The reading of this document had one effect, which was instantly invoked for it by Walpole. It brought the whole controversy down to the question whether the prince's father or the prince's friends ought to be the better authority as to the amount which the King could afford to give, and the amount which the prince ought to be encouraged to demand. It shrunk, in fact, into a mean discussion about the cost of provisions and the amounts of the land-tax; the number of children George the Second had to maintain as compared with the small family George the First had to provide for; the fact that George the Second had a wife to maintain in becoming state in England, whereas George the First had saved himself from the occasion of any such outlay; the total amount left for George the Second to spend as compared with the total amount which the differing conditions left at the disposal of his illustrious father. Let us see what the income of the Prince of Wales was computed to be by his friends at that time. He had fifty thousand a year allowance. From that, said his friends, we must deduct the land-tax, which at two shillings in the pound amounts to 5000 pounds a year. This brings the allowance down to 45,000 pounds. Then comes the sixpenny duty to the Civil List lottery, which has also to be deducted from the poor prince's dwindling pittance, and likewise the fees payable at the Exchequer; and the sixpenny duty amounts to 1250 pounds, and the fees to about 750 pounds, so that altogether 7000 pounds would have to be taken off, leaving the prince only 43,000 pounds allowance. Then, to be sure, there was the duchy of Cornwall, the revenues of which, it was insisted, {88} did not amount to more than 9000 pounds a year, so that, all told, the prince's income available for spending purposes was but 53,000 pounds a year. And yet, they pleaded pathetically, the yearly expense of the prince's household, acknowledged and ratified by the King himself, came to 63,000 pounds without allowing his Royal Highness one shilling for the indulgence of that generous and charitable disposition with which Heaven had so bounteously endowed him. [Sidenote: Wealthy King; semi-starved people]