"The advantage resulting from all these improvements has not been confined to their utility, or to the increased activity given to industry, and the circulation of money by the public expenditure: they have excited in all classes a similar spirit of improvement, which displays itself in the embellishment of the premises already built upon, and above all in the number of handsome dwellings since erected. In the Town parish alone 401 houses have been built since the year 1819 at an expense of upwards of £207,000, and few towns do now present a more animated scenery around them, or one where ornament and comfort are more generally united; the same comfort and improvement are witnessed in every direction, and at the greatest distances from town. And thus it is, that the public works have not only given life and activity to every species of industry by the immediate effects of their utility, as for example to the building of a number of mills in the Island, before supplied with most of its flour from abroad, and now enabled to manufacture it for exportation, but and still more by the consequent impulse communicated on all sides, prompting the wealthy to lay out for private mansions greater sums than were expended for public works and creating a permanent source of employment, by the future expenses which the repairs and occupations of those mansions will require.
"The extent of benefits conferred is sufficiently attested by the concurrent testimony of inhabitants and strangers. The sole objects of His Majesty and of His Most Honorable Privy Council are the public good and general happiness; the States might therefore, confidently look for indulgence, even if, in promoting those objects, they had fallen into some little deviation from the strict letter of any particular Order. But implicit obedience to the Royal Authority in Council being their paramount duty, they cannot rest satisfied under the imputation of having, even unintentionally, derogated from that duty.
"The words of the second Order in Council have already been cited. The right of levying the duty on spirituous liquors is granted for ten years: a condition is annexed purporting that the States shall not exceed their annual income, and on the contrary that out of the produce of the duty, one thousand pounds shall be applied annually to the extinction of the debt; that condition is naturally in force for the same period, and for the same period only, as the grant to which it is annexed; it is necessarily so limited, because the means by which it is to be fulfilled, the produce of the duty, ceases at the end of the ten years for which the duty is granted.
"The States are bound to prove that they have complied with the conditions of that Order; they did so comply, when wishing to erect a new Market, they applied for and obtained the order of 10th October, 1820, which imposed on them, at their own request, the further obligation of an annual payment of £450 for 10 years;
| This sum began to be paid in 1822, and has been paid for 8 years, during which the obligation amount to | £3,600 0 0 |
| The former obligation amounts, for the 10 years now elapsed to | £10,000 0 0 |
| Total amount of the two obligations imposed | £13,600 0 0 |
| The debt at the commencement of the 10 years elapsed amounted in rents and money, including the cost of the Market, to | £43,668 15 2 |
| The Debt, Rents and Market included, has been reduced to | £27,740 0 0 |
| Total amount of the sums actually applied to the payment of the Debt | £15,928 15 2 |
"The conditions of the second Order in Council have thus been more than fulfilled, by the application of £2,328 15s. 2d. to the payment of the debt over and above the obligations imposed. Those conditions, incidentally introduced in the second Order, do not in any way form a part of the third Order now in force.
"Though released from the positive conditions of the former Order, the States have shown no intention, and do by no means desire to depart from its general spirit; graciously offered by the third Order in Council to continue their improvements, they came to the following resolution on 22nd November, 1826: 'That far from entertaining any wish of augmenting the Debt the States recognise the principle that it should not exceed, at the end of the 15 years for which the duty is further granted, the sum to which the Debt shall amount at the end of the 10 years present duty: they impose on themselves that obligation anew, and bind themselves by the most solemn engagement not to increase the debt.'
"What cause of alarm can there then possibly exist? What prospect, on the contrary, the States humbly ask, can be more gratifying than that of remaining with our New College, new Harbours built and to be built, new Markets of every description, new Roads in every direction, new streets, one of thirty feet instead of seven in the greatest thoroughfare between town and country, in short, with nearly all the greatest improvements that can be desired, paid for to the last shilling; and all this according to the statement of the plaintiffs themselves, with the debt reduced to £15,000, and the revenue augmented £1,700 per annum, by those very improvements.