ful discharge of the great trust reposed in | foundation for the argument which I was them. Disappointed of this hope, and finding on the contrary that a minister filling many great and lucrative offices, high in the confidence of his Sovereign, one of the foremost in this pretended efforts to reform abases, has been at length himself detected in conniving for a series of years at the foulest peculation: the petitioners now approach the House with their claims to protection and justice; and they trust, therefore, that in prosecuting the inquiries necessary for these ends, the House will proceed in that spirit of firmness and integrity which dietated the resolutions of the 8th and 10th of April and that they will not trust this great cause out of their own hands, nor again suffer themselves to be deceived by the plausible promises of men who openly violate the laws of the legislature, and hold in defiance and contempt the wholesome guards they enact against the possible malversations of office; and that the petitioners also trust that the example of the past will act upon the House as a warning for the future; that they will see and acknowledge the just value of those principles on which our ancestors establised the power and authority of the House of Commons; that the House will feel their office to be that of control over the servants of the Crown; and that jealousy and vigilance instead of confidence and compliance, are their true and distinguishing characteristics; to this system the petitioners tumbly hope that the House will direct their immediate and unvarying attention, as the system by which the country may best be defended, and as the only one under which the constitution can be safe. :.. SUMMARY OF POLITICS, STIPENDIARY CURATES.In the preceding sheet, p..788, et seq. some graninatical errors were made, in an article upon this subject. A few lines from the beginning there occur an instance or two of tautology, and in p. 791, the word "you" is inserted by mistake after the words, “I al"lude to?! But, what. I am most desirous of correcting is, a part of my statement which a correspondent has noticed as containing an historical inaccuracy. I allude to the description, which, in p. 789, is given of the origin of church property. As a description of the origin of the whole of the property of the church, it certainly is inaccurate, or, at least, defective; but, the reader must have perceived, that my wish was, for perspicuity as well as for brevity's sake, to avoid a complicated picture, and yet to select such a single object as should afford a fair and firm endeavouring to construct.- -Since the aforementioned article, was written, a passage in Sir William Scott's speech of the 7th of April, 1802, has occurred to me. The whole of the speech (it was upon the non-residence bill) will be found in the Register, Vol. I. p. 1002; and, the passage I particularly allude to, describing advowsons as private property, will be found in p. 1076. He tells us, that advowsons were "originally, perhaps, were "trusts;" but, that they are now become "lay fees. They are bought and sold, and are lay property, just as much as any "other tenements or hereditaments." That this is the truth there can be no doubt; and, I think, there can be as little doubt of its being a truth greatly to be deplored. For, with submission to Sir William Scott, I presame, that, in describing advowsons as being originally mere trusts, the word "perhaps" might have been omitted, without any risk either to the argument or to historical truth; and, that the buying or selling of presenta tions to church livings is a shameful abuse, and tends directly to the degredation and ruin of the church, will, I think, be denied by nobody. There may be law for it; but, it is of comparatively modern invention; and, as the rights of the church stand upon an ancient foundation; as that foundation is an excellent one, I am always sorry to see any attempt made to prop them up by modern contrivances, and, especially, when those contrivances have evidently been suggested by the very excess of abuse. When the right of presentation to a living is openly bought and sold, there is little wonder that the living itself is regarded as private property; and, there is no very great wonder, that common men should not clearly perceive the justice of their being obliged to give to the clergyman the tenth part of the produce of their land; seeing that it is hardly possible for them to conceive a reason for property really private being held in such a way. I am convinced, that it is to the prevalence of this notion of the advowsons and livings being private property, and being by the holders considered as such, that the church owes great part of that grudging and ill-will which we find to exist with respect to its claims and its clergy. Do away this notion; tell the people, and let them see by your manner of bestowing benefices and of performing the duties attached to them, that you regard the livings as things held in trust for the convenience, consolation, and salvation of the people; let the people see this; let it be visible to them in the conduct of the patron and the incumbent, and 1 am much deceived if you will not, even in a short space of time, perceive a returning attachment to the Church, at least, amongst the common people, and particularly people of no possessions in house or land, such as we may properly enough call the poor; all of whom would then perceive the church establishment to be neither more nor less than a means of securing the consolations of religious service to them, who, otherwise, would, from their poverty, be excluded therefrom. They would perceive that they had some interest in the tithes, and it would be difficult for the farmers to persuade them, as they now do, that to rob the parson is doing God service. But, if the patron, by his manner of bestowing the living, and the Jacumbent by his manner of performing, or, rather, peglecting his duty, give to the whole the appearance of a concern entirely private, we need not be surprised, that the poor join the farmers in their clamours against tithes. present appearances, prove to have been more deceived in his last calculations than a almost any other that he ever made.-It vil be remembered, that, in the Register of the 23d of February last, p. 289 to p. 309, in the course of some remarks upon the Budget, a view was taken of the decline in the Sur plus of the Consolidated Fund. The source and application of that surplus were there described. It was shown, that the surplus arose from the permanent taxes; that it consisted of whatever was left of those taxes after defraying the annual charge on account of the national debt, the civil list and the pensions and salaries granted by parliament ; and, of course, that this surplus was all, the war taxes excepted, that was left to maintain the army, the navy, the ordnance, and to defray the miscellaneous charges. I will here, for the sake of clearness, trouble the reader with a statement of the income and expenditure of the country; because, it is useless to read remarks upon a thing of which we have but a confused ides; and, from the manner in which the national accounts are kept and stated, no one who has not bestowed a considerable portion of his time upon the subject, can possibly have any other than a confused idea of what I am writing on.The whole amount of the taxes, and occasional receipts, form, of course, the income of the nation, and would, were there no national debt, be all laid out in defraying the expenses of the year; in supporting the royal family; the officers c state; the judges and courts of justice; the officers attendant on the parliament; the army, the navy, and the ordnance; but, the national debt now swallows up nearly the whole of the incoine, leaving nothing worth speaking of to maintain the army and na CONSOLIDATED FUND.-When a mounte- vy, to provide and secure the means bank has once got fast hold of the ears of defending the country and maintaining in the rabble, it must be his own fault if he honour. The people have a vast idea of lets ga of them; and so, if one may be per- the expenses of the king and his family. mitted to use the comparison, it must be of When taxes are laid upon them, they think an English minister of finance, when he has that it is a new sacrifice they are called upon once embarked the people, or, rather, their to make to royalty; and this notion t fortunes, in his system.I am aware how loan-jobbers and other dealers in funds are little effect is produced by exposures of the very anxious to encourage, in order that the errors or deceptions of the minister, upon public eye may be kept from themselves subjects of finance; but, it is, nevertheless, This race of men are, too, always the fir right to persevere; it is right, now-andto cry out against war, the moment it! then to revive such subjects, so that, when the-fects their speculations; and, they h explosion and its confusions come, the public may have it in mind, that there have been some few persons, who have not been deceived. With a view not more sanguine than this it is that I now take up the pen to show, that the first financier in the world," his flatterers call die, will, according to I will take some other opportunity of endeavouring to point out some of the principal evils which result from considering livings as private property; and, I think I shall be able to show, that, in differing very widely from Sir William Scott as to the indulgences which ought to be granted to the beneficed clergy, I am not, according to my capacity, less than he a friend of the church. I must here observe, however, that it is not to his speech, as a whole, that I object. It is a most valuable performance, and should be read and well considered by every one whose attention is turned to public affairs; for, however slightingly some persons may think of the church establishment altogether, I am persuaded, that, as the state grew up with the church, so it will fall with it, whenever it falls. frequently succeeded in persuading the per Remainder 40,038 25,364,488 26,700,533 £5,162,428 sjad erw Now, let the reader look at the figures, and he will see clearly who it is that swallows up his taxes. Not the king, not the parliament, not the judges, not the princes, uct the pensioners, who, all put together, do not take much more than a twentieth part so much as is given to the owners of the national debt to that endless swarm of contractors and jobbers, who crowd the metropolis, and to keep whom in idleness the country is drained to its extremities; its blood is sucked away even from the ends of its-fingers and its toes!But, to return now to the Consolidated Fund and its Surplas; the reader must observe, and bear in mind, that, because the interest upon the national debt is paid out of the taxes, the annual aggregate amount of the taxes, as above stated, for instance, is called, a fund, and the epithet consolidated is prefixed to it for a reason much about as good as that for which the substantive itself was adopted. However, so it is: the total annual amount of the taxes and occasional receipts, which, if cant were driven from the financial vocabulary, would be called, the national income, as I have called it above, is called the Consolidated Fund; and, the Remainder above stated, in the case of the year 1803, is called the Surplus of the Consolidated Fund. This surplus is, then, all that remains to provide for all the great purposes of national defence, of war, of negotiation, of colonial government, and of internal policy and improvement, all which, at present, cost more than forty millions a year! The deficiency must, of course, be made up in some other way; and, we see, and feel, that it is made up yearly, by taxes, called war taxes (as distinguished from the other, which are called permanent taxes), and by loans, borrowed of jews and other money-lenders; the principal of which loaus forming au addition to the constantly increasing debt of ་ the nation, and the interest upon them forming an addition to the constantly increasing -From this load of our permanent taxes. view of the matter, I think it is just possible for a man of plain sense to perceive what is meant by the surplus of the Consolidated Fund; and, in pursuit of my purpose, which is to show that the first financier in the "word" has been quite out in his calculations respecting it, I proceed to state, that this surplus, has been, for several years, upon the decline, in direct contradiction to the calculations, the estimates, and the assurances of those "two first financiers in 166 the world," Mr. Addington and Mr. Pitt. In the autumn of 1802, it was estimated at 7,845,000l. In the summer of 1803, it was perceived to have been over estimated, and it dropped down to 6,500,000l. in a sort of dog day's budget, opened before a dozen or two of wearied and drowsy spectators. Still, however, the anxious and faithful person who presided, or sat, over these matters, at that time, did, as we say, in cases somewhat similar, reckon the chickens before they were hatched; for the yield (to use a cant word of the Board of Agriculture) amounted, as we have seen above, only to 5,162,428. This grievous disappointment was a lesson of caution to Mr. Addington, who, just before he quitted the nest, as one may call it, and delivered over the eggs to his worthy successor, reckonyear ed, as part of the resources for the 1804, the sum of" only 5,000,000l." to come by way of surplus from the Consolidated Fund, which surplus, alas! amounted to just 2,200,000l. This unfortunate hatch was brought out under the wings of Mr. Pitt; and, here we arrive at the point, to which I have been endeavouring to conduct the reader in such a manner as to render the attention he shall bestow on it not altogether useless. Mr. Pitt, in his budget speech, made, on the 18th of February last, acknowledged, yes, he did frankly acknowledge, that an error in calculation had been committed by..... Mr. Addington! Having, as it would seem, exhausted himself by this effort of candour, he was unable to explain very clearly the causes whence this famous surplus should be more productive in future. What, however, was deficient in fact, and reason, he took special care to make up in assertion. He told the faithful and good-natured Commons, that the surplus of the Consolidated Fund for this present year would amount, at least to 4,000,000l. and at that sum he reckoned it in his estimate of the means to defray the expenses of the year. That he was wrong we cannot po sitively assert, till, we see the end of the year; but, having now, by an excess in the indulgent disposition of that great personage Mr. Sturges and his worthy associate Mr. Huskisson, obtained a knowledge of the "yield" for the first quarter, we may, without being thought very presumptuous, venture to guess at what will be the " yield" for the whole year. The total amount of the permanent taxes from the 5th of January to the 5th of April,* is, 6,204,1821. The sums to be added to this, to make the income of the consolidated fund for the quarter, will be very trifling. The charge upon the fund for the quarter will be about 6,261,799l. It is impossible, as yet, to state with perfect accuracy what the charge upon the fund for the last quarter will be; but, there can be no very great mistake; and, I am inclined to think that I under-state it. If so, the charge exceeds the income; and, instead of a surplus of 4,000,000l. we shall find Mr. Pitt in a deficit of 242,4641. an awkward predicament for the first financier in the world!" Though to time it must be left to decide; yet, we may even now take a fact or two to strengthen our opinion. We have not the account of the charge upon the consolidated fund for the several quarters of the year; but, we have an account of it for the quarters of 1803. The charge upon the quarter ending in April that year was 5,758,9051. The reader knows, that 40 millions of mohey have been borrowed since that time; and, of course, that more than half a million each quarter has been added to the charge on account of the debt; but, I shall, for a moment, suppose the charge not to have been augmented at all; and then, the surplus for the last quarter would be 445,2771. making, for the whole year, 1,781,1081. instead of 4,000,000l. This supposition is, however, merely for the sake of the statement; for, it is an undeniable fact, that the charge has been considerably augmented.At the time when the grand financier was making his promise of a surplus of 4,000,0001. Mr. Fox expressed great doubts upon the subject. He said, he was afraid, that we could not hereafter have any * For what, if not for the purpose of confusing, are these days taken for the national accounts? Every man that wishes to keep clear accounts takes good care to make them up to regular periods. What, in the name of common sense, is there in the 5th of January more than in the 31st of December! Why not, Ike other mortals, make up Be accounts to the end of the year? new taxes upon consumption; that the sources of taxes appeared to be impaired; that there was ground for apprehending that our taxes upon consumption had reached the limit beyond which they could not be made more productive. That this opinion was well founded, the account for the last quarter tends strongly to prove. We know, that new taxes were imposed last year, yet the amount collected, either in permanent of war taxes, will not, according to all appearances, be so great as it was last year. The four quarters of last year yielded in permsnent taxes 29,300,000l. the first quarter of this year has yielded only 6,200,000l. The four quarters of last year yielded in war taxes 11,400,000l. the first quarter in this year has yielded only 2,200,000). The first quarter of the year is, indeed, generally the least pro ductive, especially in the article of Customs; but, the difference is not so great as to war rant an expectation, that the three remaining quarters of this year will cover the defalcation, and will rise in that degree which is necessary to make the surplus amount to 4,000,000l.——In estimating the taxes we must, too, recollect that the depreciation of money is rapidly going on; and, that, though that circumstance may be viewed with a favourable eye, when considered merely as lightening the burden of a tax, we must not forget to take it into the calcaistion, when we are speaking of the amount of the taxes as an evidence of the epacity and consequent prosperity of the country.The mill of the Bank of Eng land goes merrily on; and the country banks seem heartily disposed, according to their several capacities, to follow so excellent an example. During the last 12 months, ending in February, the Bank of England notes had increased in amount from 17,900,000l. to 18,500,000l. and this is the rate at which the increase has been going on ever since the bank notes were made a legal tender. Men must be great fools indeed not to make paper money, if they can get people to take it for things of real value, vad if they can, at the same time, appeal to the law for a sanction to their proceedingsLet it be remembered, too, that the increasing of taxes, in the present way, must, if there be no draw back from non-consuruftion, create a source of taxes. For instance, we raised 1,5001. in taxes last year, and Mr. Piti obtained a grant of it from the King to the "right trusty and weil-beloved council“lor" Lord Melville, as a reward for leag and faithful services performed by the sid trusty and well-beloved” lord, who, it is well known, had been Treasurer of the 66 Navy. But, no matter what the service: Mr. Pitt, who is a very strict and 'cute person, though he gives Lord Melville 1,5001. a year, takes care to clap on me an addition of Income Tax to the amount of 751. And, who shall say, that, when Mr. Raikes was, (as the Sun newspaper tells us) reminding him of the malversations of Messrs. Dúndas and Trotter, he was not of opinion, that they ought to be suffered to pursue their course uninterrupted, seeing that to interrupt them must, in all probability, considerably diminish the amount of the tax collected upon their income? Connive, indeed! The vulgar herd may call it conniving, or just what they please; but, I am greatly mistaken if the hint I have here thrown out, properly amplified, and tolerably well set off by a nasal twang accompanied by turning up the eyes and clapping the hand to the heart, would not be more than sufficient to obtain the unanimous suffrages of The Saints. for justice's sake, let them cry! Why, they were bellowing out for the pilot but a few months ago. Many of them who never thought of kneeling before their Maker, -were crawling round the dirty rooms at the London Tavern to get at the hem of his garment. They toasted him as the greatest and honestest man in the world. I grudge them neither his greatness nor his honesty. I wish them to feel the effects of both. Did they not, with ostentation most scandalous, proclaim themselves indebted to him for existence, and dependent upon him for its continuance? Servility so loathsome was never before witnessed in the world. There was a perfect rivalship amongst them, who should become stewards, that is to say, a sort of waiters, at the festivals given in honour of him! And, this, too, observe, for the man who effaced the Lillies from the arms of England; for the man who made bank notes a legal tender; for the man who had approved of the peace with France, as a means of husbanding our resources, after having added three hundred millions to the the war. I cannot take leave of this subject entirely without begging the reader seriously to ask himself, whether he thinks, that, with our present system of finance, we can possi-national debt for the purpose of carrying on bly continue the present war for five years. Let him recollect, that we must make a loan of about 25 or 30 millions every year; that the national debt alone will cost us 40 millions a year before this day six years; and that our other expenses will cost us as much more at least. Can, then, this Pitt system 'continue? Is it possible that it can continue? What, then, will be the consequence? These are questions which every man, who thinks about public affairs, should put to himself, and should endeavour to solve. THE ENEMY'S FLEETS.In a preceding page of this sheet will be found the French official account of the proceedings of the French fleet in the West Indies. Dominica, Nevis, St. Christopher's, and Montserrat, were all invaded and laid under contribution by them, one after another; the magazines were destroyed; the troops in one case carried of prisoners of war; and all the shipping in the harbours taken or destroyed! Here's to the pilot that wea"thered the storm!" Where is this flatterer now? Where is he with his songs and his odes? Where are his birthday verses? Where his inscription for the statue? He is a man of sharp faculties; and, must he not, then, if he be not dead to all shame, must he not blush at the recollection of these marks of his servility to "the pilot?" Poor pilot! people blame him for not keeping a look-out, when I think it is pretty evident, that he is very wise to look at home.--Let them blanke; let them tremble; let thein Oh! that these slaves could but be set apart from the rest of the nation! If they could but suffer alone, what a consolation would it be to every loyal and publicspirited man! But, the castle must be de fended, if possible, though we, at the same time, defend the rats. Whether we shall be able to defend the castle is another question, and a question, too, which if the system be not soon changed, will admit of much dispute. We stand, at this moment, waiting for a blow. We are not like men fighting with other men; but, like houseless travellers listening to the thunder, and every moment expecting the bolt to fall upon us. Who would have dared to foretell; who, only three months ago, would have dared to foretell the existence of such a state of things! Every where" (says General Ernout, the French commander at Guadaloupo, in his letter to Napoleon); every where, "in these seas, is the flag of the English "humbled; all their men of war hide "themselves; their trade is annihilated, " and their merchantmen have sought secu"rity and protection in neutral ports, since 66 they did not conceive themselves safe be"hind fortifications, which surrendered as soon as they were attacked." Doubtless this is an exaggerated description; but, we know, that it is but too true; and must we not be base indeed to feel no resentment against those who have been the cause of such disgrace! Let us remember, too, where this dispatch of Enouf would find Napo |