George Grenville spoke well, chiefly censuring this as a tax to be paid on honour--had the coach-tax been honourably paid? The land-tax at the Revolution was laid on honour--did honour tax itself fairly? Here only middling persons were to be rated; the poor and the rich were equally exempted. This would be a sort of _don gratuit_, or benevolence; the worst sort of tax. The Parliament of Paris was copying our best times--from what were we copying? Murray pleaded that by leaving the most magnificent sort of plate, which is only where there is above 2000 ounces, untaxed, no discouragement would be given to the manufacture. Dr. Hay saying that this tax was unlike that on coaches, for they, if not used, did not pay; Doddington replied, that he hoped Dr. Hay would not wish the taxes postponed, till such could be found as all men would approve. He did profess himself unequal to speak to what many did know they were unequal to hear; but could not comprehend how men, who had so long gone on losing so much interest by a stock of plate, should now declare they would eat on trenchers, because it was to be taxed at a halfpenny an ounce. He observed how contradictory the objections were: in the same breath complaints were made that this tax subjected us to excise, and was a tax upon honour. The only unanswerable objection he had heard was, that we were over-taxed already. He wished we had been as scrupulous in former wars, yet this was the only war he remembered, purely English. The new duty was carried by 245 to 142. Yet if Fox would have yielded to it, the Duke of Newcastle would have given up the tax. It produced at last but 18,000_l._