SUPPLIES, ETC.
After previous discussions on the navy and army estimates, on the 23rd of February Pitt submitted his annual statement on the supplies to the consideration of the house. The force required for the service of the year was 85,000 seamen, and 15,000 marines; 120,000 regulars for guards and garrisons; 56,000 militia; 40,000 regulars for Ireland, and the West Indies, and other colonies; besides fencibles and volunteers, foreign troops in British pay, and embodied French emigrants. The supplies demanded for the support of these forces were £16,027,000, to which sum was to be added £200,000, annual subsidy to the King of Sardinia. The whole expenditure amounted to £27,540.000, and the loan proposed was £18,000,000, the largest, up to this period, ever voted by parliament. In order to make up the remainder, new duties were imposed upon tea, coffee, raisins, foreign grocery and fruits, foreign timber, insurances, writs, and affidavits, hair-powder, licenses, &c.; and to increase the receipts of the post-office, the privilege of franking letters was somewhat abridged. As a counterpoise for these additional burdens, Pitt mentioned the extraordinary increase of commerce, which, in the preceding year, had exceeded that of the most flourishing period of peace. The ways and means were voted as Pitt desired; but some of his adherents were not very favourable to some of the new duties, and especially to the powder-tax.