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William Pitt, Taxation, and the Needs of War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2023

Richard Cooper
Richard Cooper*
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Wilmington
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William Pitt had no desire for a war with France in 1793. While the French had lurched from bankruptcy to revolution to war, he had kept England at peace for a decade and successfully repaired the damage done to government finance by the American War. Such had been Pitt's intention from the start, according to his Cabinet colleague, Lord Grenville, who later wrote that “his views and measures…were in the outset purely oeconomical and pacific. It was his first ambition to restore by moderate and peaceful councils the strength and confidence of his country….” He had no desire to risk either the financial or political equilibrium he had achieved.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , Fall 1982 , pp. 94 - 103
Copyright
Copyright © The North American Conference on British Studies, 1982

Footnotes

This article was presented as a paper at the meeting of the Midwestern American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies at Illinois State University on October 14, 1981. I would like to thank Professor E.A. Reitan of Illinois State University who urged me to write the article and provided the title.

References

1 Duke University, William Wyndham Grenville, first Baron Grenville, “Commentaries of My Own Political Life and of Public Transactions Connected with It,” ch. 3, pp. 8-9, n.d., Hamilton Papers, Box 150 (photocopy).

2 John Ehrman, The Younger Pitt; the Years of Acclaim(LonAon, 1969), pp. 243, 251. John Holland Rose, William Pitt and National Revival (London, 1911), pp. 184, 187-88.

3 26 George III, c. 31; 32 George III, c. 12.

4 32 George III, c. 55. Ehrman, The Younger Pitt, p. 268 and n. 3 and 5. Devon RO, anon., memo, on sinking fund, n.d. [probably 1802], Sidmouth Papers, 152M/C1803/OT25.

5 J.E.D. Binney, British Public Finance and Administration 1774-1792 (New York, 1958), pp. 276-78.

6 William Pitt, The War Speeches of William Pitt the Younger (2d ed.; Oxford, 1916), pp. 78-80.

7 J.J. Grellier, The History of the National Debt (London, 1810), pp. 371, 377, 382.

8 Karl Ferdinand Helleiner, The Imperial Loans; a Study in Financial and Diplomatic History (London, 1965), p. 76.

9 John M. Sherwig, Guineas and Gunpowder; British Foreign Aid in the Wars with France, 1793-1815 (Cambridge, 1969), p. 89.

10 PRO, Lord Auckland to Pitt, Apr. 20,1797, Chatham Papers, 30/8/110, f. 381.

11 John Holland Rose, A Short Life of William Pitt, (hereafter Short Life), (London, 1925), p. 138.

12 Brian R. Mitchell and Phyllis Deane, Abstract of British Historical Statistics (Cambridge, 1962), p. 402. Rose, Short Life, pp. 138-39.

13 Clive Emsley, British Society and the French Wars 1793-1815 (Totowa, N.J., 1979), pp. 2, 4, and passim.

14 Henry James, Aug. 5, 1914, quoted in Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory (New York, 1977), p. 8.

15 Rose, William Pitt and National Revival, p. 195.

16 E.g., Cobbett 31:1295 (Feb. 5, 1795).

17 PRO, Sir Francis d'lvernois to [Pitt], July 2, 6, 1797, Chatham Papers, 30/8/147, ff. 289, 291.

18 Pitt to George III, April 9, 1797. Philip Henry Stanhope, fifth Earl Stanhope, Life of the Right Honourable William Pitt (London, 1861-62), III, iv-v (appendix).

19 Napoleon Bonaparte, quoted in Felix Markham, Napoleon (New York, 1966), p. 41.

20 Bonaparte, quoted in Rose, Short Life, p. 134.

21 A point made by Helleiner, Imperial Loans, p. 178.

22 Pitt, War Speeches, p. 91.

23 A point made by Binney, British Public Finance, p. 116, and P.K. O'Brien, “Government Revenue, 1793-1815: a Study of Fiscal and Financial Policy in the Wars Against France” (D. Phil, thesis, University of Oxford, 1967), p. 233.

24 PRO, [Pitt], memo, on discharging the debt, n.d. [1796], Chatham Papers, 30/8/197, ff. 50-52.

25 Capital of the debt as of Jan. 5, 1796. PRO, James Fisher, “An Account of the Funded Debt,” Feb. 16, 1796, Chatham Papers, 30/8/275, f. 5.

26 Pitt's various budget speeches, and James C. Riley, International Government Finance and the Amsterdam Capital Market 1740-1815 (Cambridge, 1980), p. 125.

27 John Holland Rose, William Pitt and the Great War (London, 1911), pp. 328, 568. Rose, Short Life, pp. 145-46, 152.

28 Pitt, War Speeches, pp. 204, 205, 206-7, 208, 211.

29 Sherwig, Guineas and Gunpowder, pp. 97-98. Pitt to Grenville, Dec.24, 1797. H.M.C., Report on the Manuscripts ofj. B. Fortescue, Esq., Preserved at Dropmore (London, 1892-1927), III, 407.

30 Pitt, financial minute, Oct. 25, 1797. H.M.C. Dropmore, III, 382.

31 William Newmarch, On the Loans Raised by Mr. Pitt During the First French War, 1793-1801; with Some Statements in Defence of the Methods of Funding Employed (London, 1855), p. 39.

32 PRO, [Pitt,] memo, on finance, Oct. 11, 1797, Chatham Papers, 30/8/273, f. 36.

33 1 Cooke 9:191 (Nov. 24, 1797) (The Senator; or, Clarendon's Parliamentary Chronicle ).

34 1 Cooke 19:191 (Nov. 24, 1797). Also quoted in The Times, Nov. 25, 1797, p. Id

35 According to George Rose, Pitt's Secretary to the Treasury. George Rose, A Brief Examination into the Increase of the Revenue, Commerce, and Manufactures of Great Britain, from 1792 to 1799 (London, 1799), p. 29.

36 PRO,[Pitt] memo, on finance, Oct. 11, 1797, Chatham Papers, 30/8/273, ff. 34-35.

37 Riley, International Finance, p. 125.

38 Cobbett, 33:1053 (Nov. 24, 1797).

39 PRO, [Pitt,] memo on finance, Oct. 11, 1797, Chatham Papers, 30/8/273, ff. 33, 36.

40 Cobbett, 33:1054 (Nov. 24, 1797).

41 Cobbett, 33:1052, 1053, 1054 (Nov. 24, 1797).

42 Ehrman, Younger Pitt, p. 255.

43 The Times, Nov. 10, 1797, p. 2a.

44 Triple Assessment Act (1798). Danby Pickering (ed.), Statutes at Large, (Cambridge, 1762-1807), XLI, 549: 38 George III, c. 16, sec. 43.

45 E.g., Emsley, British Society, pp. 70, 71; Rose, Pitt and the Great War, p. 328; Sir Arthur Hope-Jones, Income Tax in the Napoleonic Wars, (Cambridge, 1939), p. 14.

46 3 Debrett 4:327-28 (Dec. 4, 1797).

47 Ibid. Also Triple Assessment Act (1798). Pickering, Statutes at Large, XLI, 537-39: 38 George III, c. 16, sec. 4.

48 Edwin R. A. Seligman, The Income Tax; a Study of the History, Theory, and Practice of Income Tax at Home and Abroad (New York, 1911), p. 65. Hope-Jones, Income Tax, p. 14.

49 Seligman, Income Tax, p. 66.

50 Hope-Jones, Income Tax, p. 14.

51 William Kennedy, English Taxation 1640-1799; an Essay on Policy and Opinion (London, 1913), p. 169.

52 Rose, Short Life, p. 149

53 The Times, Nov. 25, 1797, p. la-d.

54 1 Cooke, 19:182, 183 (Nov. 24, 1797).

55 1 Cooke, 20:727, 732-33 (Apr. 2, 1798); W.R. Ward, The English Land Tax in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1953), p. 135 and n. 2.

56 1 Cooke 20:729, 732-33 (Apr. 2, 1798). PRO, [John Fordyce] to Pitt, Mar. 8, 1798, Chatham Papers, 30/8/136, f. 141. PRO, Pitt, memo, on redemption of land tax, n.d., Dacres Adams Papers, 30/58/8, item 151.

57 Suffolk RO, Pitt to Bishop of Lincoln, Sept. 9, 1798, Pretyman-Tomline Papers, HA 119: T 108/42, folder “1795-8”.

58 The Times, Dec. 18, 1797, p. 2d.

59 Triple Assessment Act (1798). Pickering, Statutes at Large, XLI, 580-81: 38 George III, c. 16.

60 Income Tax Act (1799). Pickering, Statutes at Large, XLII, 55: 39 George III, c. 13, Sec. 1.

61 Pickering, Statutes at Large, XLII, 88: 39 George III, c. 13, sec. 87.

62 Pickering, Statutes at Large, XLII, 55-57: 39 George III, c. 13, sec. 2.

63 Kennedy, English Taxation, p. 168.

64 Pickering, Statutes at Large: XLII, 59-60, 68-69; 39 George II, c. 13, sec. 11, 36.

65 Hope-Jones, Income Tax, p. 15.

66 Pickering, Statutes at Large, XLII, 106-07: 39 George III, c. 13, sec. 120.

67 Pitt, War Speeches, pp. 241-42.

68 Rose, Brief Examination, p. 39.