A deficiency of the Civil List duties for
several years before was stated as the principal, if not the sole,
ground on which an application to Parliament could be justified.
About this time the produce of these duties had fallen pretty low;
and even upon an average of the whole reign they never produced
800,000 pounds a year clear to the Treasury.
That Prince reigned fourteen years afterwards: not only no new
demands were made, but with so much good order were his revenues and
expenses regulated, that, although many parts of the establishment
of the Court were upon a larger and more liberal scale than they
have been since, there was a considerable sum in hand, on his
decease, amounting to about 170,000 pounds, applicable to the
service of the Civil List of his present Majesty. So that, if this
reign commenced with a greater charge than usual, there was enough,
and more than enough, abundantly to supply all the extraordinary
expense. That the Civil List should have been exceeded in the two
former reigns, especially in the reign of George the First, was not
at all surprising. His revenue was but 700,000 pounds annually; if
it ever produced so much clear.
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