-twenty years, and 
 " now first abandoned. 
 
 " Because the system, of which this measure is, we 
 
 " fear, the commencement, will rapidly absorb all the ex- 
 
 " traordinary resources provided by the wisdom of Parlia- 
 
 *' ment to meet the exigencies of war ; and will, within a 
 
 *' very few years, plunge this country hito financial diffi- 
 
 " cuhies, such as have never yet been apprehended even by 
 
 *' those who have thought most unfavourably of the re- 
 
 ** sources of the country." 
 
 In the month of July 1812, we find my 
 Right Honourable Friend (then, as now, Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer) stating to this Hbuse, 
 that " he should probably feel it necessary to 
 ** prepare some plan, whatever it might be, for 
 " the more effectual support of public credit. 
 ** What particularly occurred to him would be 
 " to make some addition to the Sinking Fund 
 " for whatever portion of the loan might exceed 
 " the amount of the sum to be redeemed within 
 " the year."
 
 67 
 
 My Right Honourable Friend proposes to 
 make this addition indeed; but in what man- 
 ner ? By taking from the Sinking Fund, as it 
 now exists, not only this addition, but also the 
 one per cent, for the other part of the loan, and 
 all the charge of interest for the whole. 
 
 To the authority of my Right Honourable 
 Friend, at least up to tlie present moment, 
 for strengthening, instead of impairing the 
 Sinking Fund ; to that of Lord Sidmouth and 
 of Lord Grenville, I must add the greatest au- 
 thority of all, that of Mr. Pitt. I can take 
 upon mc to assure the Committee, in the most 
 confident manner, that it was the strong leaning 
 of his mind, I might almost say his fixed inten- 
 tion, had he lived to direct the finances of the 
 country for another year, to impose not only the 
 taxes that might be necessary to meet the ciiarge 
 of the loan of that year, but as many more as 
 he thought the country could bear without too 
 great or too sudden a pressure upon its re- 
 sources. All the surplus of such taxes, beyond 
 the interest of the loan, he intended to apply as 
 an immediate voluntary aid to the Sinkinij^ Fund, 
 to be gradually withdrawn for the charge of fu- 
 ture loans, if for that purpose any part of it, or 
 the whole, should, in future years, be required. 
 
 K 2
 
 68 
 
 My Right Honourable Friend, and others 
 who . so strongly condemned the subtraction of 
 a single million from the war-taxes in 1809, 
 will not contend that the accumulation of debt, 
 or the state of public credit, or the amount of 
 the loan, compared to the Sinking Fund, was. 
 such as to render hazardous at that period what 
 }s comparatively safe at present. In that year 
 the three per cents were at 68 ; they are now 
 at 69' In that year the loan was 17 mil- 
 lions, and the Sinking Fund about 10 millions. 
 For the present year the loan, I much fear, will 
 not be short of 30 millions on account of Eng-. 
 land only, and the Sinking Fund less than 14 
 millions. 
 
 It cannot be imputed to my Right lionour-r. 
 3ble Friend, that, in enumerating all the virtues 
 of his plan, he ever mentioned economy as one, 
 of its recommendations. He well knew that 
 he could not, although it is an inference in its 
 favour which some persons have derived from a 
 superficial examination of his Tables. My 
 Right Honourable Friend, I am sure, would be 
 the last man to countenance such an inference. 
 He has most successfully shown, on various 
 occasions, that true economy consists in a 
 course altogether opposite to that \vhich he 
 now adopts. He has reduced to figures, and 
 Recorded in Resolutions, the proofs of that 
 (^ponomy, demonstrating by the most irrefra^-
 
 G9 
 
 gable evidence, that to accumulate debt, in the 
 nianner and to the extent now proposed by this 
 plan, is the very reverse of good management. 
 He lias shown you what you have actually 
 saved by raising a large portion of your sup- 
 phes within the year. I will not fatigue the 
 Committee by a detailed reference to these 
 proofs. The\' will find them in the Speeches of 
 my Right Honourable Friend, to which I have 
 already referred. 
 
 If our resources are not infinite and abso- 
 lutely inexhaustible; if we have already dipped 
 deep into those resources ; surely it the more 
 becomes us well to consider, whether the re- 
 mainder are not now in danger of being dis- 
 sipated with unnecessary celerity ? Whether, 
 b}^ mortgaging now, at usurious interest, that 
 income which we had wisely set aside for the 
 discharge of existing incumbrances, we shall 
 be more at our ease some few years hence ? 
 Whether, by accumulating debt now, upon terms 
 which may oblige us to redeem it at an expense 
 nearly double hereafter, we are compensated for 
 the immediate pressure of usurious interest, by 
 the prospect of future relief? Let Cjentlemcn 
 look round the world, and show me a State 
 once in dilliculty ; let them look among their 
 accpiaintance, and show me an individual, once 
 jpvolved, that has ever been brought round au4
 
 70 
 
 saved by these, or such-like expedients. If 
 they still doubt the delusion of such a system, 
 one example drawn from the financial affairs of 
 this country, and brought before them, not by 
 a comparison of distant transactions, but con- 
 fined to the three last years of the present war, 
 will, perhaps more forcibly than any more ge- 
 neral view, open their eyes to the wasteful con* 
 sequences of the proposed plan. 
 
 Let us compare the terms of the loan of 
 1810 with the terms of the loan of 1812, both 
 in the three per cents. In 1810, for every 
 ^100 sterling the contractors received 
 140/. 7s. 6d. three per cent, stock: in 1812, 
 for every ^^100 sterling they received £\76 
 three per cent, stock. A loan of 28 millions, the 
 amount assumed by my Right Hon. Friend to be 
 hereafter annually raised, would, if negotiated 
 upon the terms of 1812, add to the amount of 
 debt in each year ^^10,000,000 of stock, and to 
 tlie permanent annual charge ^^404,000 (money 
 value), more than if negotiated upon the terms 
 of 1810. And who shall say that, under this 
 plan, future loans will be raised even on the 
 terms of 1812? Neither is this all ; in 1 8 10 the 
 Exchequer Bills were circulated at an interest of 
 three-pence per day for every ^100. The in- 
 terest is now three-pence halfpenny. This is 
 another increase of annual charge, exceeding 
 
 2
 
 71 
 
 ^200,000. Let Gentlemen calculate what these 
 differences only would amount to in the next four 
 years, both in increased debt and in increased 
 permanent charge; and then they will have 
 some faint idea of the economy of a plan, the 
 tendency of which, it is admitted, is to lower 
 the price of the funds. On the other hand, 
 there can be very little doubt, if the Sinking 
 Fund were left to its natural growth for those 
 four years (with the same amount of loan), that 
 the funds would revert to the more favourable 
 prices of the year 1810. 
 
 Another consideration of economy is, that 
 the reduction of interest upon the five and four 
 per cent, stocks which has always been looked 
 to as one of the advantages that would speedily 
 be realized by the Sinking Fund on the restor- 
 ation of peace, and which would produce a 
 saving of nearly three millions a year, must ne- 
 cessarily be retarded by the effects of the pro- 
 posed system. 
 
 I am aware that it may be said to mc, — 
 *Mf, after all, you are of opinion that this mea- 
 " sure is so doubtful with respect to public faith, 
 " in policy so hazardous, and in economy so 
 " expensive, what is it that you would recom- 
 " mend?" My general answer is, that it forms 
 no part of tlie duty of an individual Member
 
 72 
 
 of Parliament, neitlier liolding a responsible 
 situation, nor possessing those means of in-* 
 forming and maturing his judgment which 
 properly belong to otiBce, to go beyond the 
 sphere of his duty. That duty I have dis- 
 charged, by stating my conscientious opinion 
 upon the present plan. It certainly is not neces- 
 sary, and it may not be altogether prudent, for 
 me to go further. But knowino-, as I do, all 
 the difficulties of my Right Honourable Friend's 
 situation, and anxious, as I am, to satisfy hirti 
 and the Committee, that it is not my disposi- 
 tion to add to those difficulties, I am prepared 
 to state what has occurred to me for obviating 
 the fundamental objection which I feel to the 
 intended measure in its present shape, if the 
 patience of the Committee, which I have al- 
 ready so much abused, should incline them not 
 to refuse this furtlier indulo-ence. 
 
 My Right Honourable Friend stated to this 
 Committee, on a former occasion, that during 
 war, but especially during the present war, the 
 country possessed means of taxation, which, from 
 their nature, could not be permanently continued 
 in time of peace. In this I agree with my Right 
 Honourable Friend, thinking with him, that 
 the war-taxes, productive as they already are, 
 might however be considerably augmented. That 
 the permanent taxes do not admit of the same
 
 73 
 
 latitude, is an opinion which of late years I have 
 more than once declared in this House. I also 
 agree with my Right Honourable Friend, that an 
 alteration will, at some time hereafter, be requi- 
 site in the Sinking Fund Act of 1802, so as to 
 render more equal, and to extend over a larger 
 portion of time, that relief which the Public 
 will derive from the extinction of the debt 
 contracted prior to that period. I subscribe to 
 the opinion, that to' have devolved the whole of 
 that relief upon one year, is an unwise depar- 
 ture from the original Acts of 1786 and 1792; 
 but, on the other hand, 1 contend, in the first 
 place, that no alteration is immediately neces- 
 sary ; and, Sdly, that, whenever it is attempted, 
 the object which Av^e ought to have principally 
 in view should be, both as to Sinking Fund 
 and debt, to revert, as much as possible, to the 
 salutary provisions of those original Acts. 
 
 The simultaneous extinction of a very large 
 portion of debt, and an accumulation of Sink- 
 ing Fund, that would become unnecessarily 
 large for some years before that event shall 
 take place, are the two inconveniences against 
 which my Right Honourable Friend wishes 
 naiv to provide. In order of time, the too 
 great accumulation of the Sinking Fund is 
 the first of these evils : it must necessarily 
 precede the other. Rut, surely, this is not
 
 74 
 
 an inconvenience which is either now pressing 
 upon us, or is likely to arise, so long as we 
 are compelled to borrow far beyond what the 
 Sinking Fund can redeem within the yeai\ On 
 the one hand, therefore, it cannot be said that 
 any such evil now exists to call for our immediate 
 interference ; on the other, I have the clear and 
 recorded opinion of my Right Honourable 
 Friend, that the Sinking Fund cannot be touch- 
 ed, " either with justice to the stockholder, or 
 " sqftti/ to the State, so long as the accumulation 
 " of debt continues." 
 
 Let us then examine, whether, upon the 
 grounds which I have stated, my Right Ho- 
 nourable Friend's plan cannot be so amended 
 as to bring it within those limits of justice and 
 safety, which he has so accurately defined. 
 For that purpose we must find the means of 
 avoiding the necessity of impairing the efficacy 
 of the Sinking Fund at the present moment. 
 
 Now my Right Hon. Friend is already pro- 
 vided with taxes to the amount of ^1,130,000, 
 for the present year. He wants about ^700,000 
 more to meet the estimated charge. The course 
 I should take would be in substance this: — 
 First, I would charge these seven hundred thou- 
 sand pounds permanently upon the income of the 
 Sinking Fund : but secondly, I would repay to
 
 75 
 
 the Sinking Fund, within the year, and out of 
 the produce of the war-taxes, a sum equal to the 
 charge so thrown upon it in the first instance : 
 and thirdly, I would impose new war-taxes to 
 that amount, unless upon examination it should 
 turn out (as I believe it would) that by the im- 
 provements already made, or which might be made, 
 in the assessment and collection of the pro- 
 perty-tax, an increase in its produce to the full 
 amount required might be expected in the pre- 
 sent year. — If such an increase may be reckoned 
 upon, tio new taxes would be necessary be- 
 yond those which the Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer is actually prepared to impose. 
 
 If the war should continue, I should in like 
 manner charge the interest of the loan of the next 
 year upon the Sinking Fund ; replacing to the 
 Sinking Fund the amount of the sum so charged 
 out of the produce of the war-taxes, and increas- 
 ing those taxes by an addition equivalent to the 
 amount so transferred to the Sinking Fund. 
 
 The advantages of this mode of proceeding, 
 as compared with that of my Right Honourable 
 Friend, would be these : — first, you would avoid 
 breaking in upon the efficacy of your Sinking 
 Fund during the war: secondly, by charging 
 upon that fund the interest of the loans, you 
 give to the contractors at once that permanent 
 L 2
 
 76 
 
 security which the war-taxes, from their nature, 
 do not afford : thirdly, you maintain the dispos- 
 able revenue at its present amount : fourthly, 
 by the growth of the Sinking Fund, you would 
 revive and sustain publiccredit; (raising the loans 
 in consequence upon far cheaper terms :) and 
 fifthly, the unredeemed debt would be smaller by 
 many millions at the close of the war. 
 
 I should not object to iportgage,^ in this man- 
 ner, the Sinking Fund to the amount in the 
 whole required by my Right Hon. Friend for the 
 next four years, if the continuance of the war 
 should render such a sacrifice necessary. 
 
 If at the end of the four years, or sooner, peace 
 should be restored, we should then be in a situa- 
 tion to revise the Act of 1802, without injury to 
 the public interest, or to the public creditor; 
 but, even then, I should think it improvident to 
 interfere too hastily w^ith the operations of the 
 Sinking Fund. I would still continue to repay 
 to that Fund, by a portion of the war-taxes, to 
 be continued specifically for that purpose, the 
 full amount charged upon it on account of 
 loans, until the state of public credit should 
 admit of a reduction of interest on the five per 
 cent, stock.
 
 77 
 
 When we sliall not only have ceased to make 
 any addition to our existing debt, but shall fur- 
 ther be cniibled to reduce the interest on a larjre 
 portion of that debt ; then, I should say, the time 
 would be arrived, when, without prejudice to the 
 State, or injury to individuals, you might leave 
 the charge of those loans upon the Sinking Fund, 
 nn re placed by any further repayment from other 
 sources. 
 
 The reduction of the five per cent, to a four 
 per cent, stock would be an advantage of no 
 small consideration, which is at least postponed 
 by the plan of my Right Honourable Friend. 
 The saving by this reduction of interest, when it 
 takes place, will be more than one million a year ; 
 a saving cither to be made over to the Sinking 
 Fund, or to be appropriated to the public service, 
 as may appear most expedient, under all the cir- 
 cumstances of the country, at the time when it 
 may take place. 
 
 In 1819, we should liavc the further aid of tho 
 Imperial Annuities (<230,000/. a year), which will 
 then fall in; and in 1821, the charge of the loan 
 of 1807, amounting to 1,200,000/. a year, will be 
 set free. Without anticipating the duty of a 
 future Parliament, as to what may be the most 
 proper application of these sums ; it is obvious 
 that these t^sources, from the proximity of their
 
 7$ 
 
 falling in, miglit, in the event of peace, afford 
 further facilities in the execution of the sug- 
 gestion of which I am now stating only a very 
 general outline. 
 
 Let us suppose that we act upon the principle 
 of this suggestion, and that peace is not re- 
 stored sooner than the end of the year 1816. 
 We should, by that time, have mortgaged the 
 Sinking Fund to the amount of about six mil- 
 lions. Its whole amount applicable to the re- 
 duction of debt, in 1816, would be upwards 
 of 18 millions. It is not over-sanguine to 
 assume, that by the effect of the continuance 
 of such a Sinking Fund, with its annual im- 
 provement, for two years after a peace, the 
 interest on the five per cent, stock might be 
 reduced to four per cent. On the other hand, 
 it cannot be denied by those who are ac- 
 quainted with the nature of our war-taxes, that 
 several of the most productive (independent of 
 the property-tax, which, in a more or less pro- 
 portion, must, I think, be continued, at least for 
 some years, as the foundation of our peace es- 
 tablishment) might without difficulty be main- 
 tained for two years after the restoration of 
 peace ; say till the close of 1818. The Sink- 
 ing Fund would then have reached nearly to 
 twenty millions. By deducting the aid of the war- 
 taxes, it would, in the year 1819', be reduced to 
 
 4
 
 79 
 
 somewhat above fourteen niillions, or fifteen, 
 if the saving by the contemporaneous reduction 
 of the five per cents should be allotted to it. 
 From that period, so long as peace should con- 
 tinue, we should have annually the gratifying 
 task to perform, of remitting to the people 
 more or less of their burdens ; and we might look 
 back upon our past difficulties with the cheer- 
 ing recollection, that a firm adherence to the 
 principles laid down by Mr. Pitt in 1792 had 
 enabled us to provide for all the exigencies of 
 this tremendous and protracted contest, with- 
 out for a moment swerving from that strict 
 good faith which at once raises our character 
 and doubles our resources ; at once enables us, 
 by exertions unparalleled in our history, to 
 uphold the glory of our arms in every quarter 
 of the world, and to find in the public credit 
 at home the means by which such exertions 
 are to be sustained. 
 
 I will not weary the Committee by going into 
 further details of the alteration which I could 
 wish to see introduced 'into the plan of my 
 Right Honourable Friend. If the principle of 
 that alteration sliould once be admitted by him, 
 1 am sure that he would be infinitely more com- 
 petent to direct its application than myself. I3y 
 adopting it, he would remove the only insupe- 
 rable objection. which I feci to his plan ; that
 
 80 
 
 whicli arises from its directly breaking in upon 
 the Sinking Fund, and diminishing its effective 
 amount and operation, under circumstances, 
 which, according to my Right Hon. Friend's 
 own words, more than once quoted by me, ren- 
 de^ such interference neither consistent " with 
 *' JUSTICE to the Stockholder, nor with safety Iq 
 " the State:' 
 
 THE END. 
 
 S. Gosnell, Printer, Little ttueen Street, London.
 
 OUTLINES 
 
 OF A 
 
 PLAN 
 
 OF 
 
 •^ 
 
 FINANCE 
 
 PROPOSED TO BE SUBMITTED TO 
 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 1813.
 
 N 

 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
 3 0112 062406746 
 
 ifSifliiiiTi,,,, 
 
 Sis lliiitl 
 
 piii 
 liiif