LONDON, April 23 to April 30, 1803. 609] TO THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER. SIR, When I closed my last letter, I regarded the discussion of your financial statetments as being, for the present, at an end. But, the Account of the CONSOLIDATED FUND, for the last year, being now made out, and laid before Parliament, I think it right to enter into an examination of it, as far as it tends to elucidate the points, which I have already discussed. To describe the Consolidated Fund, more fully than I have hitherto done, may be necessary for the information of some few of my readers, and, I do really believe, that it is not altogether unnecessary with respect to yourself.-The CONSOLIDATED FUND consists of the net produce of all the permanent taxes, whether arising from Customs, Excise, Stamps, Letters, or Assessments, including Imprest Monies, and Monies repaid, which, indeed, makes the whole of the Public Income of the country, except the produce of the annual Land and MaltTax and the profits of the Lottery. This Consolidated Fund is pledged for the payment of the interest, management, &c. of the National Debt, and also of the Civil List and of the special grants made by the Account of the CONSOLIDATED FUND of Great L610 Parliament. Whatever, therefore is, in the course of the year, brought into the Conso. lidated Fund, more than is required to answer these permanent charges, is called the Surplus of the Consolidated Fund, and is, together with the annual Land and Malt tax, the Lottery, and any other temporary resour ces, applied to the purpose of maintaining the army, navy, and ordnance, and to the discharge of such miscellaneous expenses as may arise within the year.-In making out the account of the Consolidated Fund, it is the custom to state, first the income arising from the taxes collected within the year, and, on the other side, the charge on account of the National Debt, Civil List, and Parliamentary Grants; after which are stated, on the income side, such heads of receipt as do not regularly occur, and, on the expenditure side, those payments for which no permanent provision is made, and also those which casually occur. The right-hand column, on the expenditure side, shews the payments that will be necessary for the year after that for which the account is made out. Such is the nature of the following account, lately laid before Parliament, and dated on the 25th of March, 1803. Britain for the Year ended 5th January, 1803. Future annual 1803. 5,000 0 0 47,125 11 74 30,097 13 119,235 7 74 1,286,615 8 49,143 19 36,500 0 Additional per- 1 for Grants, &c 134,695 17 6 132,500 0 0 34 On account loan to Emperor... 497,591 8 o 2,166,875 8 10 Tot. payment Fund for the Year ended 32,423,605 9 5th Jan. 1803.... uncertain. and future 25,667,504 19 0 25,590,864 16 91 charge.... Now, Sir, after observing, that the last column of this account is intended to show what will be the charge of the Consolidated Fund for this present year, and for each future ear, unless the debt or civil list beincreased, I shall proceed to draw from the materials before me a clear and indubitable proof, of the correctness of my former statements, and of the fallacy of yours, respecting the amount of the surplus of this fund.-The total income is, we see, £32,423,605, and the total charge, o expenditure, for this present year, is £25,590,864, which, allow ing the income of this year to be equal to the last, leaves a surplus of £6,832,741; an, as you, in your Ways and Means of 10th Dec. counted upon only £6,500,000, it would, to a shallow observer, appear, that you had under-rated your resources, instead of justifying the charge of exaggeration and deception, which I preferred, and which I still prefer, against you.-I might first remark, as to the expenditure, that under all the heads, where the amount is uncertain, nothing at all is placed, though it is quite certain that something will be wanted under most of them. By looking back into the detail of the account (what I have taken being only the recapitulation), it will be perceived, that the exact amount of the charges for the police offices, for instance, being uncertain, they are not included in the expenditure of the present, though they amounted, last year, to more than £20,000. I will not, however, dispute about these uncertainties; but will take the expenditure for the present year as you have given it. Coming, then, to the income side of the account, we see the sum of £32,423,605, being the total amount of the income, during the year ended 5th January, 1803. But, Sir, the total amount of the income of this present year will fall short of this sum, unless new taxes are imposed to a very considerable amount; because, during last year, as I am now about to show, large sums were brought to this account, from sources, which are now dried up, as will be instantly perceived by looking at the seven last mentioned heads on the income side of the account, to which I beg leave to refer you, before you proceed another step.-Arrears of voluntary contributions are at an end; so are those of additional assessed taxes; so are those of income tax; and so are those of goods and shipping, commonly and most jocularly called convoy duty. All these, it is well known, are no more; and, therefore, whatever sum, arising from them, is to be found included in the income of last year, must be deducted in our estimate of the in some of the present year. The seventh head of these temporary resources is the amount of bounties on corn, meal, flour, and rice imported. And here I must say a word or two by way of explanation. Here is the sum of £2,166,875, which is to be brought to the Consolidated Fund out of the Supplies for 1802 and 1803, to replace a like sum, which had been paid out of the Fund for the said bounties. This is fair enough, upon the whole, but very fallacious, shamefully, I had almost said, detestably fallacious, as to the opinion which it is calculated to give of the income of 1802, that is of last year. The bounties on corn, &c. imported, are paid at the Custom-house, out of the duties received there; and, of course, as their amount is with-held from the net produce of the taxes which go to the making up of the Consolidated Fund, that amount should be brought into the Fund again in the manner that it is here brought; but, assuredly, no more should have been thus brought into the fund of last year, than was paid at the Custom-house during last year. The fact is, however, that, under the head, of which I am now speaking, two years' corn bounties are included! Those paid in 1801, and those paid in 1802! And, that which should not have been included makes more than two thirds of the whole sum! To Lord Auckland I owe infinite obligations ; I look towards him with a sort of filial gratitude; but, in nothing has he been so truly paternal as in producing the Custom-house accounts, by which I have been enabled to detect this instance of more than Flemish fraud. Look, Sir, at the Custom house account for 1802, that is for last year, for the year of which you have here given us an account of the Consolidated Fund, and you will find that there was only £715,323, paid during the year, for corn bounties. This, therefore, was the sum which should have been replaced in the account of the Consolidated Fund for that year, but you have replaced it with £2,160,875!!!" To replace," say you, a like sum paid out of the Consoli"dated Fund." You do not say, paid out of the fund during the year for which the account is made up: you do not say this, indeed; but do you not leave it to be so understood? You are not, in general, sparing of print and paper; and why not, then, make two lines of this credit, distinguish ing the sum paid for corn bounties, out of the Consolidated Fund of last year, from the sum paid out of the fund of the year before? Was it not natural to do so? Was it not necessary? And, though the account, as it now stands, is not absolutely false, does it not leave a falsehood to be inferred, and are you not, if for this reason only, fairly chargeable with ignorance, or with deception-While, however, I make all these deductions from the total amount of the income of last year, I must make one addition; to wit: the probable further produce of the new taxes, imposed last year. As these taxes were not in operation 'till the middle of May, they did not yield so much by nearly one half, last year, as they will yield this year, and, therefore, the further produce of them must be added to the income of last year, in order to come at the income of this year, and to ascertain the amount of this year's surplus. The further produce, of which I am here speaking, was estimated by you at £2,000,000. That this is calculating to the full height will appear very plain, when it is known that these new taxes, from 12th of May to the end of the year, produced only £1,957,340. I will not, however, dispute about this: I will allow the £2.000.000 to be added, and then the result will be as follows: TOTALINCOME of the consolidated fund, in the year which ended on the 5th of January, 1803, including arrears of income tax, &c. &c.... ADD, for further produce of new taxes, which were imposed last year, but which were under collection only part of the year £32,423,605 2,000,000 34,423,005 3,858,087 30,565,518 25,590,864 £4,974,554 (1) Besides the three sums of arrears stated in the recapitulation of the preceding account, there age three other sums, stated under the detailed heads of income arising from the sources of 1798, 1799, and 1800. These make, together £869,319. This statement, Sir, is fair, clear and correct. Every thing that you can possibly ask is allowed. I have taken your own figures, and by those very figures have produced a result, which incontestibly proves the deception, contained in your ways and means, laid before Parliament on the 10th of December. In those ways and means for defraying the expenses of the army, navy, ordnance, and miscellanies for the present year, ending 5th Jan. 1804, you took credit solidated fund during the present year; and, for £6,500,000, (2) as the surplus of the cons unless your accounts now laid before Parliament are false, or, unless you angment the income of the fund by new taxes imposed this year, I have proved, that the said surplus will amount to no more than £4,974,654, a sum which falls £1,525,340 short, not only of your estimate of the surplus, but of the credit which you tesk on account thereof, in your ways and means of the 10th of December last. To this point, Sir, I wish to hold you. You have asserted, in the face of the House of Commons, that the surplus of the consolidated fund will, during the present year, and upon the present taxes, amount to £6,500,000 at least; lassert, that if your account of last year be not false, the said surplus will amount to only £4,974,654, or thereabouts. Here we are at issue. Time alone can finally decide be◄ tween us; but, in the interim, I hope the Parliament and the people will perceive, that the grounds of your estimate have been proved to be false, and that they will view all your future estimates with that degree of caution and distrust, which your past are calculated to excite. am. &c. &c. WM. COBBETT Duke Street, Westz. 26 April, 1803, P.S. SIR, In my last letter (see p 596), I took notice of an error, a falsehood, in the account of British produce and manufactures exported. The official value of that produce and of those manufactures, exported in 1801, is, in the account which was lately laid before the House, stated at £25,699,809, whereas, in the account laid before the House last year, the said value, for the same year, 1801, was stated at £25,719.979, making a difference of £20,170. In my remarks on, this error (if it can be one), I observed, that one of the two accounts must be false; but, there is every reason to suppose, that the last year's account was correct, and, of course, which added to the total of the three sums spec. fied in the recapitulation, produce a total of £2,305,267. as is here stated, (2) See the Ways and Means.—Register, Vol. II¡ P. 780, that the falsehood attaches to that of this year; for, I find the account of last year to correspond precisely with the statement, on this head, included in the financial resolutions, which were passed by the House of Commons on the 22d of June 1802. In order to show the probable intention of this error, I will just repeat this part of the two accounts. Acc. presented last year. | Yrs. £. Value. s. d. 1798 19,672,503 9 1799 24,084,213 10 18co 24,304,283 13 6 1801 25,719,979 18 6 9 Acc. presented this year Yrs. £. Value. s. d. 1798 19,672,503 1799 24,084,213 1800 24,304,283 13 6 1808 25.699,809 6 I strictly honest man, in the moral sense of the word honest, I am not to shut my eyes against the falsehoods which appear in your financial statements; nor am I bound, as your partizans seem to contend, to attribute those falsehoods to mere ignorance, and want of capacity. The House of Commons, “the "guardians of the public purse," resolve, upon a motion of yours, that the official value of the British produce and manufactures exported in 1801, amounted to £25,719,979. 18s. 6d; and, the account now presented to the House of Commons, says, that that very same produce, and these very same manufactures, amounted to no more than £25,699,809. 6s. 1d. Either, therefore, the House of Commons did, upon your motion, make a false resolution, or, the account, now presented to that House, is false. 27,012,108 3 10 Now, Sir, it cannot be supposed, that this was a mistake in casting up, because it lies not in one figure only, but in several, and in the fractional sums also. Neither can it-That you may be able to prove this false have been occasioned by sums having been before inadvertantly brought down into 1801, which really belonged to 1800; for, as to all the former years the two accounts exactly agree. The sum of £20,170, therefore, which is taken from 1801, must be now included in 1802; and, what is the conse. quence? It just turns the corner of the million, and the first class of figures, which immediately and most powerfully strikes the eye, is thus falsely swelled from 26 to 27 millions. It happens, too, rather singularly, that the third figure, the figure expressing bundreds of thousands, in the year 1801, is lowered by the same cause from 7 to 6. This looks very much like an intentional imposition; and, though one ought not hastily to impute such an intention to accounts coming under the signature of so respectable an officer as MR. IRVING, yet, every discordance between two official papers, from the same authority, ought to be fully and satisfactorily elucidated. The papers, to which I am referring, are not reprints from the parliamentary papers, but the parliamentary papers themselves; and, I repeat, that the last mentioned paper was produced at the request, and on the motion, of Mr. George Rose, whilom Secretary of the Treasury, who has not, that I have heard of, pointed out the disagreement between it and the last year's account -You will say, perhaps, that you could not have any dishonest purpose in view, because the papers speak not of money passing through your hands, but of sums merely showing the state of trade. Very true, Sir; I never said, nor did I ever think, nor do I even now think, that you would rob the Exchequer. The attempt of the Plymouth Tinker has rivetted your moral honesty in the mind of every man who has heard of the transaction. But, because I regard you as a statement to have arisen from some clerical error, ought to be the wish of every one; for, unless you do it, what reliance can we, in future, be reasonably expected to place on any public account whatever? Masses of figures may be presented to our eyes, and results may be drawn from them; but who, if this matter be not satisfactorily explained, will attach any belief to either?-But, Sir, a more weighty consideration is, the contempt, to which these contradictory statements tend to expose the House of Commons. The people have been accustomed to look up to that body as the watchful guardians of the public treasure; as the effectual check upon those, through whose hands that treasure passes; and must not this confidence be shaken, when accounts, such as I have been speaking of, are sent forth under the sanc tion of the House of Commons? If an error of twenty thousand pounds can pass unnoticed in one account, why not in another? And, if twenty thousand, why not a million? X. So shall England, escap'd from her "safe politi cians," Such an Army array of her Quacks and Physi cians Such Lotions and Potions, Pills, Lancets, and Leeches, That MASSENA shall tremble, our coast when he reaches, And the CONSUL himself-his breeches. THE DOCTOR'S MODE OF PRACTISE PROVED TO BE NEITHER NEW NOR SUCCESSFUL. AS SANGRADO, with whom you're acquainted by reading, Prescrib'd, in all cases, hot-water and bleeding; ANTI-SANGRADO. PUBLIC PAPERS. Arvete concerning the foreigners established in the Colonies of Martinique and St. Lucia.—30th Pluviose, 11th year. -Louis-Thomas Villaret Joy use, Captain General of Martinique and St. Lucia; and Charles Henry Bertir, Counsellor of State, Colonial Prefect of the said Island. -On examination of the letters patent of the month of Oct. 1727, and the treaty of Amiens between the Fr. Republic and the United Kingdom of Great Britain. In consequence of the just representations of the French merchants with regard to the liberty with which foreigners continue to trade at Martinique and St. Lucie, since the said Islands have been restored to France. Considering that the justice and interests of governments require that the trade of their respective Colonial possessions should be exclusively reserved to the trade of the mother country. -That the same principle, acknowledged by all nations and enforced by the laws of all commercial countries, has been lately sanctioned again by the last treaty of peace between France and England.-Considering that, the authorities of those Colonies have given to foreigners, by the facility left to them until this day to carry on trade, a sufficient proof of their wish to entertain and increase, if possible, that harmony and friendly connexion existing between their respective governments. And lastly, considering that the losses and wants of all description, supported by the French trade during the war, makes it a duty for government to assist the restoration of the same by every possible means.-RESOLVE-I. All dispositions of the letters patent of the month of Oct. 1727, and especially those of the title 6th, concerning foreigners established in the Colonies, which dispositions have not been since repealed by any subsequent laws, ordinances, regulations or arretes, shall be fulfilled according to their form and tenor. -II. The delay granted to foreigners by the letters patent to put an end to their commercial business is fixed to the 1st Messidor next 20th June, 1803, O. S.)-III. From that date of the 1st Messidor, all stores occupied by foreigners are to be ceded in preference, on even offers, to the Merchants or Captains of French vessels.-IV. All contracts, notes of hand, transactions or bonds made after the date of the 1st Messidor next, with foreigners, concerning operations of commerce, or trade, either on their account or as attornies, even French houses of trade, shall be void, and shall not be capable of binding the parties, unless it be for final settlements of business, or of commercial partnership.- All public officers are forbidden to make out, sign or even receive such instruments of writing, |