Lord Castlereagh, deeply sensible that there was real suffering among all classes of the people, now unfolded his vast plan of economy, with all the logic of Pitt in his admirable budget of 1798. Taking his ground on the existence of much distress in the agricultural districts, and in the principles of credit, he proceeded at once to retrenchments. The expenses of the army and navy were reduced by two millions sterling a-year; the interest of the public debt was reduced from 5 to 4 per cent; and the sinking fund was considerably increased.[53] These measures permitted the decrease of imposts, the suppression of all additional taxes, and a system of loans to agriculture by means of the bank, the grand instrument he always had recourse to, in order to make advances to parishes, and more especially to the producers of corn, so as always to keep down the price. It was an earnest undertaking, and the last he had to carry on during this session. In the meanwhile he could not fail to observe that the renown of his old adversary, Canning, was marvellously increasing; he was becoming a popular character, he was the favourite of the mob, while the firm and persevering minister who had aroused the world, and saved England, was branded with reprobation by the populace, who broke the panels of his carriage. Ought he to allow himself--he, so proud and haughty, to be drawn into the wake of Canning, on the boundless waste of revolutionary ideas? Partially reconciled to his adversary on the Catholic question, his lordship took only a secondary part in the debate; and he was stung by the conviction, that, while in foreign relations his influence was overpowered by the Holy Alliance, at home Canning was the person considered most necessary to the administration, because he was better suited to the new liberal situation in which they were becoming entangled; and he repeatedly expressed his grief and vexation at this circumstance. In England, where public questions are adopted like a mission, and the feelings of statesmen on the subject are deep and interwoven in their whole being, the destruction of a system involves that of the man. Mr. Pitt was killed by the battle of Austerlitz, and Lord Castlereagh belonged to that noble school. He whose life had commenced in so poetical a manner, who had feared neither single combat, nor the dangers of the raging waves in his shipwreck on the Isle of Man, could not be afraid of death; but as his hour drew near, his disposition became extremely irritable, and he expressed himself in parliament with a degree of bitterness and sullen haughtiness: I should almost say he looked with pity and contempt upon the opposition of the Whigs, who were advancing towards fresh storms and disturbances. There are times when people wish to have done with a situation which oppresses them, and with adversaries of whom they are weary; they utter their last words to their face, and after that they die without regret.