£15,000,000, or any considerable part of it, to
Government, and were enabled to do so by tlie
necessary alteration in the Act of 1819, the
effect would be an immediate return to the scale
of prices which existed in 1818 and during the
war.
"Such is the evil under which we are now
laboring, and which will suffer no
abatement so long as the causes which Concluded,
produced it continue in operation.
\Ve have been occujiied with changes in our
pecuniar}- s\stem, and it is preciseh" since tliej'
1S22.]
HISTORY OF EUROPE.
S67
were comnienceil that our difBeuUies have been
cxporieneed. To enhance the value of money,
to raise the price of goUl, we have lowered that
of all other commodities, while at the same time
we have left the great payments of the nation
raised from the sale of these commodities!
Strange, indeed, would it be if such a system
was not to have produced the general and long-
continued distress which we see around us. The
reduction effected in the amount of money in
circulation has been nearly one-half of that
employed in supporting agricultural, commer-
cial, and manufacturing indiistrj^. Hence these
classes are unable to obtain much more than
half the return they obtained for their industry
before the alteration took place, and yet all
their great money engagements remain the
same ! This is the origin of that state of things
which in its result leaves the land-owner with-
out rent, the merchant without profit, the la-
ip iDb borer without emploj'ment or wages,
vii. 89S, which revolutionizes property, and
925, 966, disorganizes all the different relations
1007. f^u^j interests of societj'."'
Dr. Arnold said that Sir Robert Peel " would
yield to pressure on every thing cx-
Repeated '^^P^ ^^^ currcHci/." It is not surpris-
defeats of ing it was so ; for determination to
Ministers in adhere on that one point necessarily
(?oinmon^° drew after it concession on every
other. The distress produced by the
general fall of all prices 50 per cent, had become
such among the producing classes, that no com-
bination of the leaders of the opposite parties,
and no efforts on the part of Ministers, were
able any longer to avert its effects. It was in
the loud and fierce demand for a reduction of
taxation that the public voice, in the Ilouse of
Commons, first made itself heard in an unmis-
takable manner. Several ominous divisions,
presaging total defeat in the event of any fur-
ther resistance to the demands of the country
in this particular, took place in the early period
of the session. A motion by Mr. Calcraft, for
the progressive diminution of the salt-ta.x, by
taking off a third in each of the next three
years, was only thrown out by a majority of
four, the numbers being 1G9 to 165.
** ' â– This near approach to a defeat was the
more remarkable, that Lord Londonderry and
the Chancellor of the Exchequer had loudly de-
clared that this tax was essential to the main-
tenance of the Sinking Fund, and that its repeal
would be the signal for the entire abandonment
of that fund. This doubtful conflict
was soon followed by decided defeats.
On the very next day, on a motion made by
Sir John Osborne, for a reduction of two of the
junior lords of the Admiralty, Ministers were
left in a minority of 54, the numbers being 182
to 128. This was soon after followed by an-
other defeat, on the motion of Lord Normaiiby
for the reduction of one of the two joint Post-
,. ,„ masters-general, which was only
March 13. ., i i ■-i e «- n
thrown out by a majority ot 2o, tiie
numbers being 181 to 159. The
„, Vr'iJi, same motion, i)ut in a diffiTcnt form,
VI. «01,W^i], . 'J • ^ c i\
llli, vii. was, m a subsequent period ot the
.â– ii2; Ann. session, carried against Ministers by
K^cg. ibi!:,;, .^ injijority of 15, the numbers being
210 to 201.='
These disasters were sufficient to convince
Ministers that, however ignorant they might
be of the real source of their diflfi-
culties, and however tenacious they Q^eat re-
might be of the monetary bill of 181 '.i, auctions of
the distresses of the country had be- taxationia-
come such that relief, in some form or *M°,'j",','ers.^
another, was indi^ensable; and that,
if they would not give it in the form of meas-
ures calculated to raise the i-emuneration of
industry, they nmst give it in the form of a re-
duction of its"^ burdens. The effect of the shake
they had received soon appeared in the financial
measures which, in a subsequent period of the
session, they brought forward. Although, in
February, Lord Londonderry had declared that
the retention of the salt-tax was indispensable
to the upholding of the Sinking Fund to the
level of £5,000,000, which the House had sol-
emnlj^ pledged itself, in 1819, to maintain in-
violate, he was yet compelled to bring ^
forward, on 24th Ma}', a motion for its
reduction from 15s. a bushel to 2s., which occa-
sioned a loss to the revenue of £ 1,-300,000, a
year. This was followed by a reduction of the
war-tax on leather, which occasioned a further
loss of £600,000 a year. The tonnage-duty and
Irish hearth-tax were also abandoned, which
produced between them £400,000 yearly. These
great reductions, amounting, with the annual
malt-tax, which brought in £1,500,000 a year,
and which Government had announced their
intention of abandoning at an early period of
the session, amounted together to £3,500,000
a year, being half a million more than the amount
of the new taxes, imposed in 1819, to keep up
the Sinking Fund to £5,000,000 yearly.^
There can be no doubt that the taxes [y^lfj"'
thus removed were judiciously selected,
as they were those which bore most heavily on
the laboring classes of the community ; and still
less that their distress had become such as to
render a considerable reduction of the taxes
pressing on them indispensable ; for, measured
in quarters of wheat, their true standard, the
poor-rates of England were now twice as heavy
as they had been in 1812.* But the necessity
of removing these taxes, and thereby abandon-
ing the very foundation of the Sinking Fund,
atibrded the most decisive evidence 2 An. Reg.
both how wide-spread the distress 1822, 147,
had become, and how entire a revo- ^^^^ J'.^'''-
lution it had already induced in nu;, nis;
the financial system and policy of the Unfiles, vi.
country.^ 'I'-"'-
The budget was brought forwaivl on the 1st
July, and its leading feature was the
reduction of the Sinking Fund from ,^^^^ budget
£1.3,000,000 to £7,500,000, by appro-
priating £5,500,000 to the current, service of the
year. This signal and calamitous departure
from the form even of our former policy, in this
vital particular, was soiigiit to be justified by
the Chancellor of the Exchequer on various
grounds; but it was evident that it was ini-
* Poon-UATES PAID IN MONEY AND QUARTERS OF
Wheat.
Venr. Qimrtera of wlont.
iHii £r,fi:,c^,]o:> .... i,'iio,4').5
1814 5,418,846 .... I,702,2,'i5
1621 6,U5'.),24« .... 2,5.'J7,7f.3
1822 6,358.7(12 .... 2,940,440
— IIiKiiiEs, vi. 490. Alison's Europe, chap, cvi., Ap-
pcridix.
scs
HI STORY OF EITROPE.
[CiiAr. X.
posod upon hiiu by sheer neocssity, ninl was t\
diivet al>aiuKiniueut of tlic soloinii resolution to
maiiuain a real surplus of £r),0OU.O(»0 oyer the
oxpeiuliture, whieh railiaiueut had uiianiiuous-
Iv ado]>ted only three years before; for, as tiie
nominal Sinking Fund was redueed to luilf its
former anumnt. it was j)lain that the real ri-
demplion of debt was virtually abandoned. The
expenditure i>f the present year, however, as
the irreat reduction of taxation made in tho
course of it had not taken eliVet, was nearly
£0,000. OUO below the income, leaving that sum
applicable to the diminution of debt — a striking
and melancholy proof of what the resources of
the country really were at this period, had the
ruinous contraction of the currency not im-
posed upon the present and all future govern-
ments the necessity of remitting the indirect tax-
es, bj- which alone the Sinking Fund could be
maintained. It is not surprising it was so. A
hundred millions a year is not cut off from the
remuneration of productive labor, in a coun-
1 ^^ Yic try . the source from which its en-
1822, 149" tire wealth must be drawn, witli-
131 ; Pari, out producing lasting effects upon its
HH Ylu fi"^"cial situation and ultimate des-
â– tiny.'*
Two measures, the one of the most unques-
J4Q tionable, the other of very doubtful
Reduction wisdom, were brought forward during
of the 5 this session of Parliament, and carried
per cents, j^^^^ ^fj-g^^ -jj^^ g,,gj. ^^ ^j^^gg .^^j^g ^^e
reduction of the navy 5 per cents, to 4 per cent.
About £15t). 000,000 stood in this species of
stock ; constM^uently, any reduction in the in-
terest payable on it was a very great relief to
the national finances. The condition proposed
to the liolders was, that for every £100 of their
existing stock they should be inscribed for £105
in a new stock bearing 4 per cent, interest.
Those who signified their dissent before 1st
March, 1823, were to be paid off. So high were
the Funds, however, that those wlio took ad-
vantage of this were only 1373, and the stock
they held amounted to £2,005,978 — not a fifti-
eth part of the entire stock ; so that the meas-
* l.\coME AND Expenditure of the Yeak 1822.
INCOME— Nett.
Customs £12,923,420
Excise 28,976,344
Stamps 6.880,494
Taxes 7,517,643
Post-Office 2,049,326
Lesser Payments 1,451,341
Total Taxes £59,798,568
Loansi 11,872,155
Grand Total £71,670,724
EXPENDITURE.
Charges of Collection £5,688,091
Interest on Funded Debt 29,490,897
Interest on Unfunded Debt 1 ,430,596
Naval and .Military Pensions 1,400,000
Civil List and Expenses 1,057,000
Army 7,698,973
Navy 4,915.642
Navy Pensioners 246.000
Ordnance 1,007,821
Miscellaneoift 2,105,797
Lesser Payments 529,961
Surplus applicable to Debt 4,915,529
Grand Total £60,102,741
— Parliamentary Paper in Annual Register, 1823, p. 215-
217.
1 The loans w?nt to Ii?charpe Excliequer Bills.
lire was carried into execution with the most
complete success. The entire saving to the na-
tion, including that ell'ected by a similar saving
on the Irish ."> ])er cents., was no less tluui
£l,2;io,uiiii a year — a very greatsum, and whieh
atfoids the cieaiest proof of the justice of the
observations made in a former work,* as to tlio
impolicy of the system which Mr. Pitt so long
pui-sued, of borrowing the greater part of the
public debt in the 3 instead of the 5 per cents. ;
for if tlic whole debt had been bor- , „
rowed in the latter form, the redue- it>22 127,
tion effected in the annual interest this 129; Pari,
year would not have been £1,200,000, P^p'^V-'q
but above £0,000,000 sterling.! ' ''^•
The next great financial measure of the ses-
sion, upon which a more doubtful 147.
meed of praise must be bestowed. Equalization
was that, as it was eommoidv call- °l^^^'[, ^'^^'J
1 r ii 1- i- !â– ii ri J Weifint, and
ed, lor the eriuahzation 01 the Dead military and
Weight. This was a measure by naval pen-
whieh the burden of the naval and sions.
military pensions, most justly bestowed upon
our gallant defenders during the late war, was
equalized for more than a generation to come,
by being spread, at an equal amount, over the
present and the future. This burden amounted
to nearly £5,000,000 a year; and although, as
the annuitants expired, its amount would di-
minish, and at the end of forty or fifty years
would be a mere trifle, yet that prospect proved
but a poor resource to the present necessities
of a needy Chancellor of the Exchequer. In
these circumstances, when the difficulties of
Government to make head against present ex-
igencies were so great, the expedient was
thought of, of granting a fixed annuity, for
fortj'-five years certain, to parliamentary com-
missioners, who, in consideration of that, were
to tmdertake the burden of the varying existing
annuities. The effect of this, of course, was to
diminish in a great degree the burden 2 An. Reg.
in the outset, and proportionally aug- 1822, 128,
ment it in the end.^ '^'^•
Government in the first instance received
£4,900,000 from the commissioners, j4g
and paid out only £2,800,000, thereby Details of
effecting a present saving of £2,100,- the meas-
000. But this w^as gained by author- '"^^'
izing the commissioners to sell as much of the
fixed sum of £2,800,000 a year, which was di-
rected to be paid to them out of the Consolida-
ted Fund, as might be necessary to enable them
to meet the excess of present payments over the
income received ; and of course it had the effect
of rendering the dead weight as much heavier
than it otherwise would have been at the close
of the period, as it had been lightened at its
commencement. This project received the sanc-
tion of both branches of the legislature, as did
a supplementary measure throwing the burden
of superannuate'd allowances on the holders of
offices under Government, by stopping off their
salaries a sum adequate to insuring for its
amount, which effected a saving of £370,000 a
year. These two measures effected a reduction
of present expenses to the amount of nearly
£2,500,000 a year, but. like the reduction of
* Vide History of Europe, chap. xli. * 62. The differ-
ence of the interest paid in the 3 and the 5 per cents., sel-
dom exceeded a quarter per cent. — Ibid. chap. xli. I) 64,
note.
1S22.]
HISTORY OF EUROPE.
369
the 5 pai' "cnts,, by increasing the burden of
the nation in future times; for the first, at this
moment, W adding above £1,500,000 to the an-
1 An. Reg. nual charges of the nation above what
1822, 130, it otherwise would have been, and
140; Pari, ^jjg jjjg); jj^g added seven millions by
Deb. VI. ,, _ , , . i ii •'
754 783 ^he o per cent, bonus given to the
*ii. 739, holders of stock to the amount of the
'^^- national debt.'
Amidei so many measures which attracted
149 general attention, and had become
Impona:it indispensable, from the necessitous
Bmall Notes state of the public exchequer, one
'^"'- of the greatest importance was qui-
etly introduced into the legislature. Ministers
had not the manliness to confess they had been
wrong in the course they had adopted in regard
to the bill compelling cash payments in 1819,
or perhaps tiiey were aware that the influence
of the moneyed interest in the House of Commons
was too strong to render it possible for them
openly and avowedly to recede from that sys-
tem. But they did so almost secretly, perhaps
unconsciously, in the most effective way. Lord
Londonderry alone had the sagacity to perceive,
and the courage to avow, t!ie real nature of the
measure introduced, and the evils it was in-
tended to obviate. "He did not treat it," said
Sir James Graham, a statesman subsequently
well known, " as a question of fluctuation of
prices, of want of means of consumption, or of
2 Sir James superabundant harvests. The noble
Graham on marquis (Londonderry) said plainly
June 3, and directly, 'This is a question of
Dei)'- and currency: the currency of the coun-
Tooke On tri/ is too contracted for its wants,
Prices, ii. and our business is to apply a rem-
'^'' l^S- edy: "2
The remedy applied was most effectual, and
150. entirely successful, so far as the evils
Its pro- meant to be remedied were concerned,
visions. i3y thg ^ct of igi9 it iiaJ been pro-
vided that the issuing of small notes by the
Bank of England or country banks should
cease on 1st May, 1823, and it was the neces-
sity of providing against this contingency
which was one great cause of the contraction
of the currency. On 2d July, however, Loi-d
Londonderry introduced a bill permitting the
issue of £1 notes to continue for ten years lon-
England a legal tender every where except
at tlic I5ank of England. This, coupled witli
the grant of £4,000,000 Exchequer bills, which
Government were authorized to issue in aid of
the agricultui-al interest, had a surprising effect
in restoring confidence and raising prices; and
by doing so, it repealed, so long as it continued
in operation, the most injurious parts of the
Act of 1819. It will appear in a subsequent
chapter how vast was the effect of this meas-
ure, what a flood of temporary prosperity it
spread over the country, and in what a dismal
catastrophe, from the necessity of paying all
the notes at the Bank itself in gold, it ulti-
mately terminated. Yet so ignorant were the
legislature of the effects of this vital measure,
and 60 little attention did it excite, that tlus
second reading of it was carried in a house of
forty-seven members oidy in the Commons;
and while so many hundred pages of Hansard
are on.cupied with debates on reduction of ex-
Voi . f —A A
penditure and similar topics, which at the ut-
most could only save the nation a few hundred
thousands a year, this measure, which restored
at least eighty millions a year to the remunera-
tion of industry in the country, does , p^^.] p^j,
not in all occupy two pages, and can vii. 1458,
only be discovered by the most care- 1602 ; Stat.
ful examination in our parliamentary ^ ^S^' '
proceedings.'
Si.x ver3- important acts were passed this ses-
sion of Parliament at the instance
of Mr. Wallace, the President of the six acts re-
Board of Trade, for removing the lating to
shackles which fettered the trade cominereo
and navigation of the country, and anon'i^'t'*-
improving their facilities. These acts
opened a new era in our commercial legislation
— the era of unrestricted competition and free
trade in shipping. As such they are highly
deserving of attention; but their provisions
will come with more propriety to be considered
in a subsequent chapter, when taken in con-
nection with the PiEcii'itociTV System in mari-
time affairs, then introduced by Mr. Iluskisson.
At present, it is sufficient to observe the date
of the commencement of the new system being
the same with that of so many other changes
in our social system and commercial policy,
and when the general cheapening of articles
of all sorts had rendered a general reduction
of all the charges, entering how re- 2 An. Reg.
motely soever into their composition, 1822, 123,
a matter of absolute necessity.* 127.
Parliament rose on the 6th August, and the
king proceeded shortly after on a .„
visit to Edinburgh, which he had Visit of the
never yet seen. He embarked with king to
a splendid court at Greenwich on Eilinburgh.
board the Royal George yacht on "°'
the 10th August, and arrived in Leith Roads
in the afternoon of the 15th. No sovereign
had landed there since Queen Mary arrived
nearly three hundred 3'ears before. The pre-
parations for his Majesty's reception, under the
direction of Sir Walter Scott, were of the most
magnificent description, and the loyal spirit of
the inhabitants of Scotland rendered it inter-
esting in the highest degree. The heart-burn-
ings and divisions of recent times were forgot-
ten ; the Queen's trial was no more tliought of;
the Radicals were silent. The ancient and in-
extinguishable loyalty of the Scotch broke
forlii with unexampled ardor; the devoted
attachment they had shown to the Stuarts ap-
peared, but it was now transferred to the reign-
ing family. The clans fiom all jiarts of the
Highlands appeared in their pictui-esque and
V!iri(Mj costumes, with their cliieflains at their
head; the cjigle's feather, their well-known
badge, was seen surmounting many plumes;
two hundred thousand strangers from , _
all parts of the country crowded the 1^22 X'df''
streets of iMlinburgh, and forsi l)ricf I8(i; iN-r-
period gave it tlu! appeanince of a sonal ob-
1 ri. i 1-3 sorvution.
K])l('ndid metropolis.^
The entry of the Sovereign into the ancient
city of his ancestors was extremely J53
striking. The heights of the (_'al- Tarticulnrs
ton Hill, and the cliffs of Salisbury of the royal
Crags, which overhang the city, ^"" '
were lined with cannon, and ornamented with
stiuidarils; a:id fi-oni tlie-e battei'ies, as well as
s:o
11 isTo u V OF Knioi'i:.
[CllAI-. X.
llio iruns (if tlio Cnstlo. niwl tiie slii[>s in the
roiuls. niul Loith Fort, ii n>yal salute was lirid
as the monarcli t«nu'lioil tin- shore. The j^ro-
cession passed tlirougli an imuimerable crowd
(.•t' sjH'ctators, wlio loudly niul oiithusiasticallj^
cheered, up Leith Walk, and by York I'hiee,
St. Andrew Square, and Waterloo I'laoe, to
llolyrood House, where a Iovl'c and drawintf-
room were held a few days after. On the night
followinir, the city was illuminated, and the
puns of the Castle, firing at ten at night, rcal-
i.;ed the sublimity witlunit the terrors of actual
warfare. At a magnificent banquet given to
the Sovereign by the magistrates of Edinburgh
in the rarliament House, at •which the Lord
Provost acted as chairman, and Sir Walter
Scott as vice-cbairman, the former was made
a baronet, with that grace of manner and fe-
licity of expression for which the King was
so justlj- celebrated. A review on Portobello
Sands exhibited the gratifying spectacle of 3000
yeomanry cavalry, collected from all the south-
ern counties of Scotland, marching in proces-
sion before their Sovereign. Finally, the King,
who during bis residence in Scotland bad been
magnificently entertained at Dalkeith Palace,
the seat of the Duke of Buccleueb, embarked
on the 27tli at Hopetoun House, tbe beautiful
residence of the Earls of Hopetoun, -where he
conferred the honor of knighthood on Henry
llaeburn, the celebrated Scottish artist, and
arrived in safety in the Thames on the 30th,
, . T> charmed with the reception he had
1 An Rc*^ •
]t^22 1:9" niet with, and having left on all an
]bO; Per- indelible impression of the mingled
sonal ob- dignity and erace of his manners, and
servation. j. P- -.•' r 1 • ■1
felicity of his expressions.'
His return was accelerated by a tragical
event, which deprived England of
Death of o^^ of her greatest statesmen, and
Lord Lon- the intelligence of which arrived
donderry. amidst these scenes of festivity^ and
"=â– â– rejoicing. Lord Londonderr}-, upon
whose shoulders, since the retirement of Lord
Sidmouth, the principal weight of government,
as well as the entire labor of the lead in the
House of Commons, had fallen, had suffered
severely from the fatigues of the preceding
session, and shortly after exhibited symptoms
of mental aberration. He was visite
sequence by his physician, Dr. Bankhead, at
his mansion at North Cray in Kent, by whom
he was cupped. Some relief was experienced
from this, but he continued in bed, and the men-
tal disorder was unabated. It was no wonder
it was so: Romilly and Whitbread had, in like
manner, fallen victims to similar pressure on the
brain, arising from political etibrt. On the
morning of the 12th August, Dr. Bankhead,
who slept in the house, being summoned to at-
t.;nd his lordship in his dressing-room, entered
just in time to save him from falling. He said,
" Bankhead, let me fall on your arms — 'tis all
over," and instantly expired. He had cut his
throat with a penknife. The coroner's inquest
brought in a verdict of insanity'. His remains
were interred on the 20th In Westminster
Abbey, Vjetween the graves of Pitt and Fox.
The most decisive testimony to liis merits was
borne by some savage miscreants, who raised
a horrid shout as the body was borne from the
hearse to its last resting-place in the venerable
]iile; a shout which, to the disgrace of ]MlgF^h
literature, lias since been re-echoed
by some wlK)se talents might have i(iy!j"|j,i)'^'''
led them to a more generous appre- ib2;'Mar'ii-
ciationof a political antagonist, and nt'aii, 1.287;
tlieir sex to a milder view of the most ^[ja*^'"-'^' ^'•
fearful of human infirmities.'*
Ciiateaubriand has said, that while all otlier
contemporary reputations are declin- 155.
ing, that of Mr. Pitt is hourly on the Ilischarac-
increase. The same is ecpially true of "■''•
Lord Londonderry ; the same ever has, and
ever will be, true of the first and greatest of
the human race. Their fame with posterity is
founded on the very circumstances which, with
the majority of their contemporaries, constitu-
ted their unpopularity ; they are revered, be-
cause they had wisdom to discern the ruinous
tendencj^ of the passions with which they were
surrounded, and courage to resist them. The
reputation of the demagogue is brilliant, but
fleeting, like the meteor which shoots athwart