358 REJOICINGS IN ENGLAND AND NEW HOPES. [1798. M. Thiers, having described the great naval battle of Aboukir with tolerable fairness, admits that it was the most disastrous that the French navy had yet experienced-one from which the most fatal military consequences might be apprehended. The news of the disaster caused a momentary despair in the French army. Bonaparte received the intelligence with calmness. "Well," he exclaimed, "we must die here; or go forth, great, as were the ancients." He wrote to Kleber, "We must do great things;" and Kleber replied, "Yes, we must do great things: I prepare my faculties." It would have been fortunate for the fame of Bonaparte, if he had abstained from doing some of "the great things" which he accomplished whilst he remained in the East. The victory of Nelson formed the great subject of congratulation in the royal speech, when the Session was opened on the 20th of November. "By this great and brilliant victory, an enterprize of which the injustice, perfidy, and extravagance had fixed the attention of the world, and was peculiarly directed against some of the most valuable interests of the British empire, has, in the first instance, been turned to the confusion of its authors." Out of this victory new hopes were to arise-vain hopes which statesmen formed in the enthusiasm of success: "The blow thus given to the power and influence of France has afforded an opening, which, if improved by suitable exertions on the part of other powers, may lead to the general deliverance of Europe." What the king said from his throne, men "in the secret" had previously whispered in confidence to their friends: "It seems quite certain," writes Mr. Addington, " that the war on the continent will be renewed; and I have no doubt that Prussia will concur in the prosecution of it. Lord Nelson 1798.] THE INCOME-TAX FIRST IMPOSED. 359 has electrified Europe." Magnificent were the anticipations of the sanguine Speaker. The Swiss were to throw off their yoke; Prussia would keep France at bay on the Rhine. The emperor Paul would recover Mentz and Manheim. The Austrians, in conjunction with the king of Naples, would be sufficient for the deliverance of Italy. Holland, the Netherlands, Brabant, even France herself, would surely not remain inactive.* These prodigious anticipations lead one to remember a certain Arabian story of a man who, calculating in his day-dream the vast profits he was to acquire by turning again and again the capital he had expended upon articles of glass, kicked over the tray upon which his store was placed. The waking Alnaschar cried out and said, "All this is the result of my pride;" and he slapped his face and tore his clothes. A bitter reproach against England-in many respects an unjust reproach-had been embodied in the exaggerations of one who justified the extravagances of poetical imagery, as "the product of his own seething imagination, and therefore impregnated with that pleasurable exaltation which is experienced in all energetic exertion of intellectual power." + England at the end of 1796 was thus painted: "Abandoned of Heaven! mad avarice thy guide, At cowardly distance, yet kindling with pride, Mid thy herds and thy corn-fields secure thou hast stood, The reproach was more pithily expressed by the French in ascribing every hostile movement of Europe to "the gold of Pitt." Five years of fatal experience had, in 1798, shown how hollow were the alliances that were bought. The system was to be renewed again and again. On the 29th of December, 1798, a treaty of alliance was concluded between Great Britain and Russia. Russia was, of course, to be subsidized. The vein of gold was far from being exhausted, however vigorously it had been worked. A new vein was now to be opened. On the 3rd of December Mr. Pitt gave an estimate of the amount of Supply required. The total was upwards of twenty-nine millions. The estimate for 1793 was sixteen millions. To meet this ever-increasing expenditure all sorts of devices of direct taxation had been resorted to-devices described by the marquis of Lansdowne as " irksome, petty, and unproductive exactions which fret and disturb men's minds." + Mr. Pitt now proposed, for the first time in the history of British finance, an Income-Tax. He estimated the total income of Great Britain at 102,000,000l., which he proposed to tax, upon a graduated scale, at 10 per cent.; to commence with incomes above 60l. a-year, but in a reduced ratio from 607. to 2007. He assumed that this tax would produce an annual revenue of ten millions. In 1859-60, the Income-Tax was 9d. in the pound, which also produced very nearly ten millions. The great financial measure of the minister of 1798 was called by Mr. Tierney "indiscriminate rapine;" and he and others urged the objections which have been so often ineffectually urged, however impossible to be refuted. Mr. Tierney asked, "Does the minister mean to say, that a person possessing an income for life of a certain sum, and another person of the same income which he derives from the interest of his own capital, can "Life of Lord Sidmouth," vol. i. p. 215. Coleridge-Apologetic Preface to "Fire, Famine, and Slaughter." VOLUNTEERS-IRELAND. [1798. equally bear the same taxes ?" A more obvious objection was put by Mr. Hobhouse: "The man who had an income of 10007. per annum arising from capital, and the man who gained the same annual sum by a profession or business, surely ought not to be assessed in the same degree."* House of Lords, the argument, which left out of view the pressure upon In the industry, was used by lord Holland,—that a direct tax of this nature would be oppressive to the landed interest. "Could their lordships look forward to the prospect of their posterity becoming titled beggars? Their property was easily known, and they could not, if they were inclined, evade the tax. The whole weight of the tax must fall on those who should not be able to escape-in fact, on land-owners-on those who had ostensible possessions." + The measure of an Income-Tax was passed without any division in either House. In the royal speech of the 20th of November, there were two references to the internal condition of Great Britain and Ireland which are of more than temporary importance: "The extent of our preparations at home, and the demonstrations of zeal and spirit among all ranks of my subjects, have deterred the enemy from attempting to execute their vain threat of invading the coasts of this kingdom." The "demonstrations of zeal and spirit" had chiefly reference to the formation of Volunteer corps throughout the country. How imperfectly the zeal of the people was then seconded by the aid of the government may be collected from a letter of lord Cornwallis, in May, 1798. He was then Master-General of the Ordnance: "The only means by which the innumerable local corps in all parts of the country can be armed, is by providing balls for fowling-pieces."‡ The other noticeable passage in the royal speech is this: "In Ireland the rebellion which they [the enemy] had instigated has been curbed and repressed; the troops which they landed for its support have been compelled. to surrender; and the armaments since destined for the same purpose have, by the vigilance and activity of my squadrons, been captured or dispersed." The policy of curbing and repressing rebellion was now to be associated with a higher ambition in the British government. The first proposal to the British Parliament of a legislative union with Ireland, was conveyed in a passage of the King's message on the 22nd of January, recommending to the "Parliaments of both kingdoms to provide, in the manner which they shall judge most expedient, for settling such a complete and final adjustment as may best tend to improve and perpetuate a connection, essential for their common security, and to augment and consolidate the strength, power, and resources of the British empire." During the progress of our narrative, from the year 1795, we have deferred any detailed notice of the condition of Ireland. In the next Chapter we shall endeavour to present a connected view of the circumstances which preceded the Rebellion; of the progress of that calamitous struggle; and of its final issue in the measure which has been a never-ceasing source of bitterness to Irish factions, but of the benefits of which to both countries no wise or honest politician can now doubt. "Parliamentary History," vol. xxxiv. cols. 23 and 25. + Ibid. col. 185. |