t the
exigency of the case, and that those steps have been attended with
complete success.

"To increase the revenue was an indispensable preliminary, but to do
so, no other means lay within the power of the States than a tax on the
several parishes according to the rates at which they were respectively
assessed, and to this tax there were insuperable objections....

"Under these circumstances was the application made for the duty on
spirituous liquors: and notwithstanding the opposition of many of the
inhabitants His Royal Highness the Prince Regent, was graciously pleased
by an Order in Council of 23rd July, 1814 to authorise the States to
raise 1s. per Gallon on all such liquors consumed in this Island for the
term of 5 years. The same duty was renewed for 10 years by virtue of a
second Order in Council of 19th June, 1819 after similar opposition. And
on the declaration at Your Lordships' bar of the advocate deputed by the
opponents that a clause to the following effect would reconcile them to
the measure, and no objection being made to it on the part of the
States, these words were inserted in the gracious Order in question:
viz.:--'That One Thousand Pounds per annum of the produce of the said
duty be applied solely to the liquidation of the present debt, together
with such surplus as shall remain out of the produce of the tax in any
year after defraying the expenses of roads and embankments and
unforeseen contingencies. And that the States of the said Island do not
exceed in any case the amount of their annual income without the consent
previously obtained of His Royal Highness in Council: and the said
States are hereby directed to return annually to the Privy Council an
account of the produce and application of the said tax.'

"In 1825 the Lt. Governor Sir John Colborne, and the States, having
extended their views to the erection of a new College and other
important works which could not be undertaken without the assurance of a
renewal of the duty, constituting the chief part of the revenue, a third
Order in Council of the 30th September, 1825, conceded to the States the
right of levying the same for 15 years, beginning on the 1st September,
1829, and this without the smallest opposition from any of the
inhabitants, and without the conditions annexed to the second Order.

"With gratitude for the means placed at their disposal the States feel
an honest pride in the recital of the manner in which those means have