hich in time of war could be filled out by
recruits. Of course it is far inferior to the plan of a reserve of
trained men; but that plan had not yet been hammered out by Scharnhorst,
under the stress of the Napoleonic domination in Prussia. As to the
reduction of seven men per company, now proposed, it may have been due
partly to political reasons. Several reports in the Home Office and War
Office archives prove that discontent was rife among the troops,
especially in the northern districts, on account of insufficient pay and
the progress of Radical propaganda among them. The reduction may have
afforded the means of sifting out the ringleaders.

Retrenchment, if not Reform, was the order of the day. Pitt discerned
the important fact that a recovery in the finance and trade of the
country must be encouraged through a series of years to produce a marked
effect. For then the application of capital to industry, and the
increase in production and revenue can proceed at the rate of compound
interest. Already his hopes, for which he was indebted to the "Wealth of
Nations,"[44] had been largely realized. The Report of the Select
Committee of the House of Commons presented in May 1791 showed the
following growth in the ordinary revenue (exclusive of the Land and Malt
Taxes):

1786 L11,867,055
1787 12,923,134
1788 13,007,642
1789 13,433,068
1790 14,072,978

During those five years the sum of L4,750,000 had been allotted to the
Sinking Fund for the payment of the National Debt; and a further sum of
L674,592, accruing from the interest of stock and expired annuities, had
gone towards the same object--a crushing retort to the taunts of Fox and
Sheridan, that the Sinking Fund was a mere pretence. On the whole the
sum of L5,424,592 had been paid off from the National Debt in five
years. It is therefore not surprising that three per cent. Consols,
which were down at fifty-four when Pitt took office at the end of 1783,
touched ninety in the year 1791. The hopes and fears of the year 1792
find expression in the fact that in March they stood at ninety-seven,
and in December dropped to seventy-four.

For the present Pitt entertained the highest hopes. In his Budget Speech
of 17th February he declared the revenue to be in so flourishing a state
that he could grant relief to the taxpayers. In the year 1791 the
permanent taxes had yielded L14,132,000; and those on land and malt
brought the total u