est aggregate of warlike strength ever | HUNDRED AND SEVEN THOUSAND MEN put forth by any single nation since IN ARMS, all procured by voluntary enthe beginning of the world. The land rolment, of whom above nine hundred forces presented a total of two hun- thousand were drawn from the populadred and twenty-eight thousand regu- tion of the British Islands! When it lar troops, having increased during the is recollected that this prodigious armayear twelve thousand even after all the ment was raised in an empire in Eulosses of the year 1812; besides twenty- rope, not at that period numbering eight thousand British soldiers in India, much above eighteen millions of souls ninety-three thousand militia in the over its whole extentt-that is, conBritish Islands, hardly inferior to the siderably less than half the population army of the line, and thirty-two thou- of the French empire, which had a popusand foreign troops in the British ser-lation of forty-two millions to work upvice. The sepoy force in India numbered fully two hundred thousand men, making in all a total of five hundred and eighty-two thousand soldiers in arms, all raised by voluntary enlistment, and exclusively devoted to the military life as a profession. In addition to this, the local militia, similar to the Prussian landwehr, in the British Islands, amounted to no less than three hundred thousand; and the yeomanry cavalry, or landwehr horse, were sixty-eight thousand:-exhibiting a total of nine hundred and forty-nine thousand men in arms, of which seven hundred and forty-nine thousand were drawn from the population of the British Islands.*

on for its army of nine hundred thousand men, and hardly any naval force afloat to support-it must be admitted that history has not preserved so memorable an instance of patriotic exertion.

22. But these efforts drew after them a proportional expenditure, and never at any former period had the annual charges of government in the British empirê been so considerable. The army alone cost £19,000,000; its extraordinaries £9,000,000 more; the navy £20,000,000; the ordnance £3,000,000; and so lavish had the expenditure become, under the excitement and necessities of the war, that the unprovided expenditure of the year preceding amounted to no less than £4,662,000. But these charges, great and unprecedented as they were, constituted but a part of the expenses of Great Britain during this memorable year. The war in Germany at the same time was sustain

21. Immense as these forces are, the marvel that they should have reached such an amount is much increased, when we consider the magnitude of the naval establishment kept up in the same year, and the limited physical re-ed by her liberality; and the vast hosts sources of the country which, at the close of a twenty years' war, made such prodigious efforts. The British navy, at the commencement of 1813-and it was kept up at the same level during the whole year-amounted to two hundred and forty-four ships of the line, of which one hundred and two were in commission, and two hunded and nineteen frigates, besides smaller vessels; making in all, one thousand and nine ships in the service of England, of which six hundred and thirteen were in commission, and bore the royal flag! This immense force was manned by one hundred and forty thousand seamen, andeighteen thousand marines; making a total, with the land forces, of ELEVEN * See Appendix, F, Chap. LXXVI.

which stemmed the torrent of conquest on the Elbe, and rolled it back at Leipsic, were armed, clothed, and arrayed, by the munificence of the British government, and the resources of the British people. Portugal received a loan of two millions sterling; Sicily four hundred thousand; Spain, in money and stores, two millions; Sweden a million; Russia and Prussia three millions; Austria one million; besides warlike stores sent to Germany, to the amount of two millions more. The war on the † Population of

Great Britain in 1811,
Ireland, probably
Increase to 1813,

Total,

12,552,044 5,000,000

500,000

18,052,044

-Parl. Deb. xxi. 286. Census Papers.

Continent, during this year, cost in all, in subsidies or furnishings to foreign powers, ten millions four hundred thousand pounds, of which Germany alone received above six millions; and yet so little was Great Britain exhausted by these immense exertions, that she was able at the same time to advance a loan of two millions sterling to the East India Company. The total expenditure of the year, including Ireland, and reckoning the current vote of credit, reached the amazing and unprecedented amount of ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN MILLIONS.

*

the amount of £610,000 in Ireland, and spirits, sugar, and lesser articles in Great Britain, estimated to bring in £800,000, were imposed. But they were far from meeting the total interest on the sums and floating debt contracted, borrowed during the year. Yet so little were even these immense loans from affecting the public credit, or exhausting the pecuniary resources of Great Britain, that they seemed to have a directly contrary effect; the resources of the empire rose up with the more buoyancy the greater the load which was imposed upon them. Decisive proof of this occurred in this

23. It may naturally be asked how supplies so prodigious could by possi-year; for while the loan contracted bility be obtained during a single year, in spring was concluded at the rate of especially as the manufacturing indus- £5, 10s. 6d. per cent, that in Novemtry of the country had for above two ber was obtained on the more favourable years been most seriously obstructed, terms of £5, 6s. 2d. per cent; and such and most grievous distress induced in was the competition of capitalists to many districts by the cessation of all obtain shares in the loan at this reduced mercantile connection with America; rate, that not only were many disappointfirst, from the Non-Intercourse Act, ed who had come to bid, but the preand next, from the open hostility of mium on it in the market next day rose the United States. As the sum raised three and a half per cent. The answer by taxation within the year amounted to all these questions-the solution of in all to £68,800,000, a very large loan all these marvels-is to be found in became necessary; and such were the the energy of the British people, which demands upon the exchequer that, received full development in the proafter the sum had been borrowed which tection of native industry at home and appeared adequate to the whole prob- abroad; in the securing, by the strong able necessities of the state in March, a bond of interest, of colonial loyalty; further and very considerable addition and in the establishment of a system to the national debt had become neces- of currency, in the heart of the emsary in November. The loan at first pire, which was adequate to the wants contracted in March was £21,000,000; of its numerous population, and susbut even this ample supply proved in- tained without crisis or vacillation sufficient, and parliament was assem- throughout the whole contest the inbled early in November to make a fur-dustry of its vast and varied dominions. ther addition to the means to be placed at the disposal of the chancellor of the exchequer. An additional loan of twenty-two millions was voted in that month, of which one half was devoted to the current expenses of the year, and one half to fund an equal amount of exchequer bills, the sum which had now become so considerable as to occasion a very serious pressure on the money market. To meet the interest and contribution to the Sinking Fund for these great loans, additional taxes, chiefly on tobacco, malt, and spirits, to * See Appendix, G, Chap. LXXVI.

24. We have now reached the highest point in the military and national glory of Great Britain. Without having ever, in the course of this arduous contest, compromised her principles, or yielded to the enemy; without having touched one shilling of the sacred fund set apart for the redemption of the public debt, or infringed either upon the security of property or the provision for the poor, she had attained her long-sought-for object, and not only provided for her own security by her valour, but delivered Europe by her

example. In the eloquent words of about to reap the fruits of its heroic Mr Canning, who, though in opposition constancy; when the clouds which had to government since his rupture with so long obscured its course were disLord Castlereagh in 1809, still remain-persing, and the glorious dawn of peace ed true to his principles,-"What we and security was beginning to shine have accomplished is, establishing the on the earth, the resolution of its foundations upon which the temple of rulers failed-the provident system of peace may be erected; and the imagi- former days was abandoned. Duty nation may now picture the completion was sacrificed to supposed expediency; of that structure, which, with hopes the fatal precedent was introduced, of less sanguine, and hearts less high, abandoning the preparation for the fuit would have been folly to have at- ture for the relief of the present; and tempted to raise. We may now con- that vacillation appeared in our finanfidently hope to arrive at the termina- cial councils, which made it painfully tion of labour, and the commencement evident that, with the dangers of the of repose. It is impossible to look back war, its heroic spirit was about to depart. to those periods when the enemy vaunted, and we perhaps feared, that we should have been compelled to sue for peace, without returning thanks, amidst all our ebullitions of joy, to that Providence which gave us courage and heart still to bear up against accumulating calamity. Peace is safe now, because it is not dictated: peace is safe now, for it is the fruit of exertion, the child of victory: peace is safe now, because it will not be purchased at the expense of the interest and the honour of the empire: it is not the ransom to buy off danger, but the lovely fruit of the mighty means we have employed to drive danger from our shores."

25. But the firmness of the British rulers, at this eventful crisis, was not equal to the magnificent mission of the nation over which they presided. During the whole anxieties, perils, and burdens of the contest, the government of England, directed by noble hearts, upheld by heroic arms, had adhered with unshaken constancy to the system for the redemption of the public debt: not one shilling had been diverted from this sacred purpose during the darkest, the most distressed, or the most hopeless period of the contest. And the result had been, that the Sinking Fund-the sheet anchor of the nation's credit-now exceeded fifteen millions sterling, having increased to that immense amount from one million in 1786, when it was first placed on an efficient footing by Mr Pitt, [ante, Chap. XLI. § 15, note]. Now, however, when the nation was

26. This great and momentous change in our financial policy, the effects of which have been felt with such severity in later times, was thus introduced by Mr Vansittart, on a day which deserves to be noted as among the most disastrous which England ever knew— March 3, 1813. "Towards the close of last session, in the discussions which took place on our financial situation, a general conviction seemed to prevail, that some measure of unusual severity had become necessary to take off the load which depressed public credit. Six months, however, have elapsed since that period-six months, the most momentous ever known in the history of Europe. The face of the world has been changed; and from the conflict between insatiable, unprincipled, remorseless ambition on the one side, and hardy, stubborn, though untutored patriotism on the other, have resulted consequences the most important, and hopes the most satisfactory to the cause of humanity. That necessity no longer exists, and, in consequence, the time appears to have now arrived when, without impairing our public credit- without postponing the period when the entire liquidation of our public debt may with confidence be anticipated-the nation may safely obtain some relief from the unparalleled exertions which it has made.

27. "It is by an alteration on the Sinking Fund, as it has been established by act of parliament in 1802, that this relief, which is evidently

will unquestionably do, is altogether impracticable and visionary. Relief must, therefore, at some time or other be afforded to the public, by arresting the action of the Sinking Fund; and if so, the question occurs, is there any period when such relief is more loudly called for, more imperatively required, than at the present moment?

28. "When the Sinking Fund was established in 1786, the total amount of the debt was about £240,000,000; and the redemption of such a sum appeared, if not altogether hopeless, at least placed at a very remote distance. But, great as the difficulty then ap

necessary, is to be obtained. The great danger of the Sinking Fund, which has now become an engine of such vast power and efficacy in the state, is, that it will soon come to reduce the debt too rapidly. If the contraction of loans ceases, it will, ere long, pay off twenty, thirty, nay, forty millions annually; and the reduction of these immense sums will not, as heretofore, be concealed or neutralised by the simultaneous contraction of debt to an equal or greater amount; but it will appear at once by the diminution to that extent of the public funds every year. Extraordinary as these results may appear, they are indicat-peared, the firmness and perseverance ed, by a rigid application to the future of the experience of the past, as certain to ensue- -the only safe method of reasoning that can be practised in political affairs. The Sinking Fund has now reached an extent of which the history of no country affords an example. But can we contemplate without alarm the prospect of paying off thirty or forty millions annually for the next thirty years, and then suddenly ceasing, which will be the case under the law as it at present stands, in consequence of the whole debt having been paid off? Such an event would produce effects upon the credit investments of the country, too formidable even for imagination to contemplate. All our financiers, accordingly, have concurred in the necessity of limiting, in some way or other, and at no remote period, this powerful agent of liquidation. By the original Sinking Fund Act of 1786, drawn by Mr Pitt, this limitation was to have taken place as soon as the fund should have accumulated to four millions per annum. Had not that original plan been varied by the act of 1802, the public would long ere this have felt relief from the operation of the Sinking Fund, though only to the limited extent of the interest on four millions a-year. Lord Lansdowne and all the authorities have also concurred in the opinion, that the idea of paying off thirty or forty millions a-year in time of peace, which the Sinking Fund, if maintained to its present amount,

of the nation, pursuing this important object with undeviating resolution, have at length completely surmounted it; and the accounts upon the table prove, that a sum equal to the total amount of the debt, as it existed in 1786, has already been redeemed.* Instead of shifting the burden from themselves, and laying it upon posterity, the people of this country have nobly and manfully supported the load, even under the burden of increasing difficulties, which the vicissitudes of the contest have thrown upon them; and what is still more remarkable, they have done this during a period when they paid a still greater amount in war taxes, to prevent the growth of another debt of a similar amount during the contest. So that experience has both amply demonstrated the wonderful powers of the Sinking Fund in accumulating funds for the redemption of the debt, and the strong claims which the people of England now have for some relief from the burdens with which it is attended.

29." Mr Pitt not only strongly supported, but was the original author of the Act of 1802; and his first design was, that after reserving as much of the Sinking Fund as would redeem the whole debt at par in forty-five years, the

* Total national funded debt on 5th Janu-
ary 1786,
£238, 231, 248
Redeemed before March 1, 1813, 238,350,143
Overpaid as compared with
MrVANSITTART's Resolutions, March 3, 1813,
original debt,
Parl. Deb. xxiv. 1092.

£118,895

31. The fundamental position in Mr Pitt's financial system, the value of 30. To these specious arguments, it which experience has so completely was answered by Mr Huskisson and demonstrated, is, that provision should Mr Tierney-" The great and peculiar be made for every loan being redeemmerit of Mr Pitt's system of the Sink-ed from the resources provided at the ing Fund is, that it makes an effectual time of its contraction, at latest withprovision for the permanent liquida- in forty-five years. This is not foundtion, not only of the existing, but of ed upon any imaginary result or chievery future public debt. He wished, merical anticipation, but upon a rigorin the event of any future war, to ous application of arithmetical calcuguard the country against the evils lation, and is as certain as any propoarising from too rapid an accumula-sition in geometry. He established a tion of debt, and consequent depres- sinking fund of one per cent on each sion of credit; and to place us beyond loan contracted, for which provision the reach of that hopelessness, despon was made in the taxes laid on to pay