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304 revenue, which itself depended on American policy. "The Treasury," Shelburne told Franklin while discussing the Illinois grant, "are alarmed and astonished at the growing charges and the heavy accounts and draughts continually brought in from America; Major Farmer for instance had lately drawn for no less than 30,000l. extraordinary charges on his going to take possession of Illinois, and the superintendents, particularly the southern one, began also to draw very largely." The chief expenditure of the mother-country on behalf of the colonies was incurred for military purposes. The total amount was estimated at £400,000 annually. The question was whether that expenditure was necessary. If it were not necessary, there was every probability that the ordinary revenue of the Crown, if carefully tended, and the grants of the Colonial Assemblies, would be sufficient for securing and defending America, and that there would consequently be no necessity for raising the difficult question of the right of the mother-country to tax. This was the opinion of Shelburne. He believed the road out of the difficulty to lie in increasing the land revenue, in reducing the military force in the towns where they could not be wanted except for the purpose of overawing the colonists, and in only keeping up the force necessary to check the incursions of the Indians.

In conformity with these views he sent a circular to each Governor in America, instructing him to transmit an exact estimate of the annual charge of maintaining and supporting the entire establishment of the Colony, distinguishing the different funds, and the different services to which they were appropriated, distinguishing also the fixed and regular funds from those which were annually granted or which expired in a given time. They were