SUBSIDY TO AUSTRIA.
Early in this year it became evident that, besides the United Provinces, both Prussia and Spain were on the point of breaking with the coalition, and concluding separate treaties with France: Prussia, from the mutual distrust which existed between her and Austria, and from her exhausted finances; and Spain from the recent defeats in Biscay and Catalonia. Austria remained our steadfast ally; but Austria too wanted money, and thought herself entitled to call upon England for a subsidy. On the 4th of February Pitt delivered a message from the king, intimating that a loan of nearly five millions sterling would be wanted to aid the exertions of his imperial majesty in the ensuing campaign, on the credit of the revenues arising from his hereditary dominions. Much discussion arose upon this subject. Fox said, that the recent defalcation of the King of Prussia, after he had obtained our gold, ought to operate as a caution against all advances to German princes. This was just; for the subsidy granted to the King of Prussia had been most foully applied; it had not been employed on the Rhine, or the Moselle, but on the Vistula; not against republican France, but against the Poles. Even Pitt and his supporters were forced to admit that the conduct of Prussia was bad; but they insisted that there was a wide difference in the case and conduct of Austria, whose own vital interests were dependent on the issue of this war. Austria also had shown herself sincere in the cause; her generals might have made mistakes, but she had made great and costly exertions in the common cause, and, notwithstanding failures, still remained firm. The motion for complying with the emperor’s demands was agreed to by large majorities.
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.
PITT’S PLAN TO MAN THE NAVY, ETC.
As it became expedient to devise some method for the levying of soldiers and sailors, Pitt brought forward a new plan for manning the navy without throwing the burden so heavily on a particular class of persons by press warrants. He proposed that the proprietors of merchantmen, who were deeply interested in our naval superiority, should, on clearing out their ships, furnish a certain number of men according to the tonnage of each ship; and that every parish in the kingdom should furnish one man. This proposition, with a few modifications, passed into a law, and officers were appointed to superintend the levies. Subsequently, Mr. Windham, as secretary at war, proposed the improvement of the discipline, and the augmentation of the numbers of the militia, as a means of internal defence. This was objected to by Fox and Sheridan, as tending to increase the influence of ministers, and as preparatory to the establishment of arbitrary power; but it was carried with the usual ministerial majority. At this time provisions were so expensive, arising from the war and from scarcity, that the pay of the military was wholly insufficient for their support; and government, without applying to parliament, granted them an extraordinary allowance. This was properly objected to by the opposition, as tending to impress the recipients with the false idea that the bounty proceeded from the crown, and not from the pockets of the people, and as being an insult offered to the legislature, which was sitting at the time. General Macleod moved that a committee should be appointed to take the matter into consideration; and so strong were the feelings of the house upon the subject, that, though Pitt endeavoured to exculpate the ministry by representing the relief as temporary and arising out of the circumstances of the moment, &c.; this motion was only got rid of by the previous question, which was carried by a majority of sixty-seven against twenty-three.