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army of France was destroyed, there was surely no military danger to be apprehended on her account. If w kept up men at Cambray and Condé, it was perfectly needless to keep them at Colchester and Chelmsford; in short, if our army was to be kept in France, we did not want it here. The same might be said respecting a large naval establishment; it was not required. Neither France nor Spain had any navies at all. As to our troops for foreign stations, they appeared large beyond all possible necessity. There were to be 11,000 men for Gibraltar ; but there was no reason why a higher number of men were wanted for the Mediterranean now than was necessary in 1791, when the establishment was between 4000 and 5000 men. In the Ionian islands there were to be 3500. He would call upon the House to consider the nature, terms, and principles of that acquisition, in order to see what grounds there were for any danger arising in those islands. It could not be from Russia, or from Austria; for it was by the concurrence of those two powers that we took possession of them. It was surely not to protect ourselves against the inhabitants; for they conceived that our coming was from a disposi tion to deliver them from the thraldom under which they had previously laboured. He must therefore think that 12 or 1500 men would be a number fully adequate for those possessions. The same might be said of Batavia and Ceylon, and even of India itself, where, if we were anxious to find an enemy, we had to seek him on the frontiers of Napaul or Thibet. He therefore thought that all our foreign establishments were too large; and he was sure the House would think that 14 000 men for the West Indies was out of all proportion. In 1791 the establishment for those colomies was not more than 2000, and surely

they were even more safe now than at that period, or than they ever were while the chain of the French colonies remained unbroken. About 4000 men would, in his opinion, be amply sufficient for them. Another important subject was Canada, which, he believ ed, as far as frontier went, was stronger rather than weaker than it was before; for the possession of Upper Canada materially strengthened Quebec. There was a force of Canadian militia, so excellently disciplined, that full reliance might be placed on it, as to its assistance in case of danger. Respecting Ireland, it was a melancholy subject; his idea was that there should be a specific enquiry into the real state of that country, for we only know that there is a great degree of local disturbance about tithes; but there was no symptom of rebellion against the government. There could therefore be nothing to occasion the continual employment there of 25,000 men, except to assist the police, and their aid was not grounded on any positive or actual necessity. In referring to the unhappy state of Ireland, it was impossible to refrain from lamenting the course which England had heretofore pursued, and was still pursuing towards her. Every application had been resorted to, to suppress the consequences of the evil, but none to remove its cause. He would not indeed, in referring to this painful topic, call on them to repeal at once the whole of their accumulated system, but he trusted that a sufficient inducement appeared on the face of the question, to impress in the proper quarter the necessity of resorting, as soon as it was possible, to the diffusion of a better system in that country. As to England, the military establishment was also extraordinary, and the motive for its existence worse. We were now to depart from the old system of collecting our revenue, and to employ a

military force against smugglers. The cutters heretofore employed by the customs and excise departments were to be suppressed, and the navy vessels to be employed in their place. He was old-fashioned enough to object to this sort of arrangement on a variety of grounds-he preferred the King's forces to be in an auxiliary state to the customs, and not their principal; be sides, the alteration would lead to the bribery and debauchery of the soldiers a change most fatal to their character and discipline, and yet one necessarily arising out of the new habits into which they would be thrown. But even if a case of danger could be made out, he thought we had lost sight of maintaining the best species of force. The militia furnished the most eligible defence for the country, and, with an auxiliary force of twelve or fourteen thousand regulars, it would be quite sufficient for all the duties which thearmy would have to perform." In reply to Mr Lewis, Mr Yorke maintained, "that the enormous extent and wealth of the British empire ren. dered it indispensibly necessary we should have some standing army, if we meant to preserve the blessings that had been handed down to us by our ancestors. Such, he asserted, had been the practice of the country ever since the Revolution, at which time a standing army was first established, and had continued to the present time. He therefore apprehended that there could be no possible objection to the practice. Nobody would be more ready than himself to admit, that a legal and constitutional jealousy ought to be exercised on this subject, as far as related to a standing army being under the control of the crown; but the amount of the jealousy ought not to go beyond the proportion of the amount of the army. Nobody was more anxious than himself that the standing army should be under the ci

that

vil government, and especially subject to the control of parliament. The ancient jealousy against a standing army, it ought to be recollected, was against such a force being maintained in these realms, and not so much from disapprobation of that which might be kept up in our foreign possessions. This was expressed in the bill of rights, as it was in the mutiny bill founded on the bill of rights. He approved of the practice which had been introduced in modern times of bringing the army kept up in our foreign possessions under the control of parliament, as well as that maintained within these realms. The increase of men which the present peace establishment required, was small, compared with the increased greatness of the country."

Mr Brougham rose on the conclusion of Mr Yorke's speech, and expressed much indignation at "the cool calm tone with which that gentleman had laid down principles, unknown to the purity of our fathers, and repugnant to the spirit of the constitution." He expressed his conviction that the more the calculation was followed up, the less would the proposers of this unexampled establishment gain by the scrutiny; and they would gladly resort to general arguments and the visions of remote danger drawn from the military spirit of Europe. If we might apprehend danger from this spirit at some future time, a plain man would ask, why we should not wait a few years, and save ourselves and our resources till the danger manifested itself. It was evident that the results of the last victory had been such, in the dismemberment of France, that though that country had the wish to revenge itself, and though we could not trust either its monarch or his family, the state of Europe and the aggrandizement of our own military character left us less to fear from our natural enemy (as France has been call

ed), than at any time since the revolution of 1688, or even long before that epoch. And this was the moment when it proposed to establish a perpetual military force which had never been contemplated when all Europe was leagued against us, not even at times when war was actually raging! It was a fact, as to which the Chancellor of the Exchequer might satisfy himself by figures, to which he loved so well to refer, that in the Seven Years War, when we defeated France in all quarters of the globe, our military force was not half that which was now proposed as a peace establishment. But they were told it was a chimera to suppose that an army could be dangerous to the constitution; that an army was the most innocent and harmless of all establishments. With out enquiring into all the ways in which an army might be injurious to the constitution, was it not enough to prove the danger, that it bore with it an immense system of influence, which was not the less injurious to the interests of the people, or less fatal to the constitution, because it was not in the hands of a responsible minister who might be questioned day by day in that House (though questions of late had not been answered), but in the hands of a person intimately connected both by interest and blood, with a power which was neither lords nor commons, nor cabinet, but the crown itself? Was there no danger to be apprehended from the traffic which might possibly take place between the crown and powerful individuals, who in return for commissions might engage their families to serve the monarch politically, and themselves to serve him military? In conclusion, he apologised for having, perhaps, wasted more time than they deserved on the propositions which had that night been advanced, but the unwar rantable principles, and the cool talk

of the right honourable gentleman, as to the bugbear of a standing army which had frightened the opposition side of the House, had provoked him to enter his protest against those principles, and endeavour to recall to the House the feelings of better times."

The general statements of these members were answered by Mr Wellesley Pole, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Lord Castlereagh. According to them, the apprehensions of these gentlemen had been excited by regarding too exclusively the ex facie large amount of the armed force to be maintained, and neglecting to take into due consideration the great increase of our colonial possessions on the one hand, and on the other, those alterations in the situation of affairs at home which we have already seen alluded to by Mr Yorke. The largest item in the estimates was the army of 25.000 men for Ireland. But we are concerned to say, that Mr Peele laid before the House but too sufficient an explanation of the circumstances which had appeared to demand that force. On this occasion, and on the subsequent one of a motion made by Sir John Newport, for an enquiry into the state of the sister kingdom, details were produced, which proved abundantly, that from whatever causes they might have arisen, the disturbances in that country were still of the most extensive and alarming nature, and that without an armed force equal to that proposed, the public security could not be expected to be maintained.

The navy estimates were brought before the House by Sir George Warrender, and the proposed establishment of 30.000 seamen, was agreed to after considerable discussion, partly of a very disagreeable and personal nature.

From the commencement of the session, the subject connected with finance, which occupied most of the

public attention, was the avowed in tention of ministers to propose the continuation of the property tax. Although it was hinted from the beginning, and in the sequel expressly stated, by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the tax would be proposed at a diminished rate, (five instead of ten per cent.); and that, in the mode of levying it, alterations would be introduced tending to lessen the repugnance felt by commercial men to the exposition of their private affairs; these suggestions proved entirely ineffectual to subdue the growing aversion manifested in almost every part of the island to the prolonged existence of this tax. Petitions were poured into the House from every district, signed too, in many instances, and in particular in the case of the city of London, by men of the highest respectability, who had, during all the struggles of the war, been among the firmest supporters of the financial schemes of the administration. In the House of Commons, an attempt was made to shew that the tax in question, as originally proposed, was to be exactly co-existent with the war, and that, therefore, a breach of faith would be incurred in any measure for protracting its operation. This was, however, very satisfactorily combatted by Mr Vansittart, who shewed, that, on the first proposal of the tax by Mr Pitt, it was expressly stated, that it should continue one year of peace for every year of war during which it should have existed; that the Lord Heary Petty had, when in office, entertained no idea of the tax being necessarily to close immediately on the conclusion of a peace; and that no pledge of that kind had been given by the present administration on the resumption of the tax last year. The necessity of the measure was attacked with greater keenness, and, as it would seem, defended with less power. In

the midst of a discussion of great warmth, the question was loudly called for, and the continuance of the tax was lost by a majority of 238 to 201. On the succeeding evening, the Chancellor of the Exchequer rose and stated, that, as his whole plans must be changed in consequence of the loss of this great tax, he must of course have recourse to loans; and that as the amount of these would not be materially affected by any minor demands, he would give up the war malt duties also. The prospect of getting rid of these burdens, contributed, in a powerful manner, to sooth the feelings of the afflicted classes of the community. But it is at the best extremely doubtful, whether, in the end, the continuance of the property-tax might not have pressed upon their necessities in a manner more equable than any of the substitutes which were either at the time proposed by the opposition, or subsequently adopted by the minister. It may be extremely fitting that the vanities, luxuries, and even mere conveniences enjoyed by individuals, should pay tax to the commonwealth; but it seems unworthy of the cause, that to these alone the contributions should be restricted. In the propertytax, as it was levied, there was probably much unnecessary and unwise severity; but something in the shape of a property-tax, is the only impost which can reach effectually the mean-spirited and the unpatriotic, the absentee and the miser.

On the 27th of May, the House of Commons resolved itself into a committee of ways and means. The Chancellor of the Exchequer prefaced his account of the public resources for the year, with a statement that these had been essentially altered in consequence of the abandonment of the property-tax. His first proposal was, that the committee should accept of a proposition for the Bank of England,