ABSTRACT
Sir Robert Walpole was very much a pioneer in attempting to integrate fiscal measures with what might be termed an 'economic strategy' for encouraging overseas trade and stimulating deserving or hard-pressed domestic manufactures. The scope of financial policy, of course, was greater in early Georgian Britain than it had been before the Financial Revolution of the 1690s. During the 1730s not even the Dutch government, long the byword for prudent housekeeping in Europe, could borrow money more easily or cheaply than Walpole's ministry. In the 1690s and under Queen Anne England had been taxed at levels beyond all experience and precedent. By 1713 the landed interest was so intent on relief that the Commons overrode the advice of the Treasury, under Oxford, and in the session after the Peace of Utrecht insisted on two shillings rather than three shillings in the pound rate of Land Tax.
