American War.

The American war terminated in 1783; but as the loans of the two following years were raised to wind up the expenses of that struggle, it is proper they should be included. The total expense of the American war will stand thus:—

This, then, is the sum expended by the Boroughmongers in an attempt to enslave the colonies. George III. boasted that he was the last man in his dominions to subscribe to the peace with America: he left his people burthened with a debt of one hundred and thirty millions, as the price of the obstinacy of one man, and an abortive attempt to impose on a brave people the tyrannical principle of taxation without representation.

The second war was still more atrocious than the first; it was a war not merely against liberty, but the principles of liberty; it was a barbarous and gigantic effort of the privileged orders to prevent the amelioration of society, and to render mankind the eternal victims of ecclesiastic and aristocratic oppression. As the war of 1793 was more diabolical in its objects than the contest with America, so we should say, had its calamities only extended to its authors, has it been more justly ruinous in its consequences. Let us endeavour to estimate the cost of this liberticide and Vandal contest. We shall state the sums raised by taxes, and the debt contracted each year from its commencement, and then deduct the probable expenditure of the country, had no such war existed.

The account of sums raised by taxes is taken from Dr. Hamilton’s Inquiry into the National Debt, p. 203, third edition. The amount of debt contracted, including navy and exchequer bills funded, is also taken from the same writer, p. 320. The short peace of Amiens, and the interval betwixt the exile and return of Bonaparte from Elba, may be considered rather a suspension of hostilities than a period of peace; therefore we have considered it as one uninterrupted war from 1793 to 1815, having the same objects—the maintenance of the usurpations of the Clergy and Aristocracy.

After making some deductions on account of the operations of the loyalty loan, and the transfer of annuities, the total debt contracted from 1793 to 1815, amounts to £762,537,443. If to this sum be added the increase in the unfunded debt during that period, and the additional sums raised by taxes in consequence of hostilities, we shall have the total expenditure, owing to the French war, as follows:—

Two objections may be made to the fairness of this statement. First, the amount of debt redeemed during the war, by the operation of the Sinking Fund, ought to be deducted from the amount of debt contracted. The second objection arises from the mode of negotiating loans. In each loan, the capital funded exceeds the sum actually advanced to government. In some loans, government acknowledges itself debtor £100, when only from £54 to £60 is actually received. Hence it follows that, from the debt contracted since 1793, ought to be deducted the difference betwixt that debt and the sums which passed into the Exchequer.

After admitting deductions from the charges of the war on this account, and the operation of the sinking fund, we must be allowed to make a trifling addition. The loans raised for Ireland, guaranteed by Britain, amounted to £103,032,750: the sums actually received on account of these loans to £64,750,000. The revenue of Ireland, in 1791, amounted to £1,190,684. Owing to the increase of the Irish revenue during the war, the war-taxes of Ireland cannot be estimated at less than £80,000,000. After these deductions and additions the account will stand thus:—

The statement is now divested of every extraneous item, and, reducing it to its lowest amount, one thousand and eighty-two millions two hundred and four thousand four hundred and three pounds remains as the sum actually received and expended on account of the war with France, from 1793 to 1815. On an average of the twenty-two years, from 1793 to 1815, it is a war expenditure of nearly fifty millions; and this is the sum which the tax-ridden, law-ridden, priest-ridden, deluded people of England yearly contributed out of the produce of their industry, agriculture, and commerce, to prevent an independent state altering the form and meliorating the abuses of its government.

Can we wonder, after the tremendous sacrifice in pursuit of this unrighteous object, at the terrible calamities with which the country is afflicted? Can we wonder at our exhausted, impoverished, and embarrassed condition? More than one hundred millions expended in an abortive attempt to enslave the American colonies; more than one thousand millions expended to re-establish feudal and ecclesiastical tyranny in France. This forms the financial history of the public debt and taxes—of the eleven hundred millions expended in the wars of despotism. And what has been the result of this lavish waste of national resources? The answer is—the three immortal days of Paris—the triumph of Belgium—the regeneration of Europe—and the complete—the full—the glorious establishment of those very principles the English Aristocracy vainly sought to exterminate.

When we look back to the history of the last century—the wars of madness, ambition, and tyranny which have been waged; when we reflect on the millions expended in these wars—the fruits of unexampled industry, skill, and enterprise; when we think of our present situation—the piercing privations of the bulk of the community—the discontent and disunion among all classes—the abuses pervading every department of our social and general administration—Ireland on the point of rebellion or separation;—when we think, we repeat, on these things, and contrast them with the situation of glory and happiness England might have attained under a wise and honest government, administering her exhaustless resources in the promotion of the arts of peace, instead of slaughter, bondage, and devastation; we feel not less indignant at the wickedness of our rulers than the apathy which has so long tolerated their folly and their crimes.