Source.—Hervey's Memoirs. Vol. i., pp. 159-163, 175, 176.

But this flame[12] was no sooner extinguished in the nation than another was kindled, and one that was much more epidemical, and raged with much greater fury. Faction was never more busy on any occasion; terrors were never more industriously scattered, and clamour never more universally raised.

That which gave rise to these commotions was a project of Sir Robert Walpole's to ease the land-tax of one shilling in the pound, by turning the duty on tobacco and wine, then payable on importation, into inland duties; that is, changing the Customs on those two commodities into Excises; by which scheme, joined to the continuation of the salt-duty, he proposed to improve the public revenue £500,000 per annum, in order to supply the abatement of one shilling in the pound on land, which raises about that sum.

The landed men had long complained that they had ever since the Revolution borne the heat and burden of the day for the support of the Revolution Government; and as the great pressure of the last war had chiefly lain on them (the land having for many years been taxed to four shillings in the pound), they now began to say, that since the public tranquility both at home and abroad was firmly and universally established, if ease was not at this time thought of for them, it was a declaration from the Government that they were never to expect any; and that two shillings in the pound on land was the least that they or their posterity, in the most profound peace and fullest tranquility, were ever to hope to pay.

This having been the cry of the country gentlemen and landowners for some time, Sir Robert Walpole thought he could not do a more popular thing than to form a scheme by which the land-tax should be reduced to one shilling in the pound, and yet no new tax be substituted in the lieu thereof, no new duty laid on any commodity whatsoever, and the public revenue improved £500,000 per annum, merely by this alteration in the method of management.

The salt-duty, which had been revised the year before, could raise only in three years what one shilling in the pound on land raised in one year; consequently, as that tax was an equivalent only to one-third of a shilling on land, if the remission of that shilling on land was further and annually continued, some other fund must be found to supply the other two-thirds.

This of Excising tobacco and wine was the equivalent projected by Sir Robert Walpole, but this scheme, instead of procuring him the popularity he thought it would, caused more clamour and made him even, whilst the project was only talked of and in embryo, more vilified and abused by the universal outcries of the people, than any one Act of his whole administration.

The art, vigilance, and industry of his enemies had so contrived to represent this scheme to the people, and had so generally in every county and great town throughout all England prejudiced their minds against it; they had shown it in so formidable a shape and painted it in such hideous colours, that everybody talked of the scheme as a general Excise: they believed that food and raiment, and all the necessaries of life, were to be taxed; that armies of Excise officers were to come into any house and at any time they pleased; that our liberties were at an end, trade going to be ruined, Magna Charta overturned, all property destroyed, the Crown made absolute, and Parliaments themselves no longer necessary to be called.

This was the epidemic madness of the nation on this occasion; whilst most of the boroughs in England, and the city of London itself, sent formal instructions by way of memorials to their Representatives, absolutely to oppose all new Excises and all extensions of Excise laws, if proposed in Parliament, though introduced or modelled in any manner whatsoever.

It is easy to imagine that this reception of a scheme by which Sir Robert Walpole proposed to ingratiate himself so much with the people, must give him great disquiet. Some of his friends, whose timidity passed afterwards for judgment, advised him to relinquish it, and said, though it was in itself so beneficial a scheme to the public, yet since the public did not see it in that light, that the best part he could take was to lay it aside.

Sir Robert Walpole thought, since he was so far embarked, that there was no listening to such advice without quitting the King's service, for as it was once known that he designed to execute this scheme, had he given it up, everything that had been said of its tendency, would have been taken for granted; and the same men who had prepossessed the minds of the people, so far as to have these things credited, would very naturally and easily have persuaded them that their rescue from ruin, and the stop that had been put to this impending blow, were entirely owing to their patriotism; that it was the stand they had made had prevented the universal destruction that had been threatened to the liberties and fortunes of the people.

Sir Robert Walpole, therefore (who, if he could have foreseen the difficulties in which this scheme involved him, would certainly never have embarked in it at all), in this disagreeable dilemma chose what he thought the least dangerous path, and resolved, since he had undertaken it, to try to carry it through. His manner of reasoning was, that if he had given way to popular clamour on this occasion, it would be raised, right or wrong, on every future occasion to thwart and check any measure that could be taken by the Government whilst he should have the direction of affairs, and that the consequence of that must be, his resignation of his employment or his dismissal from the King's service....

At the same time, many pamphlets were written and dispersed in the country, setting forth the dangerous consequences of extending the Excise Laws, and increasing the number of Excise-officers; showing the infringement of the one upon liberty, and the influence the other must necessarily give the Crown in elections. And so universally were these terrors scattered through the nation, and so artfully were they instilled into the minds of the people, that this project, which in reality was nothing more than a mutation of two taxes from Customs to Excises, with an addition of only one hundred and twenty-six officers in all England for the collection of it, was so represented to the country, and so understood by the multitude, that there was hardly a town in England, great or small, where nine parts in ten of the inhabitants did not believe that this project was to establish a general Excise, and that everything they ate or wore was to be taxed; that a colony of Excise-officers was to be settled in every village in the Kingdom, and that they were to have a power to enter all houses at all hours;[13] that every place and every person was to be liable to their search, and that such immense sums of monies were to be raised by this project, that the Crown would no longer be under the necessity of calling Parliament for annual grants to support the Government, but be able to provide for itself, for the most part; and whenever it wanted any extraordinary supplies, that the Excise officers, by their power, would be able at any time to choose just such a Parliament as the Crown should nominate and direct.

[12] The attempted repeal of the Test Act.

[13] This feeling found expression in various scurrilous ballads. The following verse may serve as a specimen: