have raised the standard to avenge the interference of its government in the American war. He was to the last degree unwilling to engage in the war with France: he engaged in it with a reluctance, which all the horrors of the Revolution were hardly able to dispel. Ample evidence of this has now been obtained from the best informed memoirs of the period which have been recently published, particularly those of Lord Malmesbury and Mr Wilberforce. It was not against France, but republican France, that his hostility was directed: it was not French warfare, but French propagandism which he dreaded; and his efforts would have been equally persevering to resist Russia or Austria by the aid of the Gallic legions, if those insidious principles had emanated from these states. And even as it was, it was not till a very late period that he was reluctantly compelled to forego his pacific policy; and if he is blamable at all, it is for having adhered to it too long. chiefly to colonial acquisitions, he succeeded, indeed, ultimately, in wresting from the enemy all their maritime possessions, and raising the commercial prosperity of the country to the very highest pitch; but this was done at the cost of a war of twelve years' duration, and an addition of above three hundred millions to the national debt: whereas, by the vigorous application of an English force, inconsiderable to what might have been raised, to the heart of the enemy's power at the outset, or when their resources were failing before the arrival of Napoleon at the helm, he would, in all human probability, have gained the same object at a comparatively trifling sacrifice, and at the same time liberated the Continent from Gallic oppression. In warlike combinations he was too much inclined to follow out the Austrian system of simultaneous operations over an extensive circle; and to waste those forces on the reduction of sugar islands, or useless descents with small bodies on the coasts of France, which, if concen175. If, from the contemplation of trated upon the decisive point, would the general principles of Mr Pitt's gov- have accelerated by twenty years the ernment, we turn to the consideration triumphs of Toulouse and Waterloo. In of the particular measures which he justice to the British statesman, howoften embraced, we shall find much ever, it must be observed, that at that more room for difference of opinion, period eighty years of repose, and the and frequent cause for historic censure. disastrous results of the American war, Unequalled in the ability with which had weakened the military spirit of the he overcame the jealousies, and awak-nation, and dimmed the recollections of ened the activity of cabinets, he was by no means equally felicitous in the warlike measures which he recommended for their adoption. Napoleon has observed, that he had no turn for military combinations, and a retrospect of the campaigns which he had a share in directing, must, with every impartial mind, confirm the justice of the opinion. By not engaging England as a principal in the contest, and trusting for land operations almost entirely to the Continental armies put in motion by British subsidies, he prolonged the war for an indefinite period, and ultimately brought upon the country losses and expenses much greater than would have resulted from a more vigorous policy in the commencement. By directing the national strength its ancient renown; and that no one deemed it capable of those vast and persevering efforts on land, which at length brought the contest to a glorious termination. 176. "It is needless," say the republicans, "to raise statues to Mr Pitt's memory: he has raised up an indestructible monument to himself in the national debt. His name will never be forgotten as long as taxes are paid by the British people." If, however, it is apparent that the war, both with the Republic and Napoleon, was unavoidable, and, from the principles on which it was conducted, incapable of adjustment, those burdens, generally speaking, are to be regarded as a salvage paid for the safety of the empire, and are no more chargeable on his memory than the losses sustained dur-livered extempore during the heat of ing a gale are on the skilful pilot who debate, will bear a comparison with all has weathered the storm. The real but the finished specimens of written point for consideration is, whether Greek or Roman eloquence. Kindly and these vast expenses were not unneces- affectionate in domestic life, he yet felt sarily swelled by the adoption of an in all their force the passions of youth, over-cautious, and therefore protracted and was far from being inaccessible to system of warfare, and whether much the ascendant of female charms.+ But of the debt might not have been avoid- these feelings were all kept in subored by contracting it in a different, and, dination to greater objects, and accordultimately, less burdensome form. And ingly in private life his conduct was probably the warmest of his partisans irreproachable. Concentrated on nawill find it difficult to defend the prac- tional objects, he had none of the tice which he so much followed, of usual passions or weaknesses of the borrowing in the three per cents; in great; his manners were reserved and other words, giving a bond for a hun- austere; his companions, in general, dred pounds to the public creditor for men inferior in years and capacity to every sixty advanced-a system which, himself; he had many admirers-few although favourable to public credit at friends. His figure was tall and thin, the moment, from the low rate at which his features sharp, his forehead open it enabled him to contract the largest and thoughtful— loans, led to an enormous addition to the national burdens in after times; prevented the return of peace from making the due diminution in the interest of the debt; and saddled the nation with the ultimate payment of above a third more than it ever received. 177. Mr Pitt's eloquence and talents for debate were of the very highest order, his command of financial details unbounded, and his power of bringing a vast variety of detached facts or transactions to bear on one general argument the noblest effort of rhetoric-unequalled in modern times. He possessed that rapidity and acuteness of thought, united to richness of expression and tenacity of memory, which Cicero pronounced essential to a perfect orator.* He was an accomplished classical scholar, and continued through life, in all his leisure moments, the study of the exquisite remains of ancient genius. But he did this with the wise design of transferring to his own tongue the brevity and force of their expressions, not in the hopeless desire of rivalling their beauties in their own language. So successful was he in this, that many of his speeches, de "Nam et animi atque ingenii celeres quidem motus esse debent, qui et ad excogitandum acuti, et ad explicandum ornandumque sint uberes, et ad memoriam firmi atque diuturni.”—De Oratore, i. § 25. Deep in his brow engraven, Deliberation sat, and sovereign care." ‡ Superior to the vulgar desire for wealth, he was careless, though addicted to no expenses, of his private fortune; and the man who had so long held the treasury of Europe and the Indies, was indebted to the gratitude of the nation for a vote of forty thousand pounds, to pay the debts which he owed at the time of his death. In this vote Mr Fox cheerfully and honourably concurred; but he resisted the motion for a monument to his memory at the public expense, upon the ground that, however splendid his abilities, or praiseworthy his integrity had been, the principles of his conduct were not such as to entitle him to the character of an "excellent statesman."§ The monu He was a great admirer of female dress, and so accomplished a connoisseur in it that the celebrated Lady Hester Stanhope, his cousin, who lived in his house for many years, and presided over his establishment, used to take his advice in the arrangement of her ball. In early life he was such an admirer of curls and drapery when she was going to a a captivating Devonshire beauty, that he had the gallantry to drink her health out of her satin slipper.-Memoirs of Lady Hester Stanhope, i. 81, 82. MILTON'S Paradise Lost. 8" When I see a minister," said Mr Fox, "who has been in office above twenty years, with the full command of places and public money, without any peculiar extravagance or waste, except what might be expected ment which the House of Commons, the close of the contest which he so by a great majority, voted, was placed nobly maintained, and recollects that above his grave in Westminster Abbey, the liberty of mankind was dependent already illustrated by the ashes of so on its success, will award him a wider many of the great and good in English mausoleum, and inscribe on his grave history; but the historian who surveys the well-known words, "Si monumenthe situation of the British empire at tum quæris, circumspice!" CHAPTER XLI. THE BRITISH FINANCES, AND MR PITT'S SYSTEM OF FINANCIAL POLICY. 1. It would be to little purpose that the mighty drama of the French revolutionary wars was recorded in history, if the mainspring of all the European efforts, the BRITISH FINANCES, were not fully explained. It was in their boundless extent that freedom found a never-failing stay; in their elastic power that independence obtained a permanent support. When surrounded by the wreck of other states, when surviving alone the fall of so many confederacies, it was in their inexhaustible resources that England found the means of resolutely maintaining the contest, and waiting calmly, in her citadel amidst the waves, the return of a right spirit in the neighbouring nations. Vain would have been the prowess of her seamen, vain the valour of her soldiers, if her national finances had given way under the strain. Even the conquerors of Trafalgar and Alexandria must have succumbed in the from the multiplicity of duties to which his attention was directed, exerting his influence neither to enrich himself nor those with whom he is connected, it is impossible not to conclude that he has acted with a high degree of integrity and moderation. In the course of his long administration, the only denship of the Cinque Ports. But I cannot concur in a motion for funeral honours upon Mr Pitt as an 'excellent statesman.' Public honours are matters of the highest importance, and we must not in such cases yield our consent if it is opposed by a sense of public duty."-Parl. Deb. vi. 61, 62. office which be took to himself was the War contest they had so heroically maintained, if they had not found in the resources of government the means of permanently continuing it. Vain would have been the reaction produced by suffering against the French Revolution, vain the charnel-house of Spain and the snows of Russia, if Britain had not been in a situation to take advantage of the crisis. If she had been unable to aliment the war in the Peninsula when its native powers were prostrated in the dust, the sword of Wellington would have been drawn in vain; and the energies of awakened Europe must have been lost in fruitless efforts if the wealth of England had not at last arrayed them in dense and disciplined battalions on the banks of the Rhine. 2. How, then, did it happen, that this inconsiderable island, so small a part of the Roman empire, was enabled to expend wealth greater than ever had been amassed by the ancient mistress of the world; to maintain a contest of unexampled magnitude for twenty years; to uphold a fleet which conquered the united navies of Europe, and an army which carried victory into every corner of the globe; to acquire a colonial empire that encircled the earth, and subdue the vast continent of Hindostan, at the very time that it struggled in Spain with the land forces of Napoleon, and equipped all the armies of the north, on the Elbe and the Rhine, for the liberation of Germany? The solution of the phenomenon, unexampled in the history of the world, is without doubt to be in part found in the persevering industry of the British people, and the extent of the commerce which they maintained in every quarter of the globe. But the resources thus afforded would have been inadequate to so vast an expenditure, and must have been exhausted early in the struggle, if they had not been organised and sustained by an admirable system of finance, which seemed to rise superior to every difficulty with which it had to contend. It is there that the true secret of the prodigy is to be found; it is there that the noblest monument to Mr Pitt's wisdom has been erected. 3. The national income of England at an early period was very inconsiderable, and totally incommensurate to the important station which she occupied in the scale of nations. In the time of Elizabeth it amounted only to £400,000 a-year; and in that of James I. to £450,000, and, even including all the subsidies received from parliament during his reign, only to £480,000 a-yearsums certainly not equivalent to more than £800,000 or £1,000,000 of our money. That enjoyed by Charles I. amounted on an average to £895,000 annually-a sum perhaps equal to £1,500,000 in these times. It was the Long Parliament which first gave the example of a prodigious levy of money from the people of England-affording thus a striking instance of the eternal truth, that no government is so despotic as that of the popular leaders, when they are relieved from all control by the other powers in the state. The sums raised in England during the Commonwealth-that is, from 3d November 1640, to 5th November 1659— amounted to the enormous, and, if not proved by authentic documents, incredible sum of £83,000,000,- being at the rate of nearly £5,000,000 a-year ;* or more than five times that which had been so much the subject of complaint in the times of the unhappy monarch who had preceded it. The permanent revenue of Cromwell from the three kingdoms was raised to £1,868,000; or considerably more than double that enjoyed by Charles I. The total public income at the death of Charles II. was £1,800,000, under James II. £2,000,000; sums incredibly small, when it is recollected that the price of wheat was not then materially different from what it is at the present moment.‡ Brought forward, £57,635,000 Sequestration of bishops, deans, and inferior clergy, for four years, Sequestration of private estates in England, 3,528,000 4,564,000 Fee-farm rents for five years, 2,963,000 Composition with delinquents in Ireland, 1,000,000 3,567,000 10,074,000 £83,331,000 "It is seldom," says Hume, "that the people gain anything by revolutions in government; because the new settlement, jealous and insecure, must commonly be supported with more expense and severity than the old but on no occasion was the truth of this maxim more sensibly felt than in England after the overthrow of the royal authority. Complaints against the oppression of ship-money and the tyranny of the StarChamber had roused the people to arms, and, having gained a complete victory over the Crown, they found themselves loaded with a multiplicity of taxes formerly un--PEBRER, 139, 140. known, while scarce an appearance of law and liberty remained in any part of the administration." The following are some of the items in this enormous aggregate of £83,000,000 raised from the nation during the Commonwealth, -a striking proof of the despotic character of the executive during that period :Land-tax, Excise, . £32,000,000 8,000,000 7,600,000 10,035,000 Carry forward, £57,635,000 Sales of estates in Ireland, Other lesser, land, Total, Of this sum, there was drawn from Eng From Scotland, From Ireland, -PEBRER, 140. Total, £1,517,274 143,652 207,790 £1,868,716 many different views to the Revolution, it is beyond all question the greatest that it brought in a sovereign instructed in the art of overcoming the ignorant impatience of taxation which is the invariable characteristic of free communities, and thus gave it a government capable of turning to the best account the activity and energy of its inhabitants, at the same time that it had the means given it of maintaining their independence. 4. These inconsiderable taxes, how- | been discovered. Great as have been ever, were destined to be exchanged the obligations which England owes in for others of a very different character, upon the accession of the house of Orange to the throne. The intimate connection of the princes of that family with Continental politics, and the long wars in which in consequence the nation was involved, soon led to a more burdensome system of taxation, and the raising of sums annually from the people which in former times would have been deemed incredible. The Prince of Orange brought from the republic of Holland, where it had been already practised and was thoroughly understood, the important secret of governing popular assemblies, and extracting heavy taxes from popular communities. Like the Roman emperors, he did not discard the senate, but he contrived to render it the instrument of his will. He did not, like the Stuarts, engage the throne in a contest with parliament: on the contrary, he did everything by its votes, and concealed the exactions of the crown under the shadow of the authority of the House of Commons. His whole efforts were directed to gain the majority of the constituencies in the country by corruption, and of votes in parliament by patronage. A vast government expenditure, incurred in a cause at first highly popular, and the profuse contracting of loans on the security of the revenue of future years, afforded the means of doing both. This system proved entirely successful, and it is to its success that the subsequent greatness of the empire is mainly to be ascribed. But for it, the means of raising taxes adequate to the protection, and necessary for the defence, of the empire, would never have been discovered; and England, like Poland, would have fallen a prey to the ambition of the adjoining nations, the resources of which had been drawn forth by the force of despotic power, while no means of developing its own had five years preceding 1836 was only 48s. The price was much higher during the next five years, but that was the result of uncommonly rainy seasons coming in succession during that whole period.-SMITH'S Wealth of Nations, i. 358; and Corn Average, 1835. 5. So great was the increase of the public burdens during the reign of William, that the national income, in the thirteen years that he sat on the throne, was nearly doubled: being raised from £2,000,000 a-year to £3,895,000. But the addition made to the public revenue was the least important part of the changes effected during this important period. It was then that the NATIONAL DEBT began; and government was taught the dangerous secret of providing for the necessities, and maintaining the influence of present times, by borrowing money and laying its payment on posterity. Various motives combined to induce the government, immediately after the Revolution, to adopt the system of borrowing on the credit of the state. Notwithstanding the temporary unanimity with which the Revolution had been brought about, various heart-burnings and divisions soon succeeded that event, and the exiled dynasty still numbered a large and resolute body, especially in the rural districts, among their adherents. Extensive patronage and no small share of corruption were necessary to secure the influence of government over a nation thus divided: foreign wars were rightly deemed requisite to maintain the ascendant of the Protestant principles to which the king owed his accession to the throne; and the Continental connections of the house of Orange imperiously required the intervention of Great Britain in those desperate struggles by which the very existence of the commonwealth of Holland was endangered. The same cause which led to nearly the duplication of the |