DEBATE ON A STANDING ARMY.
The next subject of debate was the number of land-forces. When the supply fell under consideration, sir W. Strickland, secretary at war, moved that the same number which had been maintained in the preceding year should be continued in pay. On the other hand, lord Morpeth having demonstrated the danger to which the liberties of the nation might be exposed, by maintaining a numerous standing army in time of peace, made a motion that the number should be reduced to twelve thousand. A warm debate ensuing, was managed in favour of the first motion by lord Hervey, sir Robert Walpole and his brother, Mr. Pelham, and sir Philip Yorke, attorney-general. This gentleman was counted a better lawyer than a politician, and shone more as an advocate at the bar than as an orator in the house of commons. The last partisan of the ministry was sir William Yonge, one of the lords commissioners in the treasury; a man who rendered himself serviceable and necessary by stooping to all compliances, running upon every scent, and haranguing on every subject, with an even uninterrupted tedious flow of full declamation, composed of assertions without veracity, conclusions from false premises, words without meaning, and language without propriety. Lord Morpeth’s motion was espoused by Mr. Watkin Williams Wynne, a gentleman of an ancient family and opulent fortune in Wales, brave, open, hospitable, and warmly attached to the ancient constitution and hierarchy; he was supported by Mr. Walter Plummer, who spoke with weight, precision, and severity; by sir W, Wyndham, Mr. Shippen, Mr. W. Pulteney, and Mr. Barnard. The courtiers argued that it was necessary to maintain such a number of land-forces as might defeat the designs of malcontents, secure the interior tranquillity of the kingdom, defend it from external assaults, overawe its neighbours, and enable it to take vigorous measures in case the peace of Europe should be re-embroiled. They affirmed, the science of war was so much altered, and acquired so much attention, that no dependance was to be placed upon a militia; that all nations were obliged to maintain standing armies, for their security against the encroachments of neighbouring powers; that the number of troops in Great Britain was too inconsiderable to excite the jealousy of the people, even under an ambitious monarch; that his majesty never entertained the least thought of infringing the liberties of his subjects; that it could not be supposed that the officers, among whom were many gentlemen of family and fortune, would ever concur in a design to enslave their country; and that the forces now in pay could not be properly deemed a standing army, inasmuch as they were voted and maintained from year to year by the parliament, which was the representative of the people. To these arguments the members in the opposition replied, that a standing force in time of peace was unconstitutional, and had been always thought dangerous; that a militia was as capable of discipline as a standing army, and would have more incentives to courage and perseverance; that the civil magistrate was able to preserve the peace of the country; that the number of the malcontents was altogether contemptible, though it might be considerably augmented by maintaining a standing army, and other such arbitrary measures; that other nations had been enslaved by standing armies; and howsoever they might find themselves necessitated to depend upon a military force for security against encroaching neighbours, the case was very different with regard to Great Britain, for the defence of which nature had provided in a peculiar manner; that this provision was strengthened and improved by a numerous navy, which secured her dominion of the sea; and, if properly disposed, would render all invasion impracticable, or at least ineffectual; that the land-army of Great Britain, though sufficient to endanger the liberties of an unarmed people, could not possibly secure such an extent of coast, and therefore could be of very little service in preventing an invasion; that though they had all imaginable confidence in his majesty’s regard to the liberty of the subjects, they could not help apprehending, that should a standing army become part of the constitution, another prince of more dangerous talents, and more fatal designs, might arise, and employ it for the worst purposes of ambition; that though many officers were gentlemen of honour and probity, these might be easily discarded, and the army gradually moulded into quite a different temper. By these means, practised in former times, an army had been new modelled to such a degree, that they turned their swords against the parliament for whose defence they had been raised, and destroyed the constitution both in church and state; that with respect to its being wholly dependent on the parliament, the people of England would have reason to complain of the same hardship, whether a standing army should be declared at once indispensable, or regularly voted from year to year, according to the direction of the ministry; that the sanction of the legislature granted to measures which in themselves are unconstitutional, burdensome, odious, and repugnant to the genius of the nation, instead of yielding consolation, would serve only to demonstrate that the most effectual method of forging the chains of national slavery, would be that of ministerial influence operating upon a venal parliament. Such were the reasons urged against a standing army, of what number soever it might be composed; but the expediency of reducing the number from about eighteen thousand to twelve thousand, was insisted upon as the natural consequence of his majesty’s declaration, by which they were given to understand that the peace of Europe was established; and that he had nothing so much at heart as the ease and prosperity of his people. It was suggested, that if eighteen thousand men were sufficient on the supposed eve of a general war in Europe, it was surely reasonable to think that a less number would suffice when peace was perfectly re-established. Whatever effect these reasons had upon the body of the nation, they made no converts in the house, where the majority resolved that the standing army should be maintained without reduction. Mr. Plummer complained that the country was oppressed by an arbitrary method of quartering soldiers, in an undue proportion, upon those publicans who refused to vote in elections according to the direction of the ministry. Mr. Pulteney asserted, that the money raised for the subsistence of eighteen thousand men in England, would maintain sixty thousand French or Germans, or the same number of almost any other people on the continent. Sir William Wyndham declared, that eighteen thousand of the English troops in the late war were maintained on less than two-thirds of the sum demanded for the like number; but no regard was paid to these allegations.
THE CHARITABLE CORPORATION.
The next object of importance that attracted the notice of the house, was the state of the charitable corporation. This company was first erected in the year one thousand seven hundred and seven. Their professed intention was to lend money at legal interest to the poor upon small pledges; and to persons of better rank upon an indubitable security of goods impawned. Their capital was at first limited to thirty thousand pounds, but, by licenses from the crown, they increased it to six hundred thousand pounds, though their charter was never confirmed by act of parliament. In the month of October, George Robinson, esquire, member for Mar-low, the cashier, and John Thompson, warehouse-keeper of the corporation, disappeared in one day. The proprietors, alarmed at this incident, held several general courts, and appointed a committee to inspect the state of their affairs. They reported, that for a capital of above five hundred thousand pounds no equivalent was found; inasmuch as their effects did not amount to the value of thirty thousand, the remainder having been embezzled by means which they could not discover. The proprietors, in a petition to the house of commons, represented that by the most notorious breach of trust in several persons to whom the care and management of their affairs were committed, the corporation had been defrauded of the greatest part of their capital; and that many of the petitioners were reduced to the utmost degree of misery and distress; they therefore prayed, that as they were unable to detect the combinations of those who had ruined them, or to bring the delinquents to justice, without the aid of the power and authority of parliament, the house would vouchsafe to inquire into the state of the corporation, and the conduct of their managers; and give such relief to the petitioners as to the house should seem meet. The petition was graciously received, and a secret committee appointed to proceed on the inquiry. They soon discovered a most iniquitous scene of fraud, which had been acted by Robinson and Thompson, in concert with some of the directors, for embezzling the capital, and cheating the proprietors. Many persons of rank and quality were concerned in this infamous conspiracy; some of the first characters in the nation did not escape suspicion and censure. Sir Robert Sutton and sir Archibald Grant were expelled the house of commons, as having had a considerable share in those fraudulent practices; a bill was brought in to restrain them and other delinquents from leaving the kingdom, or alienating their effects. In the meantime, the committee received a letter from signior John Angelo Belloni, an eminent banker at Rome, giving them to understand, that Thompson was secured in that city, with all his papers, and confined to the castle of St. Angelo; and that the papers were transmitted to his correspondent at Paris, who would deliver them up, on certain conditions stipulated in favour of the prisoner. This letter was considered as an artifice to insinuate a favourable opinion of the pretender, as if he had taken measures for securing Thompson, from his zeal for justice and affection for the English people. On this supposition, the proposals were rejected with disdain; and both houses concurred in an order that the letter should be burned at the Royal Exchange, by the hands of the common hangman. The lower house resolved, that it was an insolent and audacious libel, absurd and contradictory; that the whole transaction was a scandalous artifice, calculated to delude the unhappy, and to disguise and conceal the wicked practices of the professed enemies to his majesty’s person, crown, and dignity.
REVIVAL OF THE SALT-TAX.
No motion during this session produced such a warm contest, as did that of sir Robert Walpole, when, after a long preamble, he proposed that the duties on salt, which about two years before had been abolished, should now be revived and given to his majesty, his heirs and successors, for the term of three years. In order to sweeten this proposal, he declared that the land-tax for the ensuing year should be reduced to one shilling in the pound. All the members of the country party were immediately in commotion. They expressed their surprise at the grossness of the imposition. They observed, that two years had scarcely elapsed since the king, in a speech from the throne, had exhorted them to abolish some of the taxes that were the most burdensome to the poor: the house was then of opinion, that the tax upon salt was the most burdensome and the most pernicious to the trade of the kingdom, of all the impositions to which the poor was subjected, and therefore it was taken off; but that no good reason could be produced for altering their opinion so suddenly, and resolving to grind the faces of the poor, in order to ease a few rich men of the landed interest. They affirmed, that the most general taxes are not always the least burdensome: that after a nation is obliged to extend their taxes farther than the luxuries of their country, those taxes that can be raised with the least charge to the public are the most convenient and easiest to the people: but they ought carefully to avoid taxing those things which are necessary for the subsistence of the poor. The price of all necessaries being thus enhanced, the wages of the tradesman and manufacturer must be increased; and where these are high the manufacturers will be undersold by those of cheaper countries. The trade must of consequence be ruined; and it is not to be supposed that the landed gentlemen would choose to save a shilling in the pound from the land-tax, by means of an expedient that would ruin the manufactures of his country, and decrease the value of his own fortune. They alleged that the salt-tax particularly affected the poor, who could not afford to eat fresh provisions; and that, as it formerly occasioned murmurs and discontents among the lower class of people, the revival of it would, in all probability, exasperate them into open sedition. They observed, that while it was exacted in England, a great number of merchants sent their ships to Ireland, to be victualled for their respective voyages; that since it had been abolished, many experiments had been successfully tried with salt for the improvement of agriculture, which would be entirely defeated by the revival of this imposition. They suggested that the land-tax was raised at a very small expense, and subject to no fraud, whereas that upon salt would employ a great number of additional officers in the revenue, wholly depending upon the ministry, whose influence in elections they would proportionably increase. They even hinted, that this consideration was one powerful motive for proposing the revival of an odious tax, which was in effect an excise, and would be deemed a step towards a general excise upon all sorts of provisions. Finally, they demonstrated that the salt-tax introduced numberless frauds and perjuries in different articles of traffic. Sir Robert Walpole endeavoured to obviate all these objections in a long speech, which was minutely answered and refuted in every article by Mr. Pulteney. Nevertheless, the question being put, the minister’s motion was carried in the affirmative, and the duty revived; yet, before the bill passed, divers motions were made, and additional clauses proposed by the members in the opposition. New debates were raised on every new objection, and the courtiers were obliged to dispute their ground by inches.
GEORGE II. 1727-1760