But to return to the articles of my estimate.

As for the estimate of the Militia, I have taken it from your Journals during the late war. I do not know that it will be voted at all this year; but that it seems reasonable to suppose that the Ministry will not leave us unguarded at home, and because a special act has been passed this season to enable the King to do it. It is not to be expected that I should know whether the whole is likely to be called out, or only part, or what part or proportion; for I verily believe the Ministry do not know themselves. As to the two hundred and fifty thousand pounds for sundry services, I include some estimates already lying upon the table unprovided for: the deficiency of the funds of 1758—possibly some deficiency of the grants of last year—possibly some coinage expenses—the re-building of Somerset House, &c., &c.

So much for the first and second articles; the third is that which requires the most discussion.

As for the Naval extras, the single article of transport-service and victualling will go deep into two millions five hundred thousand pounds. There is an estimate which I have seen in print, drawn up by an experienced and able hand, of all the necessary attendances upon an army of thirty thousand men; in that estimate the necessary transports are stated at two hundred thousand tons. Then compute two hundred thousand tons at eleven shillings per ton per month or more, and add the victualling estimates—that is enough for the first article towards the two millions five hundred thousand pounds. The next article is beyond my power to specify; but I think I may venture to assume, that the present armament of one hundred ships of force in America cannot possibly be manned without ten or fifteen thousand men more than the number of men as yet voted. Your seamen, exclusive of marines, which are chiefly used as land forces, and many of them now shut up in Boston, amount to but little more than eighteen thousand. Your American armament singly would require that number. Your foreign stations cannot be stripped. The East-Indies, the West Indies, the Mediterranean, Newfoundland, your home guard, many convoys that will soon be applied for, (I have myself applied for one convoy already,) ought to be supplied with as many more. Calculate the seamen, with their bounty-money or press-money, and their ordinary rate of expense; then add, stores consumed and destroyed, provisions for ships in sea-service, interest running on upon navy bills, old arrears coming to light, with an endless catalogue of never-failing items, and I think I shall have outgone my stint of two millions five hundred thousand pounds.

Comparing these considerations with the amount of the total naval expense of the early years of the late war, (1757 and 1758,) the result is to the same conclusion; therefore I shall pass on to the second sum of two millions five hundred thousand pounds, calculated for Army extras. If I could form any guess of the price of a bushel of wheat, or of a sack of oats, transported by force of arms from Bear-Key to Ticonderoga or Crown-Point, I might hope to make some impression upon this estimate. It must put to scorn all estimates from German extraordinaries; and yet the extraordinaries for several years of the late war, for forage and provisions, amounted to four or five millions per annum. The petty extraordinaries of a few men, circumscribed within the peninsula of Boston for a few months, has amounted by the accounts of the last year, to an enormous sum; then, what estimate shall we form for a twelvemonth’s provision and forage for an army of thirty or forty thousand men, at the distance of three thousand miles from home, besieging and besieged, spread, or at least expecting to be spread, over that immense continent, but without one hospitable acre to afford them sustenance! It is out of my bounds to undertake the calculation. If I have not overrated the total, it is enough for my argument; and I fear, when the bill comes to be paid, it will be more than enough for us all. As to the office of Ordnance, one word will settle that account. Their usual stint, during the last war, for extras, was three hundred thousand pounds a year. In the year 1775, they got up to two hundred and twenty-three thousand pounds for extras; and I dare believe that their industry will not be backwark to support the good old custom of a round sum for unaccounted extras.

But that I may not seem to exaggerate, I do not state that it is indispensable to provide for the whole of the twelve millions, because I know it has been customary, though not commendable, to suffer an outstanding debt of two or three millions. And to be perfectly explicit, I wish to state the precise sum which will be necessary before the end of this very year, to place us in the same condition as we were before the American war. I think it very fair to take my line, from the noble Lord’s own conduct respecting the outstanding debt. In his administration, the Navy debt has been reduced as low as one million eighty-two thousand pounds, and the Exchequer bills to one million. I shall therefore on this head throw in another million, and strike off three millions from my last total of twelve millions. The noble Lord’s own conduct marks what even a Minister thinks to be the reasonable line of indulgence, and justifies me in saying, that the least sum to be raised, which can be sufficient to restore this country to that degree of ease and affluence (such as it was) which we enjoyed before this American war, must be nine millions. I make no demands of impracticable austerity, with any view to aggravate; but I state the simple and certain difference, such as it will be at the end of this campaign, with the situation in which a commendable attention of the noble Lord in the early parts of his Ministry had once placed us. I call it the certain difference of nine millions, because there can be no doubt that the extras, as estimated at five millions three hundred thousand pounds, must be much below the mark; if so, the result of the whole is this, that the nation must be prepared to support the burden of ten or twelve millions at the end of this year for the American war.

I have often stated these matters to the noble Lord in this House, without any correction from him as having overrated them. I told the country gentlemen, both last year and this year, that they must take their leave of a three shillings land-tax; the fourth is mortgaged in perpetuity. If you are already ten or twelve millions deep, where will you be in the next year, and the next? And what taxes or funds are you provided with, or can you find? A noble person [the Earl of Stair] has given us a very accurate state of the publick revenue, and has shown that the annual surplus, even of a four shillings establishment, is but about five hundred thousand pounds a year: how is this pittance to clear off a debt of ten millions? or, if you go on with these destructive measures, perhaps twenty or thirty millions? Take off the fourth shilling, and you will find the remainder barely equal to your peace establishment; therefore the fourth shilling upon land is all that you have left to clear your debts, or provide for