nine years the English nation was burthened by the funding system with ten millions and a half of permanent taxes, besides other taxes to create and feed a 1 per cent. sinking fund in the capital borrowed, and seeing that funding has, in nine years, imposed and absorbed 10 millions and a half of taxes, the supporters of the system may perhaps admit, that, in 36 years, with the like rate of expenditure and interest, funding would absorb 42 millions of permanent taxes. The consequences which would attend such an increase of taxation it is needless to insist upon; they would, however, be the immediate consequences of this not a speculative but, an adopted system, and one which was really acted upon to the extent required towards such an augmentation of burthens for nine years. Let us keep in mind that the taxes already raised for payment of interest amount to 28 millions. We at present raise within the year towards the expenditure 27,700.000, namely land and malt £2,750,000, surplus of consolidated fund £3,500,000, lottery £450,000, and war taxes £21,000,000. Eleven millions, which make up the whole expenditure (being £38 700,000), are proposed to be raised by loans. From this statement the country, at the present, moment, appears to be extricated more than two thirds out of the funding system, and the present operation of that system of course to be proportionally diminished. But, to put the effects of funding in the clearest point of view, let it this year and henceforward be acted upon for raising the whole of the supplies. The taxes in such case ('bating the 28 millions for interest of the present debt) would for the current year be only £1,935,000; and how glorious a. thing (might the advocates of funding urge) would be the repeal at one stroke of £25,765,000. taxes! which might be the case, supposing the loan of £38,700,000,

to

be negociated at 5 per cent interest. But following the plan 20 years, what would the taxes for interest of loans amount to, no part of the coming year's expenditure being provided for? why £38,700,000, and in 40 years to £77,400,000, which could be demonstrated by a mere vulgar arithmetic school boy: and this sum added to our existing 28 millions of taxes for payment of interest would make the whole of the taxes levied on account of the national debt in the fortieth year from the present time £105,400,000, the expenditure of the forty first year remaining to be provided for. Such would be the consequence of abandoning at the present moment the plan

of raising any part of the supplies within the year; this of course is to be-understood, if funding could so long be persevered in, but which the sum itself shews would be an impossibility. I think no man will contend that the produce of the labour of this country could maintain the labourers and contribute £105,400,000 yearly, to support. others in idleness. For it is to be remembered, so far from the creditors of the government, the stockholders, qua stockholders employing industry with their imaginary capital, that on the contrary, if their demands on the government be obstinately and absurdly called a part of the capital of the country, they necessarily keep so much of the capital of the country unemployed and wholly unproductive: because if the owner of £100,000 stock, is determined to employ his capital in some branch of productive Jabour, he can only so employ it by getting rid of his stock and converting it into money, but the £100,000 stock has only changed hands, the seller becomes master of so much real capital to be employed in a branch of productive industry, while the former owner of this capital is become a stockholder. But, Sir, it is the yearly produce of the national industry, which can alone permanently be taken for defraying the expences of each year; if more than the produce of the year be taken after the necessary fund of subsistance of the labourers is subtracted, the principal is broken in upon, and the annual produce of industry (the productiveness of labour continuing the same) is yearly diminishing, which is a diminution of the sources of revenue.If the providing for the whole public exponditure by means of loans would leads to the foregoing results, the borrowing of 11 millions to defray so much of the expenditure would lead to similar results. If the interest of the loans of 11 millions should average 5 per cent. for 20 years from the present time, the taxes for payment of interest would be 11 millions and by going on at the same rate 40 years they would amount to 22 millions. Now, possibly, many may be found ready to acknowledge the unsoundness of principle and ruinous consequences of raising the whole supply of £38,700,000 by loans, who will yet refuse to acknowledge raising eleven millions by loans to be equally unsound in principle and equally of ruinous consequence, If there be such men, sup. posing the power of additional contribution by the country equal to 11 millions annually, and to continue the same, they contend for the wisdom of a plan, which in the short period of 20 years shall exhaust and absorb

the whole power of additional contribution beyond the present taxes, and leave the country in the 21st year of its operation, altogether incapable of supplying interest of the sum to be borrowed in that year, and yet the country will be burthened with the same amount of taxes, which, if laid on at the present time, would defray the same expenditure for ever. Supposing the resources of the country not equal to the contribution of 11 millions additional taxes, but of 5 millions, that is a reason, why our establishments and consequent expenditure should be curtailed so much; and not a reason, why we should continue an expenditure and system of finance, which, in 10 years, would absorb the whole power of contribution, and, as to 11 millions of the expenditure, leave the country in the 11th year without the funds for payment of interest even. But supposing the resources of the country equal to the contribution of 22 millions of additional taxes, the levying of 11 millions at the present time would be so much the more easy ; and although the interest of funding 11 millions yearly might be provided for 40 years, yet at that period taxes for payment of interest would be double the taxes required now to be imposed for defraying the same expenditure for ever. Of the funding system I shall only further observe, that the radical evils such as I have described, have been in a small degree dimi nished since the year 1793 by the creating a sinking fund of one per cent. on most of the different loans negotiated since that period, but, in the mean time, and until the loans are redeemed, the weight of taxes is thereby aggravated. Having now, Sir, stated what I had to observe on the system of borrowing money, and merely laying on taxes for the payment of its interest, I shall proceed to consider what is the proposed principle of borrowing in the system of Lord Henry Petty, and wherein it differs from the for ner, and is more objectionable; and to trace its results as stated in Lord Henry Petty's and lord Castlereagh's Tables, from the operation of its vitious principle. The

6,700,000 raised by the ordinary taxes towards the expenditure of the year, have been laid out of the case in the different tables, and the expenditure taken to be £32,000,000. To complete this sum 11 millions are required over and above 21 millions war taxes. To compare the respective merits of the two modes of borrowing, all aid from expiring anuanties and the established sinking fund should be laid out of the calculations; because, it is obvious, the resources which they afford are independent of the

terms of any future borrowing of money. They are funds which do or will compose a part of our property; and any question to be raised with respect to devoting them to the payment of interest of any loans, can relate only to the expediency of paying interest with those funds, and not to the advantage or disadvantage of the terms on which the money, whose interest they are proposed to pay, may have been borrowed. Every thing has been done in Lord Henry Petty's tables to make the machinery of his plan cumbrous and intricate, and thereby to encrease the difficulty of ascertaining what will be the real rate of interest paid for the sums raised. But, Sir, it appears that a given sum of money each year will be borrowed, the interest for which we are to provide out of the war taxes, together with another sum equal to the interest of the loan (supposing it to be 5 per cent., which I will assume for the sake of perspicuity) to operate as a sinking fund of the loan; but a further sum is to be borrowed; for what to replace that taken from the war taxes. Why then, Sir, we may put the war taxes out of the case, as to the supposition of the war taxes paying the interest and furnishing a sinking fund for the loan, and consider the second sum which is borrowed, as borrowed to pay the interest and create a sinking fund of the first loan: Now for this sum interest is to be provided by means of taxes, that is to say, taxes are levied to pay the interest of the interest of the loan for the service of the year, and of a sum which is intended to operate as a sinking fund. What are the effects of this mode of borrowing? The loan is 12 millions, the interest for which at 5 per cent. is £600,000. I will keep the consideration of the interest and sinking fund separate. The first year the sum of £000,000 interest is borrowed, to pay the interest of which interest £30,000 taxes are imposed. In the 2d year another £600,000 is borrowed for payment of interest of the former year's loan, and £30,000 more of taxes are levied for payment of in-terest of the second £600,000. A third sum of £600,000 is borrowed the third year for the same purpose, and a third sum of

30,000 taxes levied for payment of its in-` terest; making in three years the sum paid or debt incurred for the interest of a loan of twelve millions to be £1,980,000, or

180,OCO more than 5 per cent. In fourteen years £3,150,000 will have been paid on account of interest over and above the common rate of 5 per cent., the whole sum paid or debt incurred being at that period £11,550,000. Supposing, at the expiration of 14 years, the practice of borrowing the in

terest to be given up, and the whole, to be raised in taxes, the amount of taxes will be £1,020,000, namely, the common interest of 5 per cent. £600,000, interest of sums borrowed to pay interest £420,000. Or, should the practice be persevered in 20 years, twelve hundred thousand pounds permanent taxes will be required for a loan of £12,000,000 originally received. The same process wifi take place under the loans raised in every succeeding year. Thus it appears that the amount of taxes necessary to be imposed under the new plan, or of debt incurred on account of interest, will, in the twentieth year from raising any particular loan, be' double as much as under common funding, that is to say, borrowing and raising taxes within the year for payment of the interest. This notable expedient, with all its machinery of war loans and supplementary loans, and one per cent, sinking funds on supplementary loans and five per cent. sinking funds on war loans, and raising the first year a smaller supplementary loan than is the proportion of other years, and sagacious Tables to shew how much may be diverted out of the existing sinking fuud, and calculations on the rise and fall of consols, and money capital of debt, and nominal capital, turns out to be either the offspring of imbeculity, or at best a cunning juggle to conceal the amount of interest really to be paid for the sums "borrowed, which interest is manifestly compound interest. And at compound interest it has been proposed, and acceded to by the British legislature, to raise loans of twelve, fourteen, and sixteen millions yearly for 20 years!-We will next consider the second sum of £600,000, which is borrowed for creating a sinking fund of the first year's loan. For the interest of this £600,000 as well as the former, £30,000 taxes will be imposed. The object of this scheme is to redeem the loan in 14 years, to free the public of a debt of 12 millions. But how will it effect its object? how will it free the nation of a debt of 12 millions? To effect its object in 14 years, fourteen several sums of 600,000 will have been borrowed, that is to say, another debt of £8,400,000 will have been created! Upon the £8,400,000 so borrowed, should the 3 per cent. consols have continued at 60, the public will have received a compound interest amounting to £3,000,000. But, during the same period, the nation will have been paying in taxes, or otherwise, interest on the 14 sums of £600,000 borrowed; which at 5 per cent. m 14 years will be £3,150,000. These

Namely, by diverting the sinking fund.

taxes, moreover, (or what is the same thing, these sums taken from our property the sinking fund) will have been advanced in certain instalments every year, £30,000 the first year, £60,000 the second year, £90,000 the third year, and so on; so that, if, at the times of advancing the same, these sums had been invested in the funds, a compound interest would have accrued on them by the expiration of the fourteenth year, precisely enough to make up 3,600,000, the amount of compound interest received by the public on the fourteen sums of £600,000 borrowed. Hence it appears, that the real decrease of debt will be only £3,600,000, and, to work this decrease, £3,150,000 will have been actually advanced at such times and in such proportions, that, by investing them in the funds at the times of advancing the same, a compound interest would have been received sufficient to make up £3,600,000, the sum discharged: the borrowing part of the transaction therefore yields no profit, while the expenses of management are a dead loss to the public. I have stated the proposed mode of redeeming the loans to be as above, for the purpose of simplifying the consideration of it; but, in the scheme of Lord Henry Petty, 1 per cent. on the supplementary sums borrowed is proposed to be raised in addition to the charges to be incurred for the purposes above stated. But this 1 per cent. does not diminish or alter the sums, such as I have stated, to be really paid for discharging the original loans; and indeed it should only be considered as a sink. ing fund on the new debt of £8,400,000. It is unnecessary to remark, that the same plan will operate on every loan to be raised. Such is the new mode of discharging debts, said to be invented by Lord Henry Petty! It is astonishing that the mind of man should have conceived and brought forth with so much toil such a complex organised abortion Sir, the results of the new scheme, as contained in Lord H. Petty's own Tables, are conformable to what might be expected from its destructive principle of operation. will not tire myself or you, or obscure wha it is my object to elucidate, by attempting minutely to reconcile my statements with the numerous and (I dare say) accurate tables of Lord H. Petty; but shall content myself with setting down one or two of the most striking, or, if I may so express myseif, staring results contained in those ta bles These, it is stated, will be the results supposing the 3 per cent. con ols to continue at 50. They will not demonstrate the principle of action, which he assigned to the new scheme, to be the true one; but

they will be rather confirmatory of it than otherwise, by shewing the principle must be one equally ruinous and to be dreaded. The first of the results which I shall notice, is, that, for the advantages of a loan of 11 millions annually for 20 years (for the plan only proposes to compleat a supply of 132,000,000, which would be effected by an annual loan of £11,000,000,) the public in 1826 will pay a yearly charge of 14,326,300*, and 21 millions war taxes, the charge on war taxes decreasing every year, till in 14 years from 1826 they will be set free. The charge for the same aids under the late mode of funding would have amounted to £14,666,660 leaving the war taxes untouched. The Tables of Lord H. Petty stop at the year 1826, very luckily for his lordship's plan, because, if they had been continued 10 years longer, the annual charge of the new system, independently of the mortgage on war taxes, would be found above three millions more than under the late system. A second result appears to be, that the former mode of providing for the proposed expenditure, would make the total of the national debt in the commencement of the year 1826 [Table N] 270,443,305, but under the new scheme it will be [Table N] 4455,537,932, being a larger increase under the new system of £185,094,627. A third result of the tables is, that by the new plan after the year 1819, the loans will continually be 32 millions, under the old system they would continue at 11 millions. But not a syllable of apprehension is expressed by Lord H. Petty with regard to the effect, which borrowing so enormous a sum annuelly, must have on the market price of interest, and consequently the terms of the loans, even allowing the confidence in the government to be unabated. It should be observed, that the above results appear so disadvanta. geous, when compared with the system of raising the supplies of late years acted upon. But, I have already shewn the great and ra dical evil of funding at all; and Lord H. Petty's plan being so much more improvident and ruinous than the old system, it follows that his is by so much a greater evil. --I shall make no further observations on the merits of the new plan itself; but, if we search after the motive which led to the proposal of it, we shall find only one adequate cause; namely, a want of courage to make

* Namely, new. taxes [Table C] £2,051,000, expiring annuities [Table C L615,515, sinking fund diverted [Table Dj 11,659,685. See Appendix to Cobbett's Parliamentary Debates, vol. 8, for the whole

further progress towards raising the supplies within the year, and congratulated the country on the advantages already felt from the extent to which it had been pushed, at the very moment he was proving recreant to the principle, totally abandoning all further progress in it; and, instead thereof, proposing to raise within the year, not the interest of the sum borrowed, but the interest of the interest; thereby making the public pay compound instead of simple interest, and turning against our resources with respect to all loans henceforward to be raised, the same principle of operation, which in the established sinking fund has hitherto worked so powerfully in our favour. I have said my opinions, Mr. Cobbett, are different from youts in this respect, that I think the restoration of the late ministry is, on the whole, highly desirable; but, if they shall not be able to find amongst them an abler financier than the author of the system praposed by Lord H. Petty, they had better apply to me to be their Chancellor of the Exchequer.A. G.-July 6, 1807.

POLICE MAGISTRATES.

SIR,As the act appointing police magistrates, will expire in November next; and it is understood, a bill is to be brought very soon into parliament, to continue the present system; allow me, Mr. Cobbett, to call your attention to the necessity of preventing police magistrates from attending, and acting at the sessions. Their names. are, as a matter of course, inserted, not only in the commissions of the peace for Middlesex and Westminster, but for the counties of Surrey, Essex, and Kent; this may be necessary, but they ought not to intrude themselves at the quarter sessions of those counties; not many years ago, there was a contest for the office of treasurer of the county of Surrey; on that occasion, police magistrates of all descriptions interfered, to the extreme disgust of the country gentlemen. But, Sir, independently of the impropriety of such interference, it is improper and alarming, that persons appointed, paid by, and removeable, at the pleasure of the crown, should act, much more preside, at the sessions of those counties where their offices are situated; their so doing not only weakens (I might say, destroys) the benefit of an appellant jurisdiction, but lessens the magistracy in the eyes of the people. At the Middlesex sessions, I have witnessed police magistrates exclusively occupying the bench; and frequently they constitute a great majority of the attending magistrates; indeed, the inevitable consequence of their

attendance must be, the undisputed powers | of the bench. In a neighbouring county, a police magistrate, not only continues to act as chairman of the sessions for one of the districts, but, until the county interfered, did, at times preside at the sessions, in the very district where his office was situated, and to which sessions appeals from his acts must come, and where persons whom he had committed, and against whom he must have received ex parte evidence, were to be tried. Surely, Sir, these circumstances call for a remedy? Mr. Sheridan, during the Westminster election, promised much to reform the magistracy; but since the parlia ment met, we have not heard one word from that man of promise on the subject: if he is sincere he will attend to the subject of this letter; the grievance is felt, and resented by the magistrates of this, and the neighbouring counties, and needs only to be mentioned to be understood.A KENTISH MAGISTRate. Maidstone, July 4.

SIR H. MILDMAY. Supplement to a Memorial, presented the 8th July 1807, to the Commissioners of Military Enquiry, by Sir Henry Paulet St. John Mildmay, Baronet.

To the Commissioners of Military Enquiry. Gentlemen ;-I beg leave to add to the Memorial, which I had the honour to present to your Board on Monday last, the two follow. ing Letters; by way of Supplement. They reached me since that time, and were communicated by General Strutt, Foreman of the Jury who met to award me compensation, on the 18th of August 1804; and by Sir W. Hillary, who was also on the Jury. In awarding the sum of £1,300 for the first year, it appears that the Jury took into consideration the expences of the Inquest, which are stated, on the oath of the under Sheriff, at £250; and they also included the expence of leveiling the works, and restoring the land occupied by them to a state fit for cultivation, whenever government should give up possession, and return the land to the proprietor. Messrs. Wood and Mason, two persons accustomed to value lands in Essex, declared on their oaths, that the cost would amount to 35s. per rod; and as the length of the ditch, by measurement, proved 400 rods, the Jury awarded £700 | for it. By this award, government is exonerated from any future claim for that purpose I have the honour to to be, &c.(Signed)-H. P. S. MILDMAY,-July 8. 1807.

No. I-Copy of a Letter from General Strutt, Foreman of the Jury, to Sir H. P.

mean to restrain me from using my house "for any purpose I might choose, after "passing your verdict?" Answer, "Cer"tainly not."-Query 3. "Did you mean "to prohibit me from letting the house or "to make any alteration in the compensa"tion awarded me, whether I did or not?** Answer, "Certainly not?" (Signed) Wm. Godhay Strutt, Foreman.

No. 2.-Copy of a Letter from Sir IV. Hillary, Bart one of the Jury, to Sir Henry Paulet St. John Mildmay, Bart. Dated July 3, 1807.-Dear Sir, Upon consideration of the circumstances which took place at the time of the Jury (of which I was one) giving their Award, as to the nature and extent of the injury which your property near Chelmsford had sustained by the formation of Military Works upon it, I perfectly recollect that the sum of £1,300 was awarded by us as a compensation for the injury done when those works were erected, for the expences of the Inquest (amounting to £250), and to cover the future charge of again filling up the works, and levelling. the ground, when it should no longer be occupied by government. We also fixed a future rent of £600 per annum, to be paid by government, for about 30 acres of land which the works occupied, as a compensation for those lands, and the great injury which your estate had thereby sustained; and not as a rent for your house of Moulsham Hall, and its immediate grounds, &c. which was by no means the intention of the Jury. On the contrary, we were at the time aware, that you had a separate treaty with government for your house, which we did not enter into, or interfere with, as we considered the house to remain your own, either for residence, to let, or for any other purpose you might choose; and our award was given as a compensation for the injury which your estate sustained by the occupation of part of it; and this point I am clearly of opinion was expressly understood, and acted upon by the Jury.-I am &c. (Signed)-WILLIAM HILLARY.