The new taxes were few and light, being only extend ed to fill up the deficiencies of the sinking fund. It was during this year that the hand of a wretched and ob scure lunatic, Margaret Nicholson, had nearly deprived the sovereign of life. On the 2d of August, as the king was alighting from his carriage at St James's, a woman, who pretended to deliver a paper, struck at his majesty with a knife, but happily without effect, as the instru ment was blunt and slender. She was immediately ar rested, and examined by the physicians in presence of the privy council, who, on full proof of her insanity, com mitted her to Bethlem Hospital. The addresses of the people, on this occasion, evinced the strength and sensi bility of their loyalty.
In the session which commenced with the year 1787, the attention of parliament was early directed to a treaty of commerce with France, which his majesty had con cluded, and of which he ordered a copy to be submitted to parliament. The terms and principles of this treaty seem to have been treated by opposition with undeserved severity. In comparing the pecuniary advantages which would accrue to each of the two countries, it appeared, by Mr Pitt's statement, that although the revenue of France would be benefited to the amount of 100,0001. a year, the annual gain of our revenue would be a million. A market was opened for our hardware, cutlery, cabinet, turnery, cotton, woollen, hosiery, and porcelain manu facture, on paying an easy duty of 10 or 12 per cent. ad On our part, we agreed to lower the duties on wines, brandies, and olive oil. A plan for consolidat ing the duties of custom was brought forward by the minister on the 26th of February. By this plan, he proposed to abolish all the duties as they had existed hitherto, in a complex and confused shape, and to sub stitute in their stead a single duty on each article. The excise, also, though not so intricate as the customs, needed reform and regulation; and the duties on single articles, such as candles, spirits, &c. were to be brought into one point of view, and rendered so simple in the collection, that there could be no danger of mistaking them, or of being obliged to trust implicitly to the col lecting officers. Another financial regulation was adopt ed, though with less unanimity. In collecting the duty on post horses, it was notorious, that the revenue had been largely defrauded every year, by the collusion be tween collectors and innkeepers. To supersede those
frauds, the minister proposed to divide the country into districts for collecting the tax, and to farm it. Mr Windham, with great force, represented the practice of farming as a novelty of dangerous precedent in our constitution, a practice peculiar to despotic constitutions, and which, in the present instance, would leave one of the highest powers of the executive government to men, who, if the subject were aggrieved, would be absolutely beyond the reach or controul of parliament, till their farming lease had expired. The numbers of the opposi tion rose considerably in the votes on this question.
The English dissenters, a body of no insignificant weight in the public scale from their numbers and re spectability, had been the warmest supporters of Mr Pitt in the last elections, and looked with sanguine zeal to the support of the minister in their pretensions to far ther toleration, which they now expected from the growing liberality of peaceable times. In the present session, Mr Beaufoy made a motion for repealing the corporation and test acts, and was seconded by Mr Fox with his accustomed energy. It was not without sur prise, that the dissenters beheld, in the person of that minister, for the sake of whose elevation they had de cried and resisted Mr Fox, a severe opponent to their claims. Mr Beaufoy's motion was rejected by a large majority.
The subject of Mr Ilasting's impeachment had been resumed early in the session, and had occupied a large proportion of it. On the 7th of February, Mr Sheridan opened the third charge against the late governor, re specting his cruelty to thed'rincesses of Oude, the wife, the mother, and the family of Sujah Dowlah, our own ally in India, whose treasures were their only treasons ; but who were turned out of their palace by Hastings, (who had been constituted their guardian,) to the rigour of the merciless seasons, and to the yet more merciless soldiery. These, and other charges, having been suc cessfully voted as grounds of impeachment by a majority in the commons, the minister himself being unable to resist the conviction of the most important charges, it was voted, (May 10.) that Mr Hastings should be im peached ; and Mr Burke accordingly did impeach him, at the bar of the House of Lords, of high crimes and misdemeanors.