xpense, and
heartily concurred with the demands of the ministry.

The commons granted for the service of the ensuing year, four millions
seventy-three thousand seven hundred and twenty-nine pounds; one million
of that sum expressly given to enable his majesty to augment his forces
by land and sea. Thirty-two thousand pounds were allotted as a subsidy
to the king of Poland, and twenty thousand to the elector of Bavaria.
These gratifications met with little or no opposition in the committee
of supply; because it was taken for granted, that, in case of a rupture,
France would endeavour to avail herself of her superiority by land,
by invading his Britannic majesty's German dominions; and therefore
it might be necessary to secure the assistance of such allies on the
continent. That they prognosticated aright, with respect to the designs
of that ambitious power, will soon appear in the course of this history;
which will also demonstrate how little dependence is to be placed upon
the professed attachment of subsidiary princes. The supplies were raised
by the standing branches of the revenue, the land-tax and malt-tax,
and a lottery for one million; one hundred thousand pounds of it to be
deducted for the service of the public, and the remaining nine hundred
thousand to be charged on the produce of the sinking-fund, at the rate
of three per cent, per annum, to commence from the fifth day of
January, in the year one thousand seven hundred and fifty-six. The civil
transactions of this session were confined to a few objects. Divers new
regulations were made for encouraging and improving the whale and white
herring fishery, as well as for finishing and putting in a proper state
of defence a new fort, lately built at Anamabo on the coast of Africa.

BILL IN BEHALF OF CHELSEA PENSIONERS.

Mr. Pitt, the paymaster-general of the forces, brought in a bill, which
will ever remain a standing monument of his humanity. The poor
disabled veterans who enjoyed the pension of Chelsea hospital, were so
iniquitously oppressed by a set of miscreants, who supplied them with
money per advance, at the most exorbitant rates of usury, that many of
them, with their families, were in danger of starving; and the intention
of government in granting such a comfortable subsistence, was in a great
measure defeated. Mr. Pitt, perceiving that this evil originally flowed
from the delay of the first payment, which the pensioner could not touch
till the ex