iament.

In the country generally the patriotic spirit aroused by the military
aggressions of France and the achievements of the British navy was
strong, and revolutionary principles were seldom publicly professed.
Some abortive projects of Irish conspirators in 1798 for co-operating
with the corresponding society led to the appointment of a committee of
the commons, which reported on the revolutionary societies in March,
1799. Bills were passed for suppressing these societies and restricting
debating societies, and for compelling printers to obtain certificates
and to affix their names to all matter that they printed. In evident
connexion with these measures was the law against combinations of
workmen enacted in this, and amended in the next session, to which
reference has already been made (p. 277); though probably political in
intention, it had an oppressive effect on the condition of the working
classes. Only three trials for sedition took place during the year, one
of them of the printer and publisher, and another of the author of the
same libel, a pamphlet by Gilbert Wakefield in answer to one on the
government side. Wakefield, who had taken deacon's orders and afterwards
left the Church, was a distinguished scholar and a friend of Fox. He was
prosecuted by Scott, the attorney-general, and sentenced to two years'
imprisonment, and to find sureties for his future behaviour. The
severity of the sentence excited the indignation of the opposition, and
L5,000 was subscribed for him. In July Scott was appointed chief-justice
of the common pleas, and received a peerage as Lord Eldon.

[Sidenote: _THE INCOME TAX._]

The burdens of the country were increasing. In December, 1798, Pitt
announced that the supplies exceeded the ordinary revenue by
L23,000,000. He repeated the principle which he enunciated when
proposing the triple assessment, that loans should not exceed such
amount as could be defrayed within a limited time by temporary taxation.
The triple assessment had failed, though the deficiency had been
supplied by voluntary contributions. He proposed to substitute an income
tax of 2s. in the pound on all incomes of and above L200, and of
graduated amounts between L60 and L200. The produce, he calculated,
would be at least L10,000,000 a year. The opposition, led by Tierney,
objected to the tax as inquisitorial, as a grievous confiscation, and as
unjust, in that it would fall equally on precarious and on settled
inco