"Oh, no! the distress and difficulties have not arisen from _unavoidable_ causes; for the weight of taxes might have been avoided. However, let me ask the Ministers a few questions here. I will not ask them whether it was unavoidable for the Bank to stop payment in cash in 1797; whether it was unavoidable to renew the war in 1813; whether it was unavoidable to persevere in the war with America after the war in England ceased, and, at last, to make peace without attaining any object of war; whether it was unavoidable to renew the war in 1815 for the purpose of compelling the French people to give up Napoleon and submit to the Bourbons; whether it was unavoidable to keep up an army to maintain the Bourbons on the throne of France, at a time when thousands of the Protestants of the country were butchered or burnt by those who called themselves the _loyal._ I will not put any of these questions to the Ministers; but with the official accounts before me, I will ask them a few questions applicable to the present moment. I ask them, then, Was it _unavoidable_ to keep up an army at the expense, including the Ordnance, of 26,736,067 pounds? Was it _unavoidable_ that the expense of the Civil List should, in last year, amount to 1,928,000 pounds? Was it _unavoidable_ for as to pay in the same year, on account of the _deficiencies_ of the Civil List 584,713 pounds? Was it _unavoidable_ that the other additional allowances to the Royal Family, in that year, should amount to 366,660 pounds? Was it _unavoidable_ that the Civil List for Scotland should amount to 126,613 pounds? Was it _unavoidable_ to give for the _relief of suffering_ French and Dutch Emigrants, in that year, after, the _Bourbons_ and the _'Orange Boven'_ had been restored, the sum of 79,591 pounds? Was it _unavoidable_ to expend in that year (including) an arrear of the former year, in SECRET SERVICE Money, the sum of 153,446 pounds? Was it _unavoidable_ to pay _last year_, out of the taxes for the relief of the _Poor_ Clergy of the Church of England, the sum of 100,000 pounds? "I could ask them a great many more questions of a similar nature and tendency; but here are enough for the present; and, if the Citizens of London should happen to be satisfied, that all these expenses were _unavoidable_, all the taxes, of course, are unavoidable, and then it is clear, that the present distress and difficulty of the country are to be attributed to unavoidable causes. But, if the citizens should think, that a very large part, nine-tenths, for instance, of these expenses might have been _avoided_, then they will come to the opposite conclusion, and, if they be not beaten at a single blow, they will not fail to _communicate_ that conclusion to his Royal Highness.