How far did William Pitt achieve a National Revival between 1783 and 1793?

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How far did William Pitt achieve a National Revival between 1783 and 1793?

In 1783 Britain was in an awful state. There was huge government debt, the government itself was very inefficient and Britain had just lost America.

Before Pitt came to power national industrial and commercial production had fallen. Exports fell by 12% in the 1770s and national debt increased by 91%. The first few months when Pitt came to power, government debt stood at £242.9 million, (this was a huge amount in those days). That was twenty times the annual revenue of £12.5 million from taxes; national bankruptcy was a strong possibility. Stocks went down by more than 17% during 1783, this reflected declining confidence within the government.

The detrimental effects of the war in America where Britain had been humiliated had caused all these problems. The American war had only just ended when Pitt came to power. He therefore had to deal with the after effects that this war had caused, for example, Britain had suffered a loss of trade and an economical decline. Pitts task was to achieve stability within the country. He had to try and balance immediate revenue needs for debt reduction against overtaxing commercially important activities.

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Pitt imposed new taxes to wipe out the deficit while cutting expenditure drastically to increase the government annual income. He also reduced frauds in the revenue by establishing an improved system of auditing. He wanted to make sure that income due actually reached the exchequer.

Smuggling became his first target. It was estimated that smuggling exceeded 20% of imports and accounted for half all tea in Britain, creating an obvious loss of revenue. High duties made smuggling profitable, so Pitt decided to reduce duties. This made an illegal, and therefore risky, trade much less profitable. Tea duties, averaging ...

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