Lord Londonderry is to-day to open a plan of providing for the annual charge of five millions now paid in half-pay, pensions, &c., by granting long annuities for forty-five years, by which means a saving of two millions annually is to be made, which is to repeal the salt tax and diminish the window-tax. Being myself no friend to the Sinking Fund, and anxious that the Government should have the credit of affording every practicable remission of taxation, I have no objection whatever to this; but I must say for those who support that system, it is somewhat ridiculous with one hand to expend five millions in relief of the burthens of posterity, and with the other to transpose a burthen from our own shoulders upon theirs. I am still myself sanguine in my hope of the continuance of peace, as I think it clear that both powers wish to avoid war, and that the Emperor Alexander is aware of the certainty that the flame once lighted must spread further. [80] Viscount Folkestone, the present Earl of Radnor. THE RIGHT HON. CHARLES W. WYNN TO THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. House of Commons, Six P.M. MY DEAR B----, Lord Liverpool had not, at eleven this morning, returned from Brighton, and Londonderry was not out of bed, or at least not come down. I sent your two notes to the latter, but have not yet seen him, though the post is just going out. The visit to Brighton relates, I believe, wholly to the Civil List, on which the country gentlemen are to make their next serious attack. I do not agree with you in your wish that the Government should break up upon so very unpopular a question as that of the Admiralty. I myself look at the minority on the salt tax with more apprehension and concern than the majority on the Admiralty. Ever yours, C. W. W. THE RIGHT HON. THOS. GRENVILLE TO THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. March 4, 1822. MY DEAR DUKE,