The Express.
London, England, 1855-02-20 00:00:00

.1.1"111"811."" .• .
8 A fItiTICAL 8011h1EFENCE OF I
LOANS RAISED BY MR PITT.
—..—
The fourth ordinary meeting of the Statiatimil
133elity for the s Won 1834 53 wu held last •eg (Mon-
day). at the tortes of the society, 12, St. Jarne,'s•iqu .re.
Present—Mr. TOOLS, V.P. (in the abate), Lord bloasessle,
Sir T. Edward Caleb:eche, Colonel Sykes, Aldermen Salo-
mon*, Mr. Lord, banister, Mr. Frtsbdeld, M.P., Vesta-
nanr-Colonel M►cdonald, Dr. Harrington Tuke, Mr. Cltv:i-
wick, Dr. Hodgkin, Dr. Guy, Dr. Fen, were present.
A paper wu read by Mr. Newmareb, one of the !lone-
lier) mammies of the society : Oa the loans raised by
Mr. Pitt during the first French war, 1793-1801; with
DOS statements in defence of the methods of funding era-

played."
rib notici the
Mr. NaWKA&CR oomaseued his papeag
general impressions entertaised of Mr. Pitt's policy as re-
gards the loans raised from 1793 to 1801. " Among thou
persons who by taste or occupation are led to interest them
'elves on questions relating to the genteel Holum of the
country, and especially on questions relating to the !undies
system and the natioaal debt, it would be difficult to find
many who are not prepared to express very stems censure
ot the financial policy et Mr. Pitt, during the first Preach
war of 1793-1802, as that policy wu exhibited in the con-
traction of loans.
" The iatemperate accusations of a period of violent con-
test between political parties, holding scarcely as opinion
in common, have, as regards Mr. Pitt's unwires of finance,
survived to subsequent generatioss; tad it is not altoge-
ther to our credit that we should coctinue to repeat the
abstract annum of the enemies of Mr. Pitt, and neglect
almost wholly to make ourselves familiar with the real na-
ture of those extreme practical difficulties which were cer-
tainly considered by the public who supported Mr. Pitt ,as
a complete vindication of the financial expedients he found
himself compelled to employ.
War was declared against England and Holland by the
National Convention on the let of February, 1793; and the
definitive treaty of peace was signed at Amuses on the 25th
ofMarch, no-2. Oaths first ot these dates the landed capital
the debt was 244—0 n the second, 667 millions sterliag ;
during nine years of wllf, therefore, the funded capita( of
the debt was increased by 323 millions. Mr. Pitt ceased to
be premier a year before the peace, or on the 17th of March,
1801; but in reality his was the mind which devised the
system, in accordance with which these 323 millioas wese
added to the debt.
Now for this amount of debt inscribed the:actual sum
received in money was about 720 millions ; or, in general
terms,
terms, only two-thirds of the capital crated; and hence
arises the mann and the sonestion. I pus over all that
port of tee controversy which relates to the policy and the
management of the war, and therefore over sit 0,000 ques-
tions which relate to the plan of opposing enemy by
subsidies of money to continental allies, and I confine
myself to the censures and the accusations which have been,
and see, directed against the manner in which this great
debt was contracted.
" It is said, then, that there were two capital faults, via.,
ignorance of some of the simplest rules of finance ; and
gross extravagance in the manner in which the Loans were
brought into the market.
" It is laid down as a fundamental rale, obligatory on all
tisanes ministers in this n.iuntry—aad as especially binding
on Mr. Pitt—that all loans shall be raised at the market
rate of interest et the time ; that the amount of capital
funded shall in no way exceed the capital actually raised
in mousy ; and that consequently it is the duty of the ini-1
sister practically to disregard any leadilesattons of alit.
fealty to the Exchequer, arising fleet Ilisirepellei MIMI
terms in a straitened money maxim*
_lll 1111111111110
sure to • community 'load, he.
burdens and extreme dangers.
It is altered that Mr. Pitt systematically violated these
canons of finance, and violated them without soy sollesent
nectssi.y, and certainly, it is said, without say cogeposallog
aivantsge. In point of fact there have been aosl I dare
say there are, persons who believe that the whole girth* 103
millions of debt—which represents the differences between
the money received and the capital crested—wag s less to
the country of the grossest and most gratuitous Mad ; •
loss wholly unrelieved by any trace of justification es de-
duction.
" The real gravity of the charge, however, is foliate those
quarters when, with great true and ingenuity of reolsoning,
It is urged—that It was the duty of Mr. Pitt to have mind
the loans of the dist French war in strict accordance Web
thealfriaeiple of paying a rate of interest for each km
to the market value of money at the time ; sad,
adopting such a coulee, to have enabled the country, on the
return of peace, to have materially reduced the annual rate
of interest, and therefore the annual charge of the debt.'
La I farther, that it was not less his plain policy than his
distinct duty to have raised a vary..auch larger portioned
the supplies within the year; and In that manner, ',psi
ally during the earlier years of the war, to have ',dad
those onerous loanswhich have descended to osreeleie
unredeemed and perhaps but little susceptible of redeems,

ton.
In referring to the party which holds these views
I would be understood to do so with great respect.
It includes names of the greatest eminence; and if
I venture to call in question their opinions
on the subject now under discussion, I do so on the specific
ground that as far as I can judge, those opinions have been
formed on abstract grounds, and not after a careful exami-
nation of the particular facts and circumstances which
marked the whole of the period from 1793 to 1801, and
placed Mr. Pitt in situations of financial &Mushy, at that
time wholly new, and which happily since then have not
been repeated.
" I am sanguine enough to suppose that such a careful ex-
amination as I have just mentioned will show Ma very de-
cisive 1111111001--.llt, that it would have been practically int-
risible to have raised most of Mr. Pitt's loans in the
amounts, and at the times required if the principle of bor-
rowing at par but been enforced ; 2adly, that even U
the money had been raised in five per cent. instead of
mainly in three per cent. stock, the difficulties would have
been frequently excessive, and in every case the rated la-
Brest, and therefore the annual charge very considerably
higher ; 3rdly, that when the facts are properly 11Williged
there is Co adequate justification for imputing extra
to the minister, as regards the
were raised, nor for believing that in the contracts
actually entered into, the country did not obtain the full
benefit of whatever bona Ale competition could be excited
among persons qualified by wealth and character to afford
proper security for a punctual fulfilment of their engage-
ments: (4) That in the anxious and difficult situation of
this country during most of the years of the Revolu-
tionary War it was a consideration so pressing as to be-
come a necessity of the first order, not to increase, even
by the smallest avoidable amount, the pressure of the
existing taxes: and (6.) That as a general result it was
not possible, with a due regard to the exigencies of the
time—especially daring the six years 1793.98, both incite
sive—to raise within the year by means of old and new
lance a larger re nnnnn than was actually obtained.
" We can hardly commence an examination of the finan-
cial measures of the war without first referring to some of
the principal circumstances affecting this country at the
time of its outbreak in the second month of 1793.
" The mune from the King to parliament which, en
the 28th of January, 1793, accompanied a copy of the cep
respondence between Lord Grenville, the Forelp Seeratuy
and M. Chativelia (the parsonage who had cosameasisated
with the British government on the part of Frame slum
the dethronement of Louis XVI., in the Aura pinkest')
described the hostile measures which had bum, seeessery
as measures necessary for oppoein_g views of sigmas-
sent and ambition on the part of France, which week be
at all times dangerous to the general interests of !slope,
but are peculiarly so when conueeted with the promulga-
tion of principles which lead to the violation of the most
sacred duties, and are utterly subversive of the_ peace and
order of all civilised society;' and it would be diult per-
haps to describe in language more free from ambiguity the
real origin of the war which was then entered upon by
Great Britain. It was a war which could be no longer
avoided, if this country was to exert any influence in re-
straining the power of France within its form, r limits ; and
is nay degree :sprees that violent democratic (maids=
which led the revolutionary party to enter upon a caner of
foreign propagandism, subversive, as the Message said, of
tho peace and order of all civilised society.
" This country and Holland were the last of the leading
Powers of Europe to take up arms against France ; and if
it had sot been for the atrocious measures which had
marked the conduct of the Jacobin party, during the alas
or ten months immediately readies the outbreak of the
war, it may be considered certain that there would have
been so departure from the scrupulone neutrality which
Great Britain had observed eines the Assembly of the States
General in May, 1789.
" It is too much the habit to forget that the eismuller sad
aspect of the revolution beams seriously cheated he the
wone after the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly ma
the 29th of September, 1791 ; and when, in el
the fatal decree which disquallied the members of body
from being again sleeted. the wpme pewee peesed into
the hands of the absents wad mean ishemeeress who
composed the great majority of the semi Amber which
arose out of the Revolution, mg whirl, lake the same of
the Legislative Assembly, elessiseeed its en the let
October, 1791. This representative body eeellheed k
existence for a few weeks short of a year (to** 10th Sept.,
1793), or sir til the meeting of that third 411111101bIT which,
ander use came of the National Conventicle, has left be-
hind it one of the most terrible instances which has come
down to us in an authentic form.
" Set if the crisis reached its culminating point under
the convention, we must in justice not forget that the seeds
of nearly all the subsequent crimes and mischiefs were
sown during the eleven months from October, 1791, to
September, 1792, during which the Legislative Assembly
held in its bands the fate of France and the peace of Europe.
*gut is not a historian likely to bear testimony against
the popular cause of the Revolution ; but even he wetness
that Value de l'Assemblie Constituents pied moles par
see defeats qua par les coups des factions. Plaid' entre
ratistceratie et la multitude, elle fat attaquiis par Pane et
imvahie per relates.' It was under the Lefelsialin Auto-
lily that the Peuillant ministry was tumid out (March,
1791); and the Girondist ministry, which Moniss place, led
or conspellei by the riot of the 20th June (170), the
mu-
sure of the Swim Guard of the Ilith /Lege* amid the MU
more terrible massacre in the prisms of 111•1•1 September,
te commit itself to those ultimate =silent of IL dailiter
ties of gepelty, and the entewelimi of ateside pater le
the ado e/ Paris "hick is the mem et a very isle tisk
Waimea Nearby soft Wilma kb every isgertneet
the elate.
"The Ant meann e the Noting ceaventies w 9 1111