pound, annuities on the sinking-fund, an application of one million
from that deposit, and the loan of the like sum to be charged on
the first aids of next session. The number of seamen was reduced to
seventeen thousand, and that of the land-forces to eighteen thousand
eight hundred and fifty-seven, including guards and garrisons.

{GEORGE II. 1727-1760}

EXORBITANT DEMAND OF THE EMPRESS-QUEEN OPPOSED.

Every article of expense, however, was warmly disputed by the
anti-courtiers, especially the demand of the queen of Hungary, which was
deemed unreasonable, exorbitant, and rapacious, considering the seas of
blood which we had shed, and the immensity of treasure we had exhausted
for her benefit; and surely the subjects of this nation had some reason
to complain of an indulgence of this nature, granted to a power which
they had literally snatched from the brink of ruin-a power whose quarrel
they had espoused with a degree of enthusiasm that did much more honour
to their gallantry than to their discretion-a power that kept aloof,
with a stateliness of pride peculiar to herself and family, and beheld
her British auxiliaries fighting her battles at their own expense; while
she squandered away, in the idle pageantry of barbarous magnificence,
those ample subsidies which they had advanced in order to maintain their
armies, and furnish out her proportion of the war. The leaders of the
opposition neglected no opportunity of embittering the triumphs of their
adversaries; they inveighed against the extravagance of granting sixteen
thousand pounds for the pay of general and staff officers, during a
peace that required no such establishment, especially at a juncture when
the national incumbrances rendered it absolutely necessary to practise
every expedient of economy. They even combated the request of the
city of Glasgow, to be indemnified for the extraordinary exaction
it underwent from the rebels, though it appeared from unquestionable
evidence, that this extraordinary contribution was exacted on account
of that city's peculiar attachment to the reigning family; that it
had always invariably adhered to revolution principles; and, with an
unequalled spirit of loyalty and zeal for the protestant succession,
distinguished itself both in the last and preceding rebellion.

VIOLENT CONTEST CONCERNING THE SEAMEN'S BILL.

But the most violent contest arose on certain regulations which the
ministry wanted to establish in tw