the deficiency of land and malt) will be lefs by £.37,924.* 2d, That the fum of £.20,000 allowed for the Foundling Hofpital, and £.1,800 for American Surveys, will foon cease to be neceffary, as the fervices will be compleated. What follows with regard to the refources,† is very well worthy the reader's attention. "Of this "eftimate," fays he, "upwards of £.300,000 "will be for the plantation fervice; and that fum, "I hope, the people of Ireland and the colonies "might be induced to take off Great Britain, and defray between them, in the proportion of £.200,000 by the colonies, and £.100,000 by "Ireland." * In making up this account, he falls into a furprifing errour of arithmetick. "The deficiency of the land-tax in the year “1754 and 1755,* when it was at 28. amounted to no more, on "a medium, than £.49,372; to which, if we add half the fum, "it will give us £.79,058 as the peace deficiency at 3s. Total, £. 49,372 24,686 £.74,058 Which he makes £.79,058. This is indeed in disfavour of his argument; but we fhall fee that he has ways, by other errours, of reimburfing himself. + P. 34. * P. 33. H 3 Such Such is the whole of this mighty scheme. Take his reduced eftimate, and his further reductions, and his refources all together, and the refult will be; He will certainly lower the provifion made for the navy. He will cut off largely (God knows what or how) from the army and ordnance extraordinaries. He may be expected to cut off more. He hopes that the deficiencies on land and malt will be less than ufual; and he hopes that America and Ireland might be induced to take off £.300,000 of our annual charges. If any of these Hopes, Mights, Infinuations, Expectations, and Inducements, fhould fail him, there will be a formidable gaping breach in his whole project. If all of them fhould fail, he has left the nation without a glimmering of hope in this thick night of terrours which he has thought fit to spread about us. If every one of them, which, attended with fuccefs, would fignify any thing to our revenue, can have no effect but to add to our diftractions and dangers, we fhall be if poffible in a still worfe condition from his projects of cure than he reprefents us from our original diforders. Before we examine into the confequences of these schemes, and the probability of these savings, let us fuppofe them all real and all safe, and then see what it is they amount to, and how he reafons on them: Deficiency This is the amount of the only articles of faving he fpecifies; and yet he chooses to affert*"that "we may venture on the credit of them to reduce "the standing expences of the estimate (from £.3,468,161) to £.3,300,000;" that is, for a faving of £.58,000, he is not ashamed to take credit for a defalcation from his own ideal establishment in a fum of no lefs than £.168,161! Suppose even that we were to take up the estimate of the Confiderations (which is however abandoned in the State of the Nation), and reduce his £.75,000 extraordinaries to the original £.35,000, ftill all these favings joined together give us but £.98,800; that is, near £.70,000 fhort of the credit he calls for, and for which he has neither given any reafon, nor furnished any data whatfoever for others to reafon upon. Such are his favings, as operating on his own project of a peace establishment. Let us now confider them as they affect the exifting establishment and our actual fervices. He tells us, the fum al"lowed in his estimate for the navy is "£.69,321 "lefs than the grant for that service in 1767; but "in that grant £. 30,000 was included for the pur"chase of hemp, and a faving of about £.25,000 "was made in that year." The author has got fome fecret in arithmetick. Thefe two fums put together amount, in the ordinary way of computing, to £.55,000, and not to £.69,321. On what principle has he chofen to take credit for £.14,321 more? To what this strange inaccuracy is owing, I cannot poffibly comprehend; nor is it very material, where the logick is fo bad, and the policy fo erroneous, whether the arithmetick be juft or otherwife. But in a fcheme for making this nation "happy at home and refpected abroad, for"midable in war and flourishing in peace," it is furely a little unfortunate for us, that he has picked out the Navy, as the very first object of his œconomical experiments. Of all the publick fervices, that of the navy is the one in which tampering may be of the greateft danger, which can worft be fupplied upon an emergency, and of which any failure draws after it the longest and heaviest train of confequences. I am far from faying, that this or any fervice ought not to be conducted with œconomy. But I will never fuffer the facred name of œconomy to be bestowed upon arbitrary defalcation of charge. The author tells us himfelf, "that "that to fuffer the navy to rot in harbour for want "of repairs and marines, would be to invite de"ftruction." It would be fo. When the author talks therefore of favings on the navy eftimate, it is incumbent on him to let us know, not what fums he will cut off, but what branch of that fervice he deems fuperfluous. Inftead of putting us off with unmeaning generalities, he ought to have ftated what naval force, what naval works, and what naval ftores, with the lowest estimated expence, are neceffary to keep our marine in a condition commenfurate to its great ends. And this too not for the contracted and deceitful space of a fingle year, but for fome reasonable term. Every body knows that many charges cannot be in their nature regular or annual. In the year 1767 a ftock of hemp, &c. was to be laid in; that charge intermits, but it does not end. Other charges of other kinds take their place. Great works are now carrying on at Portsmouth, but not of greater magnitude than utility; and they must be provided for. A year's estimate is therefore no juft idea at all of a permanent peace establishment. Had the author opened this matter upon these plain principles, a judgment might have been formed, how far he had contrived to reconcile national defence with publick œconomy. Till he has done it, those who had rather depend on any man's reafon than the greatest man's authority will not give him cre 1 dit |