years 1799 and 1803 respectively, the year 1798 is erroneously given instead of 1799.-In speaking of the annual expenses of the national debt, I have almost uniformly called it "interest of the debt." I should have termed it, "charge on account of debt," because the sum I was speaking of included the allowances to the bankers and others for management, and also several other items not properly denominated interest. This misnomer could, indeed, make no difference at all as to the object or effect of the statement; but, in a subject of such vast importance, one cannot be too careful in the application of terms.After having shown, that, during the last war, though the charge on account of the debt was doubled, the export trade was also doubled, I make the following remark: "here the proportion is kept up, and, if it were still kept up, there would, perhaps, be little cause for alarm." As this may, possibly, be construed into a declaration of an opinion, that, so long as the trade increases in proportion to the augmentation of the charge on account of debt, that charge may, with safety to the country, be augmented to any degree, I think it necessary to state, that I entertain no such opinion; and, that, in the passage above quoted, "little cause for alarm," I meant alarm with respect to our ability, during the present war, to defray the charges of the debt and to support our other necessary expenses, never intending to let drop any expression from which it might be concluded, that I did not regard the increase of the charge on account of debt, under whatever circumstances of increased trade and revenue, as an evil of a most alarming nature, and one, too, which, if not speedily put a stop to, the monarchy must fall a sacrifice........I now proceed to my additions.

FIRST: As to the present produce of the war-taxes. Since the preceding Register was published, there has been laid before Parliament an account of the nett produce of those taxes from the commencement of their collection, on the 5th of July last, to the 5th of this present month of April, embracing exactly three quarters of a year, and showing the quarterly produce, thus :

The Quarter ended 10th October

...£631,705 18 93

The remark that first presses forward here, is, that we have not even yet obtained, from this source, the 4,500,000l. which we ought to have had on the 5th of January. When, on the 21st of March, the Doctor, in answer to a question from Lord Folkestone, asserted, that he meant the war-taxes to produce 4,500,000l. in the first year ending on the 5th of April, and not on the 5th of January, who would not have imagined, that, by the 5th of April, he would have taken care to bring forward a produce to that amount? Who would have thought, that, after having excited too much curiosity on the subject, he would not have been provided for a satisfactory result? Could those who contemned his judgment the most, those who were the most anxious to see him exposed to new shame; could even such persons have hoped, that he would in the latter end of April come lagging out with an account, showing that the war-taxes, those taxes which were to have produced 4,500,000l. in January, had, in three months afterwards, produced only 3,700,0001. ?. The account here referred to shows the amount of the produce of each tax in each quarter. It will be perceived, that the last quarter has been,

as, indeed, it must have been, the most productive; but, it does, nevertheless, appear, that some of the taxes, some of even these war-taxes, have not only reached their utmost stretch, but are already upon the decline. The war-taxes upon Goods and Shipping, for instance, yielded 377,7381. during the quarter which ended on the 5th of January, whereas, during the quarter which ended on the 5th of April, those taxes yielded no more than 258,9761. The war-tax on Tea discovers similar symptoms of decline. During the quarter ending in January, it produced 309,6221., but, during the April quarter, it produced only 266,1611. It must, indeed, be allowed, that this falling-off in the tax upon goods and shipping may be, in part at least, owing to the circumstance of the winter quarter being unfavourable to the making of shipments; yet, some part of the decrease must be attributed to a general decline in the export trade. As to Tea, I am less acquainted with the causes that are likely to operate upon a tax thereon imposed; but, as I find it yielding, even in the first quarter, 215,8137. and, as I see it fall off considerably in the third, I must attribute the falling-off to a decrease in the quantity sold and used; and, indeed, this falling-off was explicitly predicted by an intelligent and sensible correspondent, whose letter will be found in the Register of the 4th of February last, vol. v. p. 135, and the passage I particularly allude to in p. 441. It must be observed, too, that there was a tax upon Tea before; a permanent tax; and, that this tax, as well as the war-tax, is now collected. It will, therefore, not be at all surprising, if, before the present year has expired, the prediction of my correspondent should be verified in all its parts, and that both taxes together should not produce so much as was before produced by the old tax alone. -Another view of these war-taxes is this: the Doctor estimated their nett produce at 12,500,000l. annually. Let us try this estimate by the nett produce of the quarter which has just been completed, and into which, we may be assured, every attainable shilling was brought. That quarter produced 1,866,6471., which, multiplied by 4, amounts to 7,466,5881., the produce of a year of those taxes, which were said to be taken, by way of" superabundant precaution," at 12,500,000l. In the statement to which I am making these additions, I ventured, before I was in possession of the account now before me, to predict, that the present war-taxes would not yield more than 6,250,000l. annually, if all the old taxes remained unrepealed, and all kept up to their produce of 1803. the whole year of war-taxes produced 6,250,000l., the first quarter would have produced only 1,562,000l., and, we see that it has produced 1,866,000l.; but, has there been no falling-off in the old, or permanent taxes? Have these taxes kept up to their produce of 1803 ?

If

SECOND: To the foregoing questions a complete answer is found in a comparison between the nett produce of the old or permanent taxes, during the quarter which ended on the 5th of April last year, and the nett produce of the same taxes during the quarter which ended on the 5th of April this year.*

Nett produce of permanent taxes in the quarter ended

5th April, 1803.....

Same taxes quarter ended 5th April, 1804

£6,261,000

5,916,000

£345,000

This statement is taken from an account now before the House of Commons,

dated 17th of this present month of April.

Here we see, that, while the war-taxes have, in the last quarter, yielded 304,000l. beyond the fourth part of 6,500,000l., the old taxes have fallen short of their last year's produce, in the corresponding quarter, to the amount of 345,000l. So that my prediction of last week will, I think, appear to have been by no means hazardous; and, I also think, that it will not require much exertion to satisfy any reasonable person, that with our present trade, the sources of taxation are nearly exhausted, a position which, at every step in our examination of the grounds on which it rests, will appear less and less doubtful. The whole of the taxes of last year, though embracing only 1,800,000l. of the war-taxes, yielded 32,585,4191. 17s. 04d.; and, if we suppose, that the whole of the taxes will this year produce, in each quarter, as much and no more than they have produced in the first quarter, to wit, 7,783,3491. 17s. 01d., then the whole produce of this year will fall more than a million short of the produce of last year. But, a more conspicuous mode of statement is this: LAST YEAR the taxes, exclusive of war-taxes, produced 30,700,000l.; THIS YEAR, including wartaxes, the produce, if every quarter is like the first quarter, will be 31,100,000l. So that, by imposing war-taxes to the amount of 12,500,000l., the Doctor adds me 400,000l. to the revenue!!! And this is to "convince the enemy that it is hopeless for him to contend with our pecuniary resources!" This is to " convince the other powers of Europe that they may safely join us in a common cause, for, that the "resources of this country are such as to give full security for the punc"tual discharge of any engagement it may enter into !" This is to "inspire confidence at home and respect abroad!”—When the Doctor uttered these words, what must he have thought? How completely ignorant he must have been of the whole matter upon which he was talking; or, how far beyond that of ordinary men must have been his contempt for the opinions of mankind! It is not till now that I have waited to point out the falsehood of his statements upon the occasion alluded tɔ. I did it immediately after those statements were made; and this fact alone is a sufficient proof of his total want of knowledge and judgment on the subject, or, of his having acted with a deliberate intention to deceive the People, the Parliament, and the King, and thereby to prolong the duration of his power and emoluments; for, to that motive alone an intentional deception can possibly be ascribed, unless we suppose him to entertain the diabolical delight of doing mischief for mischief sake, a disposition, of which, if we look at the thousands and thousands heaped upon his family, we must certainly have the justice to acquit him.

I shall be asked, perhaps, what is the use of exposing these evils and dangers, unless I can point out a remedy? I do not know, that a remedy can be pointed out; but, that is no reason that I should not expose the evil, nor that I should refrain from calling for justice on the heads of those, through whose means that evil has come upon us. Besides, to begin the cure we must get rid of the cause of our malady; that cause is the Doctor in his hands we have been brought to death's door; and few persons, I hope, will be so unjust as to deny, that I have used my utmost endeavours to remove that cause: few persons, I trust, however they may be prejudiced against me, will regard it as my fault that the country is still subjected to this degrading curse. I repeat, that I do not know that any remedy can be found for the financial evils which the Doctor has brought upon us; but, am I for that reason to abstain from exposing those evils? When a thief has taken a purse and spent it, there is, as to the loss, no remedy; but, is that a reason why the robbery

should not be exposed and the thief punished? This cry for a remedy has stood the Ministers in great stead. If you do not like what we "have done, or are about to do, why do you not point out something "better in place of it? Why do you complain of evils unless you are "provided with a remedy?" This, in substance, they have said, in Parliament, fifty times, during the present session and the last, and, in two or three instances, they have been supported therein by Mr. Sheridan. That the " men taken from the middling classes of society" should hold such language is natural enough: it comports with their vulgar and grovelling notions, according to which the affairs of a state are reduced to a level with those of a shop; but, for a man like Mr. Sheridan to give into the same strain is scandalous in the extreme.--If there be any remedy for the decline in the revenue, it must be to produce an increase in the quantity of the objects of taxation; for, as to augmenting the rate of the taxes, experience has proved that to be worse than useless. An increase in the quantity of the objects of taxation is to be effected only by an increase of trade; and, an increase of trade is to be effected only by a recovery of our influence in those countries of Europe, with which we formerly carried on an uninterrupted commerce, but which are now under the control of France. We were told, at the time of making the peace, that, in spite of all the restraints which France might, in these unhappy countries, impose upon our trade, that trade would still keep on increasing; that our goods were become necessaries on the Continent, and that they would find their way maugre the malice of our enemies. This was the doctrine of those "prudent young men," those " solid young lords," those wise, those "safe politicians," Lords Hawkesbury and Castlereagh. My answer was: "Yes, in spite of all France can do, the nations of Europe must, for some time at least, receive our manufactures; but, "every obstacle thrown in their way will surely enhance their price to the consumer, which will as surely diminish the quantity consumed."* And, who will now deny, that the decline in our trade is to be ascribed, in great part, if not almost entirely, to this cause? To a loss of that influence which we formerly possessed on the continent of Europe, and particularly in those countries with which we traded? Whether this influence could now be recovered by any ministry, is a question that I am not prepared to answer; but, that it never can be recovered by the Doctor and his colleagues, is, I presume, a position that no one but a Treasury hireling will dispute. WM. COBBETT.

April 24, 1804.

STATE OF PARTIES.

COALITION. This is the watch-word of the Ministers: every thing they attempt to say, either by way of attack or defence, begins and ends with this word. Their clamour is so monotonous, so strongly descriptive of despair, and has so regularly increased, both in frequency and loudness, with the increase of their difficulties, that it always calls to my recollection the cries of the American frogs, in that season when the sun is imbibing the water from the ponds. At first you hear only now and then a solitary

* Letters on the Preliminaries of Peace, published in December, 1801, p. 240.

voice of complaint; but, as the diminution in the vital element becomes more and more visible, the cries increase in number and vehemence; till, at last, when these sons of spawn, these safe politicians of the meadow, clearly perceive their approaching fate, their dissonance grows so loud and so dismal, that the neighbouring cottagers collect together, and, with one united effort, put an end, at once, to their clamour and their lives. -Far be it from me to justify any act whatever by pleading the example of the present Ministers; but, when those Ministers are exclaiming against a coalition, or co-operation, between persons who have heretofore differed widely in opinion, it is certainly allowable to inquire how they themselves stand in that respect. On the ministerial bench sits the Doctor, with Mr. Tierney on one side of him and Lord Castlereagh on the other, the former a constant opposer of the late war with France and the latter a constant supporter of it; the former a constant opposer of the strong measures relative to Ireland and the latter the constant defender, if not the projector, of those measures. When he has reconciled these conflicting elements, then the Doctor has to tell us, how he himself can unite with Lord Castlereagh, who was the chief instrument in the affair of Catholic emancipation, and who now is acting in the same Ministry with him, the Doctor, who has declared, that he holds his house at the Treasury solely upon the condition of inflexible resistance to the claims of the Catholics! And, how do Mr. Yorke and Mr. Hobhouse come to go on so harmoniously together? And Colonel Maitland, too, who steadily opposed the war with France, until he deserted the ranks of Mr. Fox, in order to take a share in conducting that war, with what advantage to the nation let the reader learn from the history of the Saint Domingo campaigns. And, these are the men who have the confidence to stigmatize as an unprincipled coalition, that co-operation subsisting between Mr. Pitt, Mr. Fox, Lord Grenville, and Mr. Windham, who are now not to agree, because they once disagreed; who are not to coalesce for the purpose of inquiring into the state of the national defence, because they disagreed respecting the French revolution! A coalition is neither more nor less than a joining together, and, in parties, it means a co-operation, an acting together as one party, and, if you will, with a view of becoming a ministry. There are no proofs, that, between the great men just mentioned, such a coalition has taken place: and, I am disposed to believe, that their co-operation has, at present, no other object in view, than that of convincing his Majesty, that his servants do not possess the confidence of the Parliament and the country, and, thereby, to effect the removal of those servants, an object, at all times, strictly constitutional, and, at this moment, peculiarly laudable. Therefore, whatever may have been, or may yet be, the difference in their general political principles and views, or in their particular opinions as to the measures now pursued, or to be pursued, that difference has nothing to do with the immediate object now in pursuit; for, though their joining together in a cabinet might be impossible, that does not prevent them from agreeing as to the utter inefficiency of the present cabinet. Though we were to grant it to be impossible for Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox amicably to share together the powers of the state, does it follow thence, that each of them would not rather see the other minister than to see the place of minister filled by the Doctor?

-Coalition, unless inconsistency accompany it, can never be regarded as a ground of complaint against any set of public men, be they who they may; and, there can be no inconsistency in Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox now