How Did Pitt bring about a national Revival?

            Britain was in a state of chaos and depression. It had had 4 successive governments in 2 years and the national debt was constantly increasing. The wars with America had left Britain in a state. The national debt had escalated to £242.9 million. They were isolated from Europe as they no longer had an influence their as they were predominatly consintrating on America. William Pitt was elected in 1783 and set around to bring about a national revival. He set about getting this national revival in a number of different ways. He needed to improve the income to help deal with the natural debt, Cut expenditure, tackle smuggling and corruption, and improve Britain's status abroad.
             He improved the income in Britain by taxing the rich. The point of this was that they already had the money and if he would have taxed the poor he risked the danger of a revolution happening. By taxing the rich he would keep the peasants on-side and improve the economy thought the rich would suffer. He taxed the rich by only adding V.A.T on goods that only the wealthy could afford, this included things like Horses for pleasure and hair wigs. This meant that the poor weren't getting taxed, as they couldn't afford these things. He also introduced window tax. This was the more windows you had on higher flaws the more you were taxed. As the poor couldn't afford multi story large houses once again this wouldn't have affected them.
             Though he managed to bring the money back in, he needed to make sure that all the money possible got to the exchequer and smugglers didn't take the national trade. By significantly reducing the taxes on main goods he made smuggling less profitable and therefore he managed to cut it down substantially. On tea the tax went from 119% to 25% making it not worthy to risk getting caught for such slim profit lines. Pitt also introduced the Hovering act of 1780. This meant that officials could search ships inbound for British ports up to 12 miles out.