last, being 952,000 dollars less than was issued during the same period of the preceding Year.

The same causes which, in 1819 and 1820, effected so great a reduction of the Revenue, arising from Imports and Tonnage, were felt in an equal degree in the sale of the Publick Lands. Those who, from an auticipation of their resources, previously to those Years, were unable to purchase Foreign merchandise, were equally incapable of purchasing Publick Lands, or of discharging debts contracted with the Government by purchases antecedently made.

In the Annual Report of the Treasury, at the commencement of the last Session of Congress, the Receipts from the Publick Lands, for the Year 1821, were estimated at 1,600,000 Dollars, if no change should be made by Law affecting the obligations which the purchasers were then under, to be punctual in their payments. But, at the close of that Session, an Act was passed for the relief of the purchasers of Publick Lands, which so far impaired that obligation as to induce the Committee of Ways and Means to estimate the proceeds of that source of Revenue at only 800,000 Dollars. It has been shown, however, that the Receipts to the 30th of September last have exceeded 940,000 Dollars; and those of the whole Year are now estimated at 1,300,000 Dollars.

This result in relation to the Publick Lands, and the improvement which has taken place in the Revenue arising from Imports and Tonnage, indicate a favourable change in the condition of the Nation; from which a progressive increase of the Publick Revenue may be confidently anticipated.

Independently, however, of any such increase, the facts disclosed by the fiscal operations of the Year, some of which have been enumerated, warrant the conclusion,

That the Receipts of the Year 1822 may be estimated at

Civil, Diplomatick, and Miscellaneous 1,664,297 00

Publick Debt

5,722,857 01

Military Service, including Fortifica

tions, Ordnance, Indian Department, Revolutionary and Military Pensions, Arming the Militia, and Arrearages

prior to the 1st of January, 1817... 5,108,097 52 Naval Service, including the gradual

The Receipts of the Year will, therefore, exceed the estimated Expenditure by .......

.....Dollars...1,162,338 20

Which, after discharging the difference between the Balance in the Treasury on the 1st of January, 1822, and the Balance of Appropriations chargeable upon it, will leave in the Treasury, on the 1st of January, 1823, a Balance estimated at 671,375 Dollars 50.

It is, however, proper to state, that, in the Estimate for the Naval Service, only 200,000 Dollars of the annual Appropriation of 500,000 Dollars for the gradual Increase of the Navy, is included; but that, of the amount estimated by the Secretary of War, a sum larger than the Balance of that Appropriation is for Arrearages for Revolutionary Pensions and the Indian Department, which will not be embraced in the Estimates for the Year 1823.

The Expenditure of the 2 succeeding Years, it is believed, will not exceed that of the Year 1822, unless a further Expenditure shall, in the intermediate time, be authorized by Law. But, in the Expenditure of the Year 1822, and also of 1823 and 1824, no part of the annual Appropriation of 10,000,000 Dollars, constituting the Sinking Fund, is comprehended, except what is necessary to discharge the interest of the Publick Debt, and the reimbursement of the 6 per cent. Deferred Stock. On the 1st of January, 1825, and the 3 succeeding Years, the Debt contracted during the Years 1812, 1813, 1814, and 1815, becomes redeemable at the will of the Government. These sums greatly exceed the amount of the Sinking Fund applicable in those Years to the redemption of the Publick Debt. As the current value of the 5 per cent. Stock, created during the last and present Years, exceeds that of the 7 per cent. Stock, and of the 6 per cent. Stock of 1812 and 1813, it is presumed that the Holders of those Stocks will be disposed to exchange them for an equal amount of 5 per cent. Stock, redeemable at such periods as to give full operation to the Sinking Fund, as at present constituted. According to this view of the subject, 24,000,000 dollars, of the Stocks which will be redeemable in the Years 1825 and 1826, may be exchanged for 5 per cent. Stock, redeemable, one-third on the 1st of January, 1831, and one-third on the same days of 1832 and 1833. This exchange of 6 per cent. Stock, if

effected on the 1st of January, 1823, will produce an annual reduction of the Interest of the Publick Debt, from that time to the first mentioned period, of 240,000 Dollars, and an aggregate saving, through the whole period, of 2,160,000 Dollars. If the whole of the 7 per cent. Stock should be exchanged, the saving will be considerably increased.

If such an exchange of Stock should be deemed inexpedient or impracticable, a saving of equal, if not greater extent, may be effected in the Years 1825, 1826, 1827, and 1828, by borrowing, at the rate of 5 per cent. in the first and each successive Year, a sum equal to the difference between the amount redeemable, and that portion of the Sinking Fund, applicable to its redemption; the 5 per cent. Stock, so created, to be redeemable at such periods as to give full operation to the Sinking Fund, until the whole of the Publick Debt shall be redeemed. If the 5 per cent. Stock shall, during those Years, be above par, a saving beyond that proposed to be effected by the exchange of Stock in 1822 will be secured, to the extent of that difference, by the latter process.

But, it is possible that the progressive increase of the Revenue, which has been anticipated, and which is necessary to the full operation of the Sinking Fund, may not be realized. In that event, the Publick Expenditure authorized by Law may, after the 1st of January, 1825, exceed the Publick Revenue.

The remedy in such case must be, 1st, an increase of the Publick Revenue by an addition to the existing Impositions; or, 2d, a reduction of the Sinking Fund.

1st. A general revision and correction of the Duties imposed upon Foreign merchandize seem to be required. Many of the articles which pay but 15 per cent. ad valorem, ought, in justice as well as policy, to be placed at 25 per cent. which is the duty paid upon the principal articles of woollen and cotton manufactures. The same observation is applicable to some of the articles which pay 20 per cent. ad valorem. A correction of the existing Duties, with a view to an increase of the Publick Revenue, could hardly fail to effect that object to the extent of nearly 1,000,000 Dollars annually. It is highly probable, however, that an increase of duty on some of those articles might eventually cause a reduction of the Revenue; but this can only take place where similar articles are manufactured in the Country. In that event, domestic manufactures will have been fostered, and the general ability of the Community to contribute to the publick exigencies will have been proportionably increased.

2ndly. If it should be deemed expedient to reduce the Sinking Fund, in preference to the imposition of additional Duties, it may be satisfactory to know, that an annual Appropriation for that object of 8,000,000 Dollars, commencing on the 1st of January, 1825, will extinguish the

whole of the Publick Debt, exclusive of the 3 per cent. Stock, in the Year 1839. Should the Sinking Fund be reduced to 8,000,000 Dollars, an exchange of 36,000,000 Dollars of 6 per cent. for 5 per cent. Stock may be effected in the course of the Year 1822, if the present price of the latter Stock should continue, without diminishing, in any degree, the operation of that Fund, in the redemption of the Publick Debt. Such an exchange would reduce the Interest annually 360,000 Dollars.

The Loan of 5,000,000 Dollars, which was authorised by the Act of 3d March, 1821, has been obtained at an average premium of nearly 5.59 per cent. upon the issue of 5 per cent. Stock, redeemable at the will of the Government, after the 1st of January, 1835.

All which is respectfully submitted.

Treasury Department, 10th December, 1821.

WM. H. CRAWFORD.

SPEECH of the Lord High Commissioner, on the Opening of the Legislative Assembly of the United Ionian States.— 4th March, 1822.

MR. PRESIDENt and Gentlemen,

THE extraordinary occurrences which have taken place subsequent to your last Constitutional Adjournment, have made me far more anxious on the present occasion to meet the Representatives of the Ionian People, than at the Opening of any former Session of the Parliament of these States.

The period I allude to has indeed been one of a most eventful nature; and your Executive Government, placed in a situation perfectly novel, had to adopt such measures as were calculated to obviate the difficulties with which it was surrounded. On the nature of those measures, and on the necessity which dictated them, it will now be my duty to enter into an explanation, with the same openness and candour which I have ever used in all my Communications with this Assembly.

At the commencement of the last Session, I congratulated you on the internal quiet we enjoyed, whilst on the one side the Kingdom of Naples was in a state of complete revolutionary convulsion, and on the other the whole of Epirus in that of rebellion against its established Government. I strongly inculcated then, the absolute necessity of the strictest neutrality and non-interference, as the only line of conduct on the part of the Ionian Government that could preserve the People from a participation in those horrors which desolated the immediate Vicinity.

Now, however, the spirit of Revolution has extended itself far be

yond the boundaries of Epirus; and it is known to you all, that it thoroughly pervades the whole of Acarnania, and generally every part of Greece; whilst the Morea in particular has becomes the theatre of barbarities at which human nature shudders!

Under these circumstances, your Executive Government continued strictly and religiously to adhere to that principle of Neutrality of which it had already felt the benefit: and to this wise and salutary line of conduct is to be attributed the perfect tranquillity now reigning in every part of the Ionian States; though the Measures in its support unavoidably became of a stronger nature, in proportion as a disposition appeared to contravene the system laid down by the Go

vernment.

I shall not, however, now enter into a very minute detail of the nature and progress of those measures. They were all open and avowed, and are well known to every Member of the Assembly; but I have ordered the different Proclamations issued to be laid upon your table, which will give you an opportunity of examining each individually, and of founding inquiry on them; to assist which, the Executive Government will readily furnish any Document or Paper connected with the subject which the Assembly may wish to have before it.

Nor is it my intention to detain you by a precise detail of those numberless acts of violation of neutrality which the Government was called on to restrain and repress. I shall however advert to some of the most prominent; and particularly to that unfortunate transaction at Zante, which forced the Executive Government to adopt the most decisive steps, at once to crush the tumultuous and rebellious spirit which had thus shown itself in these States.

However deeply I may lament the irritation which has existed, I am willing to allow that it admits of great palliation under all the circumstances of the case. It did not surprise the Executive Government, that, when the spirit of revolt against the Turkish yoke reached the Continent immediately adjacent to the Southern part of these States, the People should display the strongest sympathy in favour of the Insurgents, who were of the same religious persuasion as themselves, with similar habits, language, and manners: and it naturally was to be expected that enthusiasm would prevail for the emancipation of those who had long suffered under a rule of great severity.

These considerations were sensibly felt by the Government; and it was therefore not only desirous of overlooking trifling deviations from its orders, but of passing under silence many acts, which, abstractedly considered, must have been held of a most culpable nature. Determined, however, as the Government was to save the Ionian People from the consequences of an infatuation, it could no longer abstain from adopting measures absolutely necessary for the support of the