should, in presence of the
warehouse-keeper, be delivered to the purchaser, upon his paying
the inland duty of fourpence per pound weight, to the proper officer
appointed to receive it; by which means the merchant would be eased of
the inconvenience of paying the duty upon importation, or of granting
bonds and finding sureties for the payment, before he had found a market
for the commodity; that all penalties and forfeitures, so far as they
formerly belonged to the crown, should for the future be applied to the
use of the public; that appeals in this, as well as in all other cases
relating to the excise, should be heard and determined by two or three
of the judges, to be named by his majesty; and in the country, by the
judge of assize upon the next circuit, who should hear and determine
such appeals in the most summary manner, without the formality of
proceedings in courts of law or equity.

Such was the substance of the famous excise scheme, in favour of which
sir Robert Walpole moved that tha duties and subsidies on tobacco
should, from and after the twenty-fourth day of June, cease and
determine. The debate which ensued was managed and maintained by all
the able speakers on both sides of the question. Sir Robert Walpole was
answered by Mr. Perry, member for the city of London. Sir Paul Methuen
joined in the opposition. Sir John Barnard, another representative of
London, distinguished himself in the same cause.

He was supported by Mr. Pulteney, sir William Wyndham, and other
patriots. The scheme was espoused by sir Philip Yorke, appointed
lord-chief-justice of the king's-bench, and ennobled in the course of
the ensuing year. Sir Joseph Jekyll approved of the project, which was
likewise strenuously defended by lord Hervey, sir Thomas Robinson, sir
William Yonge, Mr. Pelham, and Mr. Wilmington, which last excelled all
his contemporaries of the ministry in talents and address. Those who
argued against the scheme, accused the minister of having misrepresented
the frauds and made false calculations. With respect to the supposed
hardships under which the planters were said to labour, they affirmed
that no planter had ever dreamed of complaining, until instigated
by letters and applications from London: that this scheme, far from
relieving the planters, would expose the factors to such grievous
oppression, that they would not be able to continue the trade,
consequently the planters would be entirely ruined; and, after all