[ [!-- Note Anchor 234 --][Footnote 234: "Memoirs of Sir Robert Peel," ii., 3, 19.]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 235 --][Footnote 235: "Memoirs of Sir Robert Peel," pp. 31, 32.]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 236 --][Footnote 236: "One important question I found practically, and perhaps unavoidably, decided before my arrival, namely, the dissolution of the existing Parliament. Every one seemed to have taken it for granted that the Parliament must be dissolved, and preparations had accordingly been made almost universally for the coming contest."—Peel's Memoirs, ii., 43.]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 237 --][Footnote 237: "Middle Ages," ii., 31 seq. See also Stubbs, "Constitutional History," i., 82-92 et seq.]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 238 --][Footnote 238: See Hallam's "Constitutional History," ii., 155.]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 239 --][Footnote 239: This was a matter of no small importance. The number of boroughs included in the bill was 183, having a population of about two millions. Their annual income was stated by Lord John Russell to be as nearly as possible £2000 a year for each, being £367,000; but their annual expenditure exceeded that amount by £10,000, being £377,000; "besides which there was a debt of £2,000,000 owing by these bodies.">[
[ [!-- Note Anchor 240 --][Footnote 240: See Hallam, "Middle Ages," ii., 205-207.]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 241 --][Footnote 241: "Life of Pitt," ii., 131. Lord Stanhope imagines that the plan was relinquished in consequence of discouraging comments by the Archbishop (Dr. Moore).]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 242 --][Footnote 242: These objections were founded on the following calculations, or something similar to them. The tithe was the tenth of the produce. In letting estates it was estimated that a farm ought to produce three rents; in other words, that a farm let at £1 an acre ought to produce yearly £3 an acre. One-tenth of three pounds, or 6s., therefore, was what the clergyman was entitled to claim. Out of this, however, he had to defray the cost of collection, which might, perhaps, be one shilling, leaving him five shillings. But the average of compositions over the whole kingdom was under 2s. 9d., or eleven-twentieths of what he was entitled to; and if augmented by ten per cent., it would not exceed three shillings.]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 243 --][Footnote 243: The fund so created was expected to amount to £130,000 a year.]