ABSTRACT
The crisis which Pitt inherited on corning into office was as much economic as political. The value of national industrial and commercial production in real terms, which had been increasing substantially during the eighteenth century, fell during the 1770s. William Pitt had both a tactical and a strategic purpose in his taxation policies. Tactically, he fished around for new items to tax in order to reduce the government deficit. Strategically, he was concerned to ensure that the main burden of taxes fell on property owners rather than the lower orders. Pitt’s India Act of 1784 succeeded in clipping the East India Company’s wings. It set up a Board of Control, responsible to the Crown. The powers of the governor-general in Calcutta were not extended as much as had been anticipated. Fox also argued that the new Board of Control should have been answerable to parliament rather than to the Crown.
