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the difficulty of borrowing money had been greater

But this system had been for more than a century adopted, for avoiding the immediate pressure of raising the supplies within the year, and could not now be abandoned. The impo. sition of new taxes to any great mount, would have been harsh and cruel, and might have been even a dangerous expedient. The raising of the property tax to 10 per cent, (which certain financiers entertained thoughts of raising still higher) was universally complained of as most oppressive, and tyrannical. It was called by thousands, not taxation, but confiscation.

Lord Henry Petty therefore, in the ardour of genius and youth, conceived the design of relieving the nation, at least for a time, by abstraction on abstraction, by refinements and calculations, that stretched to the utmost the finest and strongest nerves of political arithmetic. War loans and supplementary loans; one percent, sinking funds on supplemen tary loans, and five per cent. sinking funds on war-loans; to raise the first year a smaller supplementary loan than in proportion to that of other years; tables to shew how much might be diverted out of the existing sinking fund; and calculations on the rise and fall of consols, on money capital of debt. and no. ainal capital....A'l this with the acknowledged uncertainty of future incidents, and the future deprecia tion of money, conveyed to minds incapable, or too inactive to follow the labyrinth of his combinations, the idea of a machinery too cumber. some and intricate, and liable to too many unforeseen accidents, to be acted upon by men of common sense, and altogether chimerical: while more

acute and patient calculators, both in and out of parliament, set themselves to shew by a variety of statements, though with what degree of ac curacy it is not here pretended to judge, that the amount of taxes necessary to be imposed under the new plan, as it was called, or of debt in. curred on account of compound in. terest, in the twentieth year from raising any particular loan, would be twice as much as under common funding, that is to say, borrowing, and raising taxes within the year for payment of the interest of the sums borrowed.

The great

Of all the plans of finance sub. mitted to the consideration of par liament, the most simple, solid, and what would have been most generally acceptable, was that of Sir James Pulteney, who declared his opinion that the accumulation of the sinking fund should stop now, that is, that the produce of this fund, during the war, should be diverted to the service of the year: which would save the trouble and expence attending the making and managing of new loans to that amount. partiality of ministers, or those who expected or wished to be ministers, for the sinking fund, was very gene. rally ascribed to the facility it ex tended, by keeping up the price of stocks, to the borrowing of money. Lord H. Petty's confession that, in his view of the matter, the great benefit of the sinking fund lay in the certainty it afforded of stock being a marketable commodity, was much commented on both in conversation and publications of the ress: in which this benefit to stock-jobbers, and ministers, ever prone to get the command of as much money as possible into their own hands, was viewed as a tax of eight or nine millions a

year

year on the people. In truth, this benefit, if it be one, was the only be nefit that accompanied the sinking fund. With regard to the nation, considered as an individual proprie. tor, or one family, this scheme of making the family at once debtor and creditor, taking from the one hand to give the other, robbing Peter to pay Paul, was merely a political sophism. It reminds us of the covetous man in Moliere; who, chagrined beyond measure at the loss of his mo ney, and not knowing whom to accuse of the theft, seizes the left hand with the right, and cries out in a paroxysm of passion, "And myself too! I will charge myself with the robbery." Public credit would never be shaken while we could pay the interest, though we should never diminish the amount of our debts. The taxes rai sed for the sinking fund, may be considered as a capital laid out at a very low interest, instead of being suffered to remain in the hands of industrious individuals, to be employed by them in agriculture, manufactures, and trade. It is, as if a landholder, or farmer, instead of improving his estate or farm, should lock up, for the benefit of his grandchildren, his guineas, crowns, and shillings, in his strongbox. Without a sinking fund, the very progress of society would alle viate the burthen of the national debt, and at last almost annihilate it.

Either the navigation, commerce, and general exertion and improve. ment of the British empire, must undergo a sudden and a sad reverse, or continue to flourish more and more: for in human affairs there is nothing absolutely stationary. In the first

case,

the sinking fund would be swept away in the general crash; public credit would dwindle also away, and almost to nothing; and the voice

of the stockholders, clamorous in vain for the regular payment of their dividends, would be drowned in one general uproar of the nation.---But such a sudden and sad reverse, even though our open trade should be shut out from the continent of Europe, with all the world to trade with be sides, is not to be apprehended. Our national prosperity may reasonably be expected, if we may judge by what has past since the termination of the American war, to increase, not in an arithmetical, but more nearly in a geometrical proportion to its pre. sent extent: in which case the future depreciation of money must be extremely rapid; so great indeed as to defy all our calculation. Here the loss, it is evident, would fall on the stock. holders. The debt of the nation would be almost annihilated, merely by a gradual decrease in the value of money. And as to the stock-holders, the depreciation in the real value of stock, that is, the necessarics it would purchase, while it continued to be transferred from hand to hand, would not be very sensibly felt by any pos

sessor.

It seems therefore to be the wisest as well as simplest political econo. my, to apply, if necessary, the whole revenue of the current year to the service of the state, rather than to oppress and overload the people by taxes that cramp productive indus try, for the purpose of raising or continuing the accumulation of a sink. ing fund.---Queen Elizabeth was wont to say, that " money was good to her, in her people's pockets as in her own."--If the people had been suffered to live as comfortably as possible, and if possible to put a little money in their pockets instead of the sinking fund, government would have lost nothing. It seems

as

to

to have been just as easy for government, in the reign of George III, to put their hands in the pockets of the prople, as in that of Queen Elizabeth. It is the yearly produce of the nationalindustry alone that can be considered as a permanent fund for defrying the expences of each year. If more be taken, by drawing bills oa posterity, and loading the present generation with the interest, the annual produce is every year suffering diminution, which is also a diminution of the sources of revenue.

The controversy about lord H. Pet. ty's plan of finance, and the nature and operation of the sinking fund in general, in 1807, bore a near resemblance to that between Mr. Necker and Mr. Calonne, in France, about twenty years previous to that period. Mr. Necker, the comptroller of the

finances, like Mr. Pitt, had provided, according to his calculations, a sinking fund. But lo instead of a sinking fund, a great deficit. Mr. Necker acknowledged that deficit, but by way of apology, gave an ac count of the various unforeseen circumstances to which it was owing. Mr. de Calonne replied that reasons why the deficit could not but exist, se ved only to prove the truth of its existence. The contingencies by which it was occasioned, ought to have been taken into that average on which the pretended sinking fund was founded.

These false appearances of sinking funds, invite popular applause and confidence at first. But they do not seem calculated to stand the touch of reason, or the test of time,

CHAP.

CHAP. VII

Bill for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, brought into the House of Pecrs by Lord Grenville.-Motion for appointing a Day for the second Reading of the Bill. Communications on this Subject between His Majesty and Foreign Powers.-Second Reading of the Bill. Speakers in favour of the Bill-and Speakers against it.Religious and Moral Plan for the gradual Abolition of Slavery, by Lord Sidmouth. New Clauses introduced into the Bill.- The Bishop of London's Lamentation respecting the Paucity of Churches and Ecclesiastics in our West-India Islands.---Emphatic Declaration against the Bill, by the Earl of St. Vincent. The Bill passed in the House of Peers, and sent down to the House of Com. mons.---Speakers pro and con.---Council head against the Bill.--Second Reading of the Bill...Debate on the Question for going into a Committee..--The Question carried---and passed into a Law.... Motion for a gradual Abolition of Slavery in our West-India Colonies, by Lord Percy---supported by Mr. Sheridan---but not pressed, for the present, by Lord Percy against the general sense of the House.

TH

HE time that was taken up, and the anxiety that was shewn by the British parliament, to provide for an enormous expenditure, the necessity of which was imposed upon the state by the imperious law of self-preservation, did not shut the ears of the legislature against the cries of suffering and outraged humanity.

A bill for the abolition of the slave. trade went hand in hand with the proceedings respecting finance and economy. The British parliament and nation had the generosity and the courage, in the cause of humanity and justice, to hazard an innovation, which, in the opinion of most men, threatened ruin to the most valuable branch of British commerce, and proved to the world, that this "nation of shopkeepers," as it had been sneeringly styled by the French, was sus ceptible of the finest feelings, and

might be induced to pay homage to the purest principles of morality.

It will be recollected that two re solutions were passed by both houses, in the last session of parliament; the one declaring that the African slave. trade, being contrary to the princi ples of justice, humanity, and sound policy, ought to be abolished with all practicable expedition; and the other, to address his majesty, be. seeching him to take such measures as might appear most effectual for obtaining, by negotiation, the con currence and concert of foreign pow. ers, in the abolition of the slave-trade, and the execution of the regulations adopted for that purpose.*

Ipursuance of these resolutions, lord Grenville on the 2d of Janu ary brought into the house of peers, a bill for abolishing the slave-trade. Lord Eldon wished to know whether

* Vide Vol. XLVII, 1806, History of Europe, p. 92.

the

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the bill was meant to extend to the slave-trade in general, both in the West Indies and on the coast of Afri ca, or if it was the African slave trade only that was to be abolished. Lord Grenville said that the bill extended to the African traie only.. Lord Eldon, however, thought that this mode of proceeding, for the abolition of the slave-trade, was impracticable, and that, if their lordships consented to put an end to the trade on the coast of Africa, the application of the same principle would necessarily compel them to extend the abolition to the West-India is lands. The bill was read a first time, and printed.

January 12th, on the motion of - lord Grenville, for appointing a day for the second reading of the bill for the abolition of the slave-trade, lord Hawkesbury moved an address to his majesty, praying, "that he would be graciously pleased to order to be laid before the house, copies of all communications which had passed between his majesty and foreign powers, respecting the abolition of the slave-trade, in consequence of the address of that house." Lord Gren. ville said, that with respect to France the fact was, that during the late negotiation with the government of that country, communications on this subject did take place, to the production of which he saw no objection. As to Spain and Holland, no communications had or could have taken place with those powers. Communications respecting the slavetrade had passed between the plenipotentiaries of this country, and the united states of America; and an agreement on this subject actually formed one of the articles of the trea. ty which had been signed by one of those plenipotentiaries. With re

2

spect to Portugal, it was not thought expedient to make any communica tion on the subject, during the negotiation with France.---These five were the only powers materially interested in the slave-trade.

On the 4th of February, counsel having been called in, pursuant to order, before the house of lords, Mr. Plumer and Mr. Dallas attended on behalf of the West-India merchants; Mr. Alexander for the merchants of Liverpool; Mr. Scarlett for the merchants and planters of Jansaica and Trinidad; and Mr. Clarke for the corporation of Liverpool, and the trustees of the dock of that port. The counsels having concluded their pleadings, requested, according to the prayer of the petitioners for whom they appeared, that witnesses might be called in; which was not allowed, as it was not thought in any respect necessary

The day appointed for the second reading of the bill for abolishing the slave-trade, was Wednesday the 5th of February; on which day, lord Grenville having given a copious detail of the principal arguments on which the principle or spirit of the bill was founded, concluded with moving, "that the bill be now read a second time.” The abolition of the slave-trade has been so repeatedly submitted to the consideration of par. liament, and the proceedings and debates on this subject so often noticed in the Annual Register for the preceding twenty years, that it is alto gether unnecessary, and might appear even irksome to our readers, to follow the reiterated discussion through the speeches in both houses, in 1807. We shall therefore just state the progress of the bill till it was passed into a law, and then take a brief view of the question, not only as

it

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