used to
subscribe from mere obstinacy or disaffection, it might be thought cruel
to take the most rigorous advantage of the forfeiture they had incurred.
With respect to the proprietors of the stock or capital belonging to the
three great companies, he asserted, that many of them would willingly
have subscribed their properties within the time limited, but were
necessarily excluded by the majority on the ballot; and as it was
equally impossible to know those who were against the question on the
ballot, he thought that some tenderness was due even to the proprietors
of those three companies; his opinion therefore was, that they and the
uncomplying annuitants should be indulged with further time to
complete their subscription; but, in order to preserve the authority of
parliament, and the respect due to that august assembly, they ought
not to be gratified with such advantageous terms as were allowed to the
annuitants who at first cheerfully complied with the proposals offered
by the legislature. For these reasons he proposed, that although the
term of subscribing should be protracted till the thirtieth day of May,
the encouragement of three pounds ten shillings per centum per annum
should not be continued to the second subscribers longer than till
the fifth day of December, in the year one thousand seven hundred and
fifty-five. The proposal being approved, a bill was framed for this
purpose, as well as for redeeming such annuities as should not be
subscribed, which passed through both houses, and was enacted into a
law, after having received an additional clause, empowering the East
India company, in case they should subscribe all their stock bearing
an interest of four per centum, to borrow, with the consent of the
treasury, any sums not exceeding four millions two hundred thousand
pounds, after the several rates of interest before proposed to be paid
by the public, and one million more at three per centum per annum. They
were also vested with a power to raise money by bonds as formerly; yet
so as the whole, including the annuities, should not exceed what they
were by former acts empowered to borrow. The objections to the execution
of this project, which by many were deemed insurmountable, entirely
vanished before the fortitude, perseverance, and caution of the
minister; who had secured, among the monied men of the nation, the
promise of such sums as would have been sufficient to pay off the
capital belonging to those cre