reduction of the four and five per cents. The methods of the chancellor of the exchequer began now to be subjected to severe criticism. On the debate (2 Feb. 1819) on the continuance of the Bank Restriction Act, Tierney attacked the whole conduct of Vansittart's finance, asserting that the minister added to the debt by exchequer bills as fast as he reduced it by the sinking fund.
The budget of 1819 was framed on the principle enunciated in the regent's speech for the year, that a clear available surplus of 5,000,000l. ought to be applied annually to the reduction of the national debt. To effect this Vansittart proposed a consolidation of the customs and increased taxation to the extent of 3,190,000l., and to make up his deficiency availed himself of the simpler method of borrowing 12,000,000l. from the 15,000,000l. applicable under the sinking fund to the reduction of the debt (Hansard, xl. 864, 912, 974). The same policy was continued in 1820 and 1821, the requirements of the exchequer being provided for by borrowing from the sinking fund and issuing much smaller new loans, the chancellor clinging to some maintenance of the sinking fund, first for the sake of public credit, and secondly to prevent undue fluctuations in the price of stock. The heavy increase, however, of taxation in times of peace began to make Vansittart universally unpopular in the country (Buckingham, Memoirs of the Court during the Regency, ii. 327), and on 14 June 1821 a motion for the repeal of the tax on horses employed in agriculture was carried against him in the house.
The conversion of the navy five per cents to a four-per-cent. stock, the most successful piece of finance with which Vansittart can be credited in his long term of office, was carried into effect without much difficulty in 1822. By this operation 105l. of the new stock was given for each 100l. of the old, and an annual saving of 1,140,000l. was thus effected at the cost of an addition of 7,000,000l. to the capital debt of this country. A similar arrangement for the conversion of the Irish five per cents was executed with equal facility the same year. The financial plan which Vansittart produced the same year for relieving in some degree the immediate burden of military and naval pensions was, however, from the first doomed to complete failure. His proposition was to grant to contractors a fixed annuity for forty-five years, calculated at about 2,800,000l., while the contractors for the annuity were to pay sums sufficient to meet the pensions due during a term of forty-five years. In other words, the plan was simply the contracting for annual loans for the next fifteen years, which were to be repaid by a gradually increasing annuity continuing for thirty years after the expiration of the first fifteen years (Hansard, new ser. vii. 737–58). This scheme, ingenious only in its unnecessary complication, ‘the most curious specimen of the most ruinous species of borrowing that the wit of man could devise’ (Annual Reg. 1822, p. 132), after being completely exposed by Ricardo, Brougham, and Hume, but yet accepted by the house, happily could not be carried into effect, as no capitalists were ready to accept the risk. Subsequently (24 May 1822) very considerable modifications were made in the plan, under which trustees were nominated to lend specified sums for fifteen years, to be raised by exchequer bills on the sale of annuities. Here, however, there was obvious waste in appointing trustees to sell annuities and exchequer bills while the commissioners were being employed at the same time under the sinking fund. For this extravagance Vansittart made some amends by the passing of an act under which the salaries of all civil servants were considerably reduced, and a provision for superannuation made by reserving a percentage out of each salary (3 Geo. IV, c. 113). He attempted to conciliate public opinion by proposing, in his last budget, the immediate reduction of the tax on salt from fifteenpence to twopence per hundred weight. But the ‘plan of finance’ had destroyed any remaining confidence placed in him, and his retirement from office (December 1822) was regarded with relief even by his own friends (Buckingham, Memoirs of the Court of George IV, i. 405). The spiteful story that he was dismissed by a letter from Lord Liverpool's secretary (Colchester, Diary, vol. iii. 5 Feb. 1823) is, however, absolutely untrue. Lord Liverpool wrote to him (14 Dec. 1822) explaining the proposed rearrangement of the cabinet in order to include Huskisson and Robinson, and at the same time offered him the chancellorship of the duchy of Lancaster and a seat in the cabinet (Addit. MS. 31232, f. 294). Vansittart accepted this new arrangement without hesitation, and on 1 March 1823 was created Baron Bexley of Bexley in Kent, and awarded a pension of 3,000l. per annum. In the debates in the House of Lords he took an occasional but not important part. He moved the Spitalfields weavers bill on 16 July 1823, which had been framed by Huskisson to repeal the Spitalfields acts, and voted with Liverpool (24 May 1824) for the second reading of the English Roman catholic elections bill. He accepted Canning's invitation to retain his
