ut the most brilliant operation
of finance recorded in the annals of Great Britain. This was a new
measure, for hitherto it had been the practice at the return of peace to
take off any addition that had been made to the land-tax in time of war.
Hence when Townshend proposed it in committee he was laughed at by the
country members, who contended for its reduction to three, or even
two, shillings in the pound. Townshend had nobody by him to second his
assertions, or give him powerful support; and when Mr. Grenville moved
that the land-tax should be reduced to three shillings, his motion
was carried by a majority of eighteen. It was said that the country
gentlemen in effecting this reduction, "had bribed themselves with a
shilling in the pound of their own land-tax," but as this was the first
money-bill in which any cabinet had been successfully opposed since
the Revolution, it was rightly viewed as a symptom of weakness in the
administration: yet Townshend retained his office.

{GEORGE III. 1765-1769}

EAST INDIA QUESTION.

The great question discussed in parliament during this session related
to the East Indies. At this period the East India Company held "the
gorgeous East in fee." The merchant princes of Leadenhall-street, who
commenced their career with a strip of sea-coast on the outermost limits
of Hindostan, had now acquired principalities and kingdoms, and had even
made themselves masters of the vast inheritance of Aurungzebe. Fortunate
as the Argonauts, they found and possessed themselves of the "golden
fleece," which had been the object of their search. Enormous fortunes
were made with a rapidity hitherto unknown, and they were gathered into
the laps of even the most obscure adventurers. The fables of the ring
and the lamp were more than realised, and the fountain from whence these
riches ran appeared to flow from an inexhaustible source. Men had only
to go and stand by its brink, and if avarice could be satisfied, they
might soon return home with not only sufficient wealth to maintain
them in opulence and splendour, but with some to spare for the poor and
needy.

Such were the views which government seems to have taken of these
merchant princes. Early in November a committee was appointed for
investigating the nature of their charters, treaties, and grants, and
for calculating the expenses which had been incurred on their account
by government. In the course of this scrutiny two questions suggested
th