Mr. Windham has left a voluminous diary, which will be given to the public some time or other. This illustrious man has excited so general an interest, that it became necessary, in the last days of his illness, to satisfy the public by a daily bulletin. His sins are now forgiven, and all parties agree in doing justice to his perfect disinterestedness, his frankness, his generosity, his courage, his profound contempt of mere popularity, his knowledge, and eloquence. He leaves behind him no reputation equal to his; but he leaves many men capable of being more solidly useful than he was; and the state loses only a brilliant ornament. His fortune was about L.6000 sterling a-year, and all from patrimony, not acquired. An event of another sort has divided public attention, the extraordinary attempt to assassinate one of the Princes, who was attacked in his bed, during the night, with his own regimental sabre, and escaped with difficulty, after receiving many wounds, none of which are mortal. One of his servants was found dead in an adjoining apartment, with a bloody razor not far from him, his throat cut from ear to ear, and he is supposed to have been the assassin. This miserable man not having given before any marks of insanity, the motive of so desperate an act is become a great object of speculation. He was an Italian. The birth-day, soon after this, has been celebrated with more than usual pomp. The crowd was immense, the town illuminated, the people full of joy and loyalty, and quite on a cordial footing with the horse-guards on duty among them, which, considering the late tumults, and those expected shortly when Sir Francis Burdett LONDON-BIRTH-DAY--DRESSES. 161 comes out of the Tower, shews the English people to be like all others, governed by the mere impulse of the moment. The ladies who go to court on the birth-day are dressed in the fashion of fifty years ago, as more suitable, I suppose, to the age of their majesties. They are carried there in sedan chairs, which can penetrate further than carriages; and it is really a curiosity to see them as they pass along the street towards the Palace of St. James's. To enable them to sit in these chairs, their immense hoops are folded like wings, pointing forward on each side. The preposterous high head dress would interfere with the top, and must be humoured by throwing the head back; the face is therefore turned up, kept motionless in that awkward attitude, as if on purpose to be gazed at; and that face, generally old and ugly, (young women not going much there, it seems) is painted up to the eyes, and set with diamonds. Son gros cou jaune et ses deux bras quarrés Elle en étoit encore plus effroyable-Voltaire. The glasses of the vehicle are drawn up, that the winds of Heaven may not visit the powder and paint too roughly; and this piece of natural history, thus cased, does not ill resemble a fœtus of a hippopotamus in its brandy bottle. The present generation can hardly believe that it was possible to be young and handsome in this accoutrement; and yet it was so. I have seen some of these ladies smile on the wondering spectators as they passed, conscious, I should hope, of their own absurd appearance. pow I had received a commission from a person in a public station in France, to send there certain litical pamphlets of the day, for and against the government; and, thinking there might be an impropriety in doing it clandestinely, the American minister, Mr. Pinkney, had the goodness to mention the circumstance to one of the secretaries of state, who, far from objecting, offered to furnish an opportunity, which is certainly liberal. At the same time, the system of publicity here is such, that it is hardly worth while to keep any thing secret; it would be like letting down the cur tains before the windows of a house all built of glass. Ministers have just experienced a little defeat. A motion of reform, respecting sinecures, has passed the lower house by a majority of ten, but it is supposed they will stop it in the upper house, and there will be no reform at all. It would be, however, matter of regret; for the government is at present strong enough to say, Thus far we shall go, and no farther, and might not always be able to satisfy the people at so cheap a rate. The finances of England are a perfect anomaly in political economy. They present quantities which frighten the imagination, and lines of figures to which the mind attaches no idea. The sum total is, like the great bodies of La Place, too large to be seen. The finances were at the lowest possible ebb at the revolution of 1688,-scarcely any debt, but, at the same time, no credit, and no capability in the nation to raise a revenue adequate to its occasions. In 1672, Charles II. had suspended the payment of debts of the state, amounting to L. 1,328,526 sterling. The interest was paid LONDON-NATIONAL DEBT. 163 After for some time, but ceased before his death. a suit of twelve years before the courts of justice, the creditors obtained judgment; it was, however, set aside; and finally, the government chose to discharge a debt of L. 3,428,526 sterling in principal and interest, by the payment of L. 664,263 in 1705, or rather by providing for the future payment of the interest of the latter sum :-such was the disgraceful beginning of the present debt of Great Britain.* The scarcity of specie, which is now attributed to the paper circulation, was, at that period, remedied by the introduction of a paper circulation, which shews that the excess alone is vicious. That paper consisted of exchequer bills, invented, in 1697, by Montague, then minister of finance, and which have ever since acted a great part in the financial operations of Great Britain. They are a delegation or assignment on the revenue,→→→ a sort of half paper money, not forced; and which, bearing interest, and being paid or funded at the end of each year, is convenient to the public, and circulates very freely. - William the Third had to struggle with a total disorganization of the finances,-the want of credit, desperate factions, corrupt practices,—and dilapidations, much greater in proportion than those which are so much complained of at present. There is a remarkable similarity between the opinions and complaints of that time and the present, although under circumstances widely different. They spoke then of the debt just born as enormous. A writer of great reputation, Davenant, * Sir John Sinclair's History of the Public Revenue, Vol. I. p, 397. said that England could not furnish a revenue of more than two millions sterling, (equal to eight millions now,) without ruin to its commerce and manufactures. That revenue is now seventy millions, and neither commerce nor manufactures are ruined; at least if they suffer it is from a different cause. Bank notes were then at a discount of twenty percent. and stocks lost from forty to sixty per cent. Bank-notes are said to lose now also twenty per cent. and the want of specie was assigned as the cause at both periods. There was then five or six millions hid away in private hoards, and now there is not a thrifty housekeeper, or timid man, who has not also his hoard of guineas. Public officers had grown rich by fraud and peculation, the crime was notorious and remained unpunished :—I hear of cases of that sort now here every day. Finally, the terror of the power of France, and the absolute necessity of opposing it to extinction, was and is the order of the day. The emperor of this day is, no doubt, far more powerful, able, and ambitious, than the great monarch of that time; and although England may not say altogether the same thing of her sovereigns of the two respective periods, it possesses now means of defence far greater than it did then; and whatever the gain may be on one side, it is at least as great on the other. I annex a statement of the present national debt of Great Britain, embracing its progress from the beginning.* During the course of the last century, we find every writer on the subject inveighing against *The sum of gold and silver in circulation under William the Third did not exceed eight millions sterling, including the plate which was carried to the mint, equal to 32 millions now. Dr. Price stated, in 1793, that the sum of gold in circulation in the kingdom did not exceed 16 millions sterling. |
