There was no specie, because the fictitious ruinous incontrovertible paper money system had driven it away, and who more forward than Mr. Perceval to maintain and extend that system—the bane of the happiness and morals of the country; a system which then gave power and riches to evil men, but has since plunged thousands upon thousands into ruin and misery; a system which, swinging like a pendulum between high taxes and low prices, at every oscillation strikes down the laborious part of the community, spreading desolation far and wide and threatening to break up the very foundations of society. And why did Mr. Perceval thus nourish the accursed thing? Was it that one bad king might be placed on the throne of France; another on the throne of Spain; a third on the throne of Naples? That Italy might be the prey of the barbarian, or, last, not least, that the hateful power of the English oligarchy, which he called social order and legitimate rights, might be confirmed? But lo! his narrow capacity! what has been the result? In the former countries insurrection, civil war, and hostile invasion, followed by the free use of the axe and the cord, the torture and the secret dungeon; and in England it would have been the same, if her people, more powerful and enlightened in their generation, had not torn the baleful oppression down, to be in due time trampled to dust as it deserves. _Mr. Perceval was pre-eminently an “honest, zealous, and able servant of the king!”_ [Sidenote: See Extract, No. 23.] To be the servant of the monarch is not then to be the servant of the people. For if the country could not afford to support the war, as it ought to be supported, without detriment to greater interests, the war should have been given up; or the minister, who felt oppressed by the difficulty, should have resigned his place to those who thought differently. “_It is the duty of the king’s ministers to provide supplies for the service, and not to undertake a service for which they cannot provide adequate supplies of money and every other requisite!_” These are the words of Wellington, and wise words they are. Did Mr. Perceval act on this maxim? No! he suffered the war to starve on “_one-sixth of the money necessary to keep it up_,” and would neither withdraw from the contest, nor resign the conduct of it to lord Wellesley, who, with a full knowledge of the subject, declared himself able and willing to support it efficiently. Nay, Mr. Perceval, while professing his inability to furnish Wellington efficiently for one war in the Peninsula, was by his orders in council, those complicated specimens of political insolence, folly, and fraud, provoking a new and unjust war with America, which was sure to render the supply of that in the Peninsula more difficult than ever. [Sidenote: See Extract No. 20]