annuitants, had it thus in their power to retain their relative sta tions, with respect to each other. The value of the circulating medium was indeed sunk; but men in the different orders of society become very little richer or poorer than they were before the commencement of the French revolution.

Buonaparte's continental system, however, was introduced for the express purpose of ruining British commerce, and of course British wealth and British power; and could it have been carried completely into effect, it would, unquestionably, have rendered it impossible for this nation to have continued much longer her efforts for the liberation of Europe, Even the check which it actually gave to our commerce, alarmed all orders of men among us. Bankruptcies, to a great extent, occasionally. occurred among our manufacturers; many of them were thrown out of employment, and reduced from affluence to extreme penury; the demands made by them for the various productions of the soil become less extravagant; and the farmers began to feel that they should not long be able to pay for their lands the rents which they had promised, unless the commerce of the country were restored to its utmost freedom, and the manufacturers enabled to display their wonted extravagance. The ty rant and his system have been overturned; but he must be very short sighted, who expects our commerce to reach, during a period of profound peace, the extent to which it arrived during the late war, before that system was thought of. Those nations which were not permitted to purchase our manufactures during the latter part of the tyrant's reign, were under the necessity of carrying on the same kind of manufactures for themselves; and though their goods may not, for some years, rival our's in excellence, the inferior money-price at which they can be purchased, will reconcile the people of the continent to the use of them; and practice will improve the skill of foreign manufac-. turers, as it has improved that of the British.

All this every man must have foreseen as the necessary consequences of a general peace; but all orders seem to imagine that if the war-taxes were taken off, these consequences might be averted. The farmer vainly hopes that he may be able to pay his rent, and at the same time live in that state of luxury into which he had been, in a manner, forced by the nature of the late war, were the importation of foreign corn to be prohibited; and the manufacturer hopes, with as little reason, that he would still be able to engross the foreign market, were the war-taxes in the customs and excise, and above all, the property-tax to be discontinued. With the importation of foreign corn we have at present nothing to do; though it is obvious that were it to be absolutely prohibited, the consequence would be such to

Our

our commerce with foreign parts, as no diminution of taxes could compensate; and that such a' prohibition, though favourable perhaps, for a year or two, to the farmer, would soon involve him and all other orders of men in one common ruin.

It is the object of this pamphlet to prove, that the whole of the war-taxes cannot be discontinued without soon involving the nation in bankruptcy; and that of those taxes, that which is called the property tax, can be continued for some years with the least inconvenience to the people at large, and with the greatest advantage to the exchequer. Having proved that the interest of the public debt, including the annual parliamentary grant of 1,200,000, is very little short of forty-three millions a year, and that this immense sum as well as the necessary expenditure of government must be provided for, the author introduces the people, to whom the tract is addressed, as exclaiming; "Are we not then to get rid of the war-taxes at the end of the war and is that most oppressive of all burdens, the property-tax to be continued, by a renewed act of parliament ?" To this he replies,

"Before any attempt can be made to answer these questions, have the goodness to attend to the following facts.

£. 63,461,864

"The amount of the revenue, arising from taxes of all descriptionss for the year ending 10th October, 1814, was Of which the proportion of war-taxes was

And the permanent taxes, of course, were

Now it was stated above, that the expence of the pub.
lic debt, including the Sinking Fund, was nearly
forty-three milions, say
The permanent taxes are only

Leaving a deficiency of

23,475,405

£. 39,986,459

£. 42,850,000 39,986,459

£. 2,863,541

"From this statement it appears, that if we deduct the war◄ taxes from the gross revenue of 181,-the largest that ever was received into the Exchequer of Great Britain,-the remainder will not defray the expence of the National Debt, and at the same time keep up the Sinking Fund." P. 8.

Whilst nothing will remain to defray the expences of a peace

establishment.

The author then inquires what would be the consequence, was the Property tax to be immediately taken off, and that portion of the war-taxes, which is raised in the customs and excise to be continued. After observing that it will be absolutely necessary to grant every facility to the British merchant to enable him to maintain his ground in any degree against so many rivals as he must now have in the commercial world, he proceeds thus

"Let

"Let us suppose, however, for the sake of argument, that the war-taxes in the Customs and Excise are both to be continued, and we shall have, in addition to the permanent taxes, which

"Thus we have only £. 6,422,727 for all the purposes of a peace establishment, even upon the supposition that the war-taxes in the Customs and Excise shall be continued. But they cannot be continued without hampering trade, and throwing obstacles in the way of commercial enterprise; on which account, the revenue, to meet our peace establishment, will not exceed three millions." P. 9.

What then is to be done? It is manifest to every one that the affairs of this country could not go on in such circumstances?

"There are," continues the author, "but three plans which naturally present themselves on this occasion, and which we shall consider in their order. The first is, to discontinue the Sinking Fund, and to apply its produce to meet the demands of the peace establishment: the second is, to impose new taxes, or to increase those already in existence, so as to raise fourteen or fifteen millions per annum and the third and simplest is, to renew the PropertyTax Bill a certain number of years." P. 11.

The author traces the effects which must be produced by each of these plans, and with respect to the first, he proves completely, that the abandonment of the sinking fund would be productive of ruin and degradation the most certain and inevitable to this mighty empire. It would likewise be fraught with ruin as certain to all those individuals who have their money in the funds; for what would be the value of stock which was certainly never to be paid, and on which the dividends could be paid no longer than till the breaking out of the first formidable war? This question deserves the most deliberate consideration of those, who, as our author observes, "love to declaim at popular meetings on the subject of finances, and to dictate resolutions for the instruction of parliament."

He then proceeds to the second head of his inquiry, and provesthat, in the present state of the world, a British financier has no field for his operations but in the assessed taxes alone,-shewing at the same time, that the complete failure of Mr. Pitt's plan for raising, on the assessed taxes, the whole supplies within the year is sufficient evidence that nothing effectual can be done on

that

that field. But were the case otherwise, it is here demonstrated that the principle on which the assessed taxes are imposed is extremely fallacious, and that the taxes themselves are, of course, partial, and often oppressive, because they frequently fall most heavily on those who are least able to pay them. The houses, for instance, of persons with families are less frequently the standard or measure of the wealth of such persons, than the indication and cause of their poverty; whilst bachelors, and rich individuals, of both sexes, have no occasion for large houses, and therefore could not on this principle be compelled to contribute so much to the support of Government as those who can, with difficulty, support themselves.

"Now, we have no hesitation in asserting, that such a mode of raising a sum of money equal to the produce of the Property-tax, would, wherever it could apply, be found much more oppressive than the latter; while it would, at the same time, most essentially injure several very important branches of trade, and impede the furtherance of national industry. To illustrate this view of the subject, let us examine the operation of the said tax upon incomes of £. 2000, £. 200, and £. 60 a-year; and in order to introduce the various articles which were comprehended in its provisions, we shall suppose, in the three instances, that there is a family maintained upon the income, in a style suited to the circumstances in which they are placed.

"The first is a country gentleman who lives upon his estate, keeps his carriage, a couple of male servants, four horses and as many dogs-no very extravagant establishment certainly ;-but let us see the amount of his assessed taxes according to the scale of 1797.

Now, upon £. 2000 per annum the Property-
Tax is

And Assessed taxes, as at present,

"From which it appears that the country gentleman would pay . 82: 6: 8 more, upon Mr. Pitt's scheme of assessed taxes, than upon a Property-tax of ten per cent.

"Let us now examine the comparative effects of the two modes of assessments upon the income of £. 200 a-year.

"In this case the Property-tax is the greater of the two by a dif ference between the present Assessed taxes, and excess above income,

£.8 5 1

4 15 3

£. 0 15 0

"We shall suppose, in the third place, that the person of £. 60 ahas a house of £. 10 rent, of which the duty is And that it has seven windows,

year

To this sum add

The amount of Assessed taxes according to Mr. Pitt's scheme,

The property-tax on £, 60 is

0 18 0

“So that in this third case, as well as in the first, the Property-. tax is less burdensome than the plan which was adopted in 1797.

"But the greatest objection to the tax contrived by Mr. Pitt is, that it comes most heavily upon those who are least able to pay it; that is, upon people with families, whose houses are less frequently the standard or measure of their income, than the indication and cause of their poverty; while, on the other hand, bachelors, minors, and rich individuals, of both sexes and all ages, who are ablest to pay, would contribute little or nothing to the wants of the Government. In fact, a house regarded as the criterion of wealth can at best afford but a distant approximation, even in cases where houses are occupied; and it does not apply at all to that large portion of the population who share the houses of others. Almost

the