assessed at L3,000,000. He reckoned
house rent at double that sum, and the earnings of the legal profession
at one half of it. Half a million he deemed well within the total of
doctors' fees. He assessed the incomes derived from the British West
Indies at L4,000,000, and those from the rest of the world at
L1,000,000, a highly suggestive estimate. Tithes were reckoned at
L4,000,000; annuities from the public funds at L12,000,000; the same sum
for profits derived from foreign commerce; and L28,000,000 for the
profits of internal trade, whether wholesale or retail. Fixing the
rental of land at L6,000,000, he computed the total national income as
L102,000,000, which should therefore yield not less than L10,000,000 a
year. He proposed to safeguard the collection by imposing an oath at the
declaration of income, and enjoining absolute secrecy on the Crown
commissioners. The new tax, beginning from April 1799, would take the
place of the Assessed Taxes. As will appear in a later chapter, the new
impost did not yield the amount which Pitt expected; but the failure was
probably due to defects in the methods of collection. Pitt further
proposed to set aside L1,200,000 for the Sinking Fund.

His purpose in making this prodigious effort was to inspirit other
nations to similar patriotic exertions. He pointed out with pride that
after nearly six years of war British exports and imports exceeded those
of any year of peace. Thus, far from declining in strength and prowess,
as croakers averred, England had never shone so transcendently in the
arts of peace and the exploits of war, a prodigality of power which
presaged the vindication of her own rights and of the liberties of
Europe.

What was the new Europe which Pitt sought to call to being? The question
is of deep interest, not only as a psychological study, but as revealing
glimpses of British policy in the years 1814-15. The old order having
been rudely shaken in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Italy,
Pitt sought to effect a compromise between the claims of tradition and
those of expediency. It being of paramount importance to safeguard
Europe against France, Pitt and Grenville insisted on the limitation of
that Power within its old boundaries, and the complete independence of
Switzerland and Holland. That of the Kingdom of Sardinia afterwards
figured in their stipulations. But one significant change now appears.
The restoration of Austrian rule at Brussels being impr