That on bricks was postponed, and at last dropped, on finding how prejudicial it would be and unpopular. It was changed for one on ale-houses. FOOTNOTES: [52] Sir H. Erskine. [53] Yet the Jews were but a seventh part so great fools as the Quakers. [54] He had been met by Governor Lyttelton, who was taken in the Blandford by the French. [55] Lord Egmont. [56] See vol. i. p. 422. CHAPTER VI. Tax on Plate debated in the Commons--Tranquillity restored in Ireland--Hessian and Hanoverian Troops taken into our pay--Private Bill for a new Road from the Metropolis--The French attack Minorca--Vote of Credit--Debates on the Prussian Treaty--Speeches of Pitt and Murray--Militia Bill in the Lords--Troops raised by Individuals--Violation of Public Faith--The Prince of Wales attains his Majority--History of Lord Bute--Scheme of taking the Prince from his Mother. March 3rd.--On the report from the Committee for the tax on plate, it was a day of total ignorance: Fox, Hume Campbell, and Pitt all showed how little they understood the subject. The shrewdness of the first, the assertions of the second, the diction of the latter, were ridiculously employed on a topic that required only common sense, and a little knowledge of business. Legge alone shone: he entered, beyond his usual brevity, into a detail of the nature of coin, exchange, gold, silver, premiums, and the mistaken or real advantages of those manufactures. He observed, that plate was not luxury, but a national way of hoarding; that this tax was to cease where luxury began; for the greatest Lords were not to pay beyond 2000 ounces. That it would all go abroad, unless the proportions of gold and silver were regulated. That Mr. Locke’s first treatise on that subject had been written to serve a purpose: he had afterwards understood the matter better. That while we overvalued gold in proportion to silver, the French were taking the contrary extreme, in order to draw silver into their country, and to encourage the manufacture of plate, which proved a beneficial article of their trade, and of which we were discharging ourselves. Of all dead stock, plate was the most valuable. Louis the Fourteenth and Charles the First had made great use of the resource of plate. When employed, it comes out with its whole value about it. The reputation of a stock of it has its weight. Would you in the outset of a war produce your last stake? Would you, while increasing your paper substance by borrowing on the Sinking Fund, diminish your real treasure? Many other taxes would produce above 30,000_l._