Recourse has usually been had to the revenue of the Post-Office with
this view. I shall include the product of the tax which was laid in the
last war, and which will make the evidence more conclusive, if it shall
afford the same inference: I allude to the Post-Horse duty, which shows
the personal intercourse within the kingdom, as the Post-Office shows
the intercourse by letters both within and without. The first of these
standards, then, exhibits an increase, according to my former schemes of
comparison, from an eleventh to a twentieth part of the whole duty.[50]
The Post-Office gives still less consolation to those who are miserable
in proportion as the country feels no misery. From the commencement of
the war to the month of April, 1796, the gross produce had increased by
nearly one sixth of the whole sum which the state now derives from that
fund. I find that the year ending 5th of April, 1793, gave 627,592_l._,
and the year ending at the same quarter in 1796, 750,637_l._, after a
fair deduction having been made for the alteration (which, you know, on
grounds of policy I never approved) in your privilege of franking. I
have seen no formal document subsequent to that period, but I have been
credibly informed there is very good ground to believe that the revenue
of the Post-Office[51] still continues to be regularly and largely upon
the rise.
What is the true inference to be drawn from the annual number of
bankruptcies has been the occasion of much dispute.
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