TWO:"O Richard! o mon Roi!

TWO:Attention was now turned to a matter of the highest importance in a commercial, an intellectual, and a moral point of view. The stamp duty on newspapers had been the subject of keen agitation for some months, and newspaper vendors had incurred repeated penalties for the sale of unstamped newspapers; some of them having been not only fined, but imprisoned. A general impression prevailed that such an impost was impolitic, if not unjust, and that the time had come when the diffusion of knowledge must be freed from the trammels by which it had been so long restrained. A deputation, consisting of Dr. Birkbeck, Mr. Hume, Colonel Thompson, Mr. O'Connell, Mr. Grote, Mr. Roebuck, Mr. Brotherton, Mr. Wallace, and Mr. Buckingham, having, on the 11th of February, waited upon Lord Melbourne, to ask for an entire abolition of the stamp on newspapers, he promised to give his most serious attention to the matter; and he kept his word, for on the 15th of the next month the Chancellor of the Exchequer brought the subject before Parliament, and announced the intentions of Government with regard to it. He stated that it was proposed to revise the whole of the existing law respecting stamp duties, first by consolidating into one statute the 150 Acts of Parliament over which the law was at present distributed; secondly,[402] by the apportionment of the various rates on a new principle��namely, by the simple and uniform rule of making the price of the stamp in every case correspond to the pecuniary value involved in the transaction for which it is required. The effect of this change would be to reduce the stamp duty upon indentures of apprenticeship, bills of lading, and many others of the more common instruments, and to increase it upon mortgages and conveyances of large amounts of property. It was intimated that the proposed Consolidation Act would contain no less than 330 sections. With regard to the stamp on newspapers, then fourpence with discount, it was proposed to reduce it to one penny without discount. This would be a remission of a proportion, varying according to the price of the newspaper, of between two-thirds and three-fourths of the tax. To this remission Parliament assented, and the illicit circulation of unstamped papers was in consequence abandoned. Some of the members very reasonably objected to any stamp whatever on newspapers; but the time was not yet come when Government would venture entirely to remove it, although the advantages which must necessarily arise from such a proceeding could not but have been foreseen. It was considered unfair that the public at large should pay for the carriage of newspapers by post; and it does not seem to have been remembered that, as only a portion of them would be transmitted in this way, an injustice would be committed by demanding payment for all. The difficulty of the case was, however, in due time, easily surmounted; and political knowledge was, by the change even then made, in a great degree exempted from taxation��a good preparation for the time, which was not very far off, when a newspaper of a high order might be obtained, even for the reduced price of the stamp."No words," says Sir Archibald Alison, "can convey an adequate idea of the astonishment which the announcement of this project of Reform created in the House of Commons and the country. Nothing approaching to it had ever been witnessed before, or has been since. Men's minds were prepared for a change, perhaps a very considerable one, especially in the enfranchising of new cities and towns which were unrepresented; but it never entered into the imagination of any human being out of the Cabinet that so sweeping and entire a change would be proposed, especially by the king's Ministers. The Tories had never dreaded such a revolution; the Radicals had never hoped for it. Astonishment was the universal feeling. Many laughed outright; none thought the Bill could pass. It was supposed by many that Ministers neither intended nor desired it, but wished only to establish a thorn in the side of their adversaries, which should prevent them from holding power if they succeeded in displacing them. So universal was this feeling, that it is now generally admitted that had Sir Robert Peel, instead of permitting the debate to go on, instantly divided the House, on the plea that the proposed measure was too revolutionary to be for a moment entertained, leave to bring in the Bill would have been refused by a large majority. The Cabinet Ministers themselves are known to have thought at the time that their official existence then hung upon a thread." Such a result, however, was most unlikely, as Sir Robert Inglis and other Tory orators were eager to speak, having collected precedents, arguments, and quotations against the Bill. These they proceeded to impart to the House. After a debate of seven nights, the Bill was read a first time, without a division, and the second reading was set down for the 21st of March.

TWO:When Emancipation was carried, the Catholics did not forget the claims of Mr. O'Connell, who had laboured so hard during a quarter of a century for its accomplishment. A testimonial was soon afterwards got up to reward him for his services. Mr. C. O'Laughlin, of Dublin, subscribed ��500; the Earl of Shrewsbury 1,000 guineas, and the less grateful Duke of Norfolk the sum of ��100. The collection of the testimonial was organised in every district throughout Ireland, and a sum of ��50,000 sterling was collected. Mr. O'Connell did not love money for its own sake. The immense sums that were poured into the coffers of the Catholic Association were spent freely in carrying on the agitation, and the large annuity which he himself received was mainly devoted to the same object. One means, which had no small effect in accomplishing the object, was the extremely liberal hospitality which was kept up, not only at Derrynane Abbey, but at his town residence in Merrion Square; and he had, besides, a host of retainers more or less dependent upon his bounty.

TWO:

TWO:The general result of the elections was considered to have diminished by fifty the number of votes on which Ministers could depend, and the relation in which they now stood to the more popular part of the representation was stated to be as follows:��Of the eighty-two members returned by the forty counties of England, only twenty-eight were steady adherents of the Ministry; forty-seven were avowed adherents of the Opposition, and seven of the neutral cast did not lean much to Government. Of the thirteen popular cities and boroughs (London, Westminster, Aylesbury, etc.), returning twenty-eight members, only three seats were held by decidedly Ministerial men, and twenty-four by men in avowed opposition. There were sixty other places, more or less open, returning 126 members. Of these only forty-seven were Ministerial; all the rest were avowed Opposition men, save eight, whose leaning was rather against the Government than for it. Of the 236 men then returned by elections more or less popular in England, only seventy-nine were Ministerial votes; 141 were in avowed opposition, and sixteen of a neutral cast.

TWO:

TWO:

TWO:Yet the whole demand for sailors was carried, and the demand of inquiry as absolutely rejected. Parliament went on and voted three million two hundred and five thousand five hundred and five pounds for the expenses of the navy; four thousand pounds for Greenwich Hospital; five hundred thousand pounds for the discharge of the debts of the navy. For the army, including some new contracts with the German princes for men to serve in America, three million pounds. What was still more disgraceful was that, amid all these charges on the public purse, the king came again with a fresh demand for six hundred thousand pounds for debts on the Civil List. It was pretended that extraordinary calls had been made on the royal purse by the suffering Royalists in America; but it was notorious that the Royal household continued in the same condition of reckless waste and extravagance as it was when the former half million was voted for the same purpose. Yet the Commons granted this sum; and, by way of preventing the king from falling into fresh difficulties, added one hundred thousand pounds a year to the Civil List. The matter, however, did not pass without a plain reminder to his Majesty. The rough-spoken Sir Fletcher Norton, the Speaker of the Commons, when presenting this Bill for the increase of the Civil List to the king, said:��"Sir,��In a time of public distress, full of difficulty and danger, under burdens almost too heavy to be borne, your faithful Commons postponed all other business, and granted your Majesty not only a large present supply, but a very great additional revenue��great beyond example��great beyond your Majesty's highest wants!" Having passed these votes, Parliament was prorogued on the 13th of December till the 21st of the following January.

TWO:The next day the Great Mogul went over to the stronger party. He had no further hope of assistance from Sujah Dowlah, and so he rode, with a few followers, to the British camp. He was received most willingly, for, though the British had shown no disposition to recognise his authority, now he was in their hands they acknowledged him as the rightful sovereign of Hindostan, and lost no time in concluding a treaty with him; and, on condition of his yielding certain territories to them, they agreed to put him in possession of Allahabad and the other states of the Nabob of Oude. After this, Munro continuing the war against Sujah Dowlah, endeavoured to take the hill fort of Chunar, in which all the treasures of Cossim were said to be deposited, but failed. On his part, Sujah Dowlah had obtained the assistance of Holkar, a powerful Mahratta chief, and, with this advantage, endeavoured to make a better peace with Munro; but that officer declined treating, unless Cossim and the assassin, Sombre, were first given up to[318] him. Dowlah proposed, instead of this surrender of those who had sought his protection, the usually triumphant argument with the English, a large sum of money. But Munro replied that all the lacs of rupees in Dowlah's treasury would not satisfy him without the surrender of the murderers of his countrymen at Patna. Dowlah, though he would not surrender the fugitives, had no objection to give a secret order for the assassination of Sombre; but Munro equally spurned this base proposal, and the war went on. Munro was victorious, and early in 1765, having reduced the fort of Chunar and scattered Dowlah's army, he entered Allahabad in triumph, and put the Mogul in possession of it.

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