aders gave some whigs of
less standing an opportunity of coming to the front. In Fox's absence
the remnant of the opposition was led by Tierney, a clever financier and
a brilliant speaker with a bitter tongue. From the beginning of the war
constant motions had been made for peace with France. They were
discontinued after 1797; for it was generally recognised that Pitt would
gladly welcome peace. Wit came to the support of the government; Gillray
bitterly caricatured Fox and the opposition, and in November the
_Anti-Jacobin_ began its brilliant mockery of democratic principles and
politics. Its most telling verses were the work of Canning, who entered
the ministry as under-secretary for foreign affairs in January, 1796.
The threats of invasion roused the spirit of the country. Danger was no
longer to be apprehended from English disloyalty; the nation was justly
proud of the achievements of its navy and was full of loyalty and
courage.

Pitt took advantage of this spirit. Parliament met on November 3, and he
brought in his budget on the 24th. All hope of a speedy termination of
the war ended with the rupture of the negotiations at Lille. He
therefore declared that though it was impossible to raise the whole of
the supplies in the year, it was the duty of the nation to contribute
its full share towards the expenses of the war in order that posterity
might not be burdened with an unfair accumulation of debt. The service
of the year amounted to L25,500,000, and a deficiency of L19,000,000 had
to be supplied. He proposed to borrow L12,000,000 and to raise
L7,000,000 by taxation, chiefly by a measure generally known as trebling
the assessed taxes, by which the amounts already charged in respect of
these taxes were augmented on a scale graduated according to income.
Praiseworthy as his effort was to keep down debt, his plan was open to
serious objection. Assessed taxes are essentially an optional expense,
in that they can be avoided by those who do not choose to incur them.
Pitt's plan made the payments of the preceding year an arbitrary
standard of taxation, increasing them by one quarter to treble and
progressively to quadruple their amounts. This was really an income tax
in disguise, with the special drawback that it forced those who reduced
their style of living to pay on the basis of their former expenditure.
Fox returned to parliament to oppose the bill, and in one division the
minority numbered 75. Some feeling was excit