MR. SHERIDAN observed, that the last speaker but two (Mr. Arden) had said that the receipt tax was oppressive and unpopular; and that when it should be known, complaints would pour in against it from every quarter. It was a little singular that a tax should be oppressive, which was not felt; and that it should be unpopular when it was not known. In the country, an honourable baronet (Sir Edward Astley) had said, it had been hardly heard of; and in the town it had been, since the publication of certain authorities, pretty generally evaded. As to the penalty of signing a receipt on unstamped paper, he remembered well to have stated in the committee, when the matter was under consideration, it was intended that such an act should be made penal; and he wished that whenever the learned member who spoke last (Lord John Cavendish), should be called upon again, along with other gentlemen of the law (Oliver Quid, and others), to give an opinion on a statute on which the existence of a considerable branch of the revenue depended, he would give less way to vivacity, and read all the clauses, before he let his opinion get abroad into the world; where such an opinion as his could not fail to carry great weight.

Mr. Arden having retorted on Mr. Sheridan with some acrimony, and defended, in a high tone of voice, his opinion,

MR. SHERIDAN got up a second time, and said, he should not adopt the warmth of the honourable member; because he found, by the experience of its having not the least effect, when used by another, it might probably be of as little service if he took it as his mode of defence. But again he reprobated the sending forth an opinion, calculated to affect the revenue, without the decency of reading the act on which it was founded.

The question was at last put on the motion for leave to bring in the bill, which was carried without a division.

DECEMBER 4.

ALDERMAN NEWNHAM'S MOTION FOR A REPEAL OF THE STAMP

DUTY ON RECEIPTS.

MR. SHERIDAN said, he was very glad to hear it generally admitted, that when gentlemen thought fit to move the repeal of an existing tax, they ought to propose some tax in lieu of it; that in their opinion, at least, was likely to prove equally pro

ductive. This was certainly right, because when that house was called upon, as it was by the motion then under consideration, it was called upon to do as strong an act as the house could possibly perform, viz. to change the security given to the public creditor, and take away the mortgage he held in payment of the interest of his money. The receipt tax, Mr. Sheridan said, was a tax that had passed almost unanimously. At least it had been approved of by the majority of that house, and declared to be a light, impartial, and wise tax. Such, he was in his own mind persuaded, it would have proved, had the tax had fair play. It had not, however, been yet truly tried. No sooner was this tax, so much liked within doors, heard of, but the utmost pains were taken to raise a clamour against it without. Committees and associations were formed for that purpose expressly. All the art and ingenuity of man were employed in finding out means of evading it. Remonstrances against it had been fabricated, and carried from house to house to procure signatures. Those who never had heard of the tax, were called upon to lend their names to the list; nay, one man, who could not write himself, had been invited to make his mark, in order to overthrow a tax, which he was told materially concerned him, as it was a check to the currency of written evidence. As soon as any probable means of evading it were hit on, they were industriously circulated throughout the kingdom; and government having, out of lenity, forborne to prosecute for the penalties incurred by those who flew in the face of the act, a case was made out of the whole against the tax itself; and, when parliament met, it was applied to, in order to repeal the tax. Mr. Sheridan reprobated such conduct, and said, he trusted that the good sense of the house would interpose, and prevent the repeal of a tax so treated. With regard to the taxes suggested by the honourable gentleman who spoke last, they appeared to him to be full as liable to objection as the receipt tax,-indeed, infinitely more so, because there was not any fixed criterion to judge of them by. For instance, suppose a tax was laid on dogs, in that case the keeper of a pack might immediately sell it, and buy a hunter with the money, and follow the pack of some neighbour. In like manner, if a person kept dogs to guard his house, on a tax being laid, he might dispose of his dogs, and resort to some other means of security. So, likewise, with regard to pews, in order to evade the payment of a tax upon them, persons might no longer choose

to hold them. The tax on grave-stones, indeed, was not easily evaded, and could not be deemed oppressive, as it would only be once paid; but such was the spirit of clamour against any tax on receipts, that he should not wonder if it extended to them; and that it should be asserted, that persons having paid the last debt, the debt of nature, government had resolved they should pay a receipt tax, and have it stamped over their grave. Nay, with so extraordinary a degree of inveteracy were some committees in the city, and elsewhere, actuated, that if a receipt tax of the nature in question was enacted, he should not be greatly surprised if it were soon after published, that such committees had unanimously resolved that they would never be buried, in order to avoid paying the tax ; but had determined to lie above ground, or have their ashes consigned to family urns, in the manner of the ancients. Having diverted the house with his idea, which he handled with equal point and pleasantry, Mr. Sheridan resorted to more serious argument, and took notice of Mr. Thornton's remarks relative to a clerk's salary being forty pounds a-year, and that came to two-pence an hour, which he pointed out as absurd. He also remarked upon what had fallen from Mr. Martin, who had said, that the retail trader distributed his price of the receipt upon the several articles he sold. The strongest argument urged against the tax, Mr. Sheridan said, he had ever conceived to be, that it fell heavier upon the retail trader than upon the wholesale dealer or merchant. If, however, the honorable gentleman's remark was true, this argument necessarily fell to the ground. Mr. Sheridan said, in his mind, the great recommendation of the receipt tax was, that being paid directly, and not immediately, the public felt it; and it naturally led them to consider the state of the nation. This was the excellence of the tax, and a right principle of taxation. If he might presume to lay down a principle of taxation, as fit to be adopted in an arbitrary and in a free country, taxes should be imposed as indirectly as possible; and the giving alarm to mens' feelings ought to be most studiously avoided. The reverse exactly should be the case in a free country; the taxes there ought always to be direct and open. The subject, when he paid any of them, should know that he paid a tax; and his attention should in consequence be provoked to an examination of the state of the country's debts, the weight of which being obliged to be borne by all, they necessarily concerned all in an equal degree.

DECEMBER 8.

THIRD READING OF THE BILL FOR VESTING THE AFFAIRS OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY IN THE HANDS OF CERTAIN COMMISSIONERS, FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE PROPRIETORS AND

PUBLIC.

:

MR. SHERIDAN replied to the Lord Advocate (Mr. Dundas), who went through the principal parts of his bill of last year with him and contended, that the despotism it clothed Lord Cornwallis with, was so plain and palpable, that he declared he wondered how the learned gentlemen could keep his countenance when he seriously insisted upon it, that his bill was not equally dangerous in point of creating influence and arbitrary power, and in regard to invasion of chartered rights, with that of his right honourable friend. It was, in fact, Mr. Sheridan said, ten times more so; and that if it had not been so late an hour of the night, he would then have proceeded to prove it was so. This serious part of his argument over, Mr. Sheridan came to the more pleasant part, and took up the several quotations from Shakspeare, Milton, and the book of Revelations; of Mr. Wilberforce, Mr. Arden, and Mr. Scott, foiling them each with their own weapons, and citing, with the most happy ease and correctness, passages from almost the same pages that controverted their quotations, and told strongly for the bill. He quoted three more verses from the Revelations, by which he metamorphosed the beast with seven heads, with crowns on them, into seven angels, clothed in pure and white linen. One side of the house were extremely entertained with the turns Mr. Sheridan gave what he quoted.

Ayes 208; noes 102.

Mr. Fox's celebrated East India Bill having passed, on the 8th of December, the house of commons was, on the next day, carried up to the house of lords. No symptoms had hitherto appeared before the public, that indicated the approaching fall of the bill, and the ministers. Great pains indeed were taken, and with considerable success, by an almost incredible circulation of pamphlets and political engravings, to influence the nation against the measures and persons of administration. And it was also remarked, that in the house of commons, several of that description of members, well known by the name of King's friends, gave their votes on the side of opposition. But it was generally imagined, that as› on the one hand, the ministry was too strong to be shook by the breath of popular clamour; so, on the other, it seemed to the last degree improbable, that they

should have adopted a measure of such infinite importance, either without knowing, or contrary to, the inclinations of the King. On the first reading of the bill in the house of lords, Earl Temple, Lord Thurlow, and the Duke of Richmond, expressed their abhorrence of the measure in the strongest and most unqualified terms. A brilliant panegyric on Mr. Hastings was pronounced by Lord Thurlow, and the flourishing state of the Company's affairs insisted on. After a short debate relative to the production of papers, on which the lords in opposition did not choose to divide the house, the second reading was fixed for Monday December 15. In the mean time, various rumours began to circulate relative to some extraordinary motions in the interior of the court. It was confidently affirmed, that on the 11th of December, the King signified to Earl Temple, who had been ordered to attend him in the closet for that purpose, his disapprobation of the India Bill, and authorised him to declare the same to such persons as he might think fit :that a written note was put into his hands, in which his Majesty declared, “That he should deem those who should vote for it, not only not his friends, but his enemies; and that if he (Lord Temple) could put this in stronger words, he had full authority to do so." And lastly, that in consequence of this authority, communications had been made to the same purport to several peers in the upper house, and particularly to those whose offices obliged them to attend the King's person. Some extraordinary circumstances, which happened on the 15th of December, the day of the second reading of the bill, confirmed the probability of the truth of these reports. Several lords, who had entrusted their proxies to the minister, and his friends, withdrew them only a few hours before the house met; and others, whose support he had every reason to expect, gave their votes on the side of opposition. On the division, which took place on a question of adjournment, the ministers were left in a minority of 79 to 87. On the 17th of December, the India Bill was rejected by the lords, on a division of 95 to 76. It was remarked that the Prince of Wales, who was in the minority on the former division, having learned, in the interim, that the measure was offensive to the King, was absent on this occasion. At twelve o'clock on the following night, a messenger delivered to the two secretaries of state, his Majesty's orders, “that they should deliver up the seals of their offices, and send them by the under secretaries, Mr. Frazer and Mr. Napean, as a personal interview on the occasion would be disagreeable to him." The seals were immediately given by the King to Lord Temple, who sent letters of dismission, the day following, to the rest of the cabinet council; at the same time Mr. William Pitt was appointed first lord of the treasury, and chancellor of the exchequer; and Earl Gower president of the council. On the 22d, Lord Temple resigned the seals of his office; and they were delivered to Lord Sidney, as secretary of state for the home department, and to the Marquis of Carmarthen for the foreign. Lord Thurlow was appointed lord chancellor; the Duke of Rutland lord privy seal: Lord Howe, first lord of the Admiralty; and the Duke of Richmond, master-general of the Ordnance. Mr. William Grenville and Lord Mulgrave succeeded Mr. Burke in the pay office; Mr. Henry Dundas was appointed treasurer of the Navy; Mr. Kenyon, attorney-general; Mr. Arden, Solicitor-General; Mr. Geo. Younge, secretary at war; Mr. Rose and Mr. Steele, secretaries to the treasury; and Mr. Orde, secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.