plate of private families, or of the treasure of
the prince. The last French war cost Great
Britain upwards of £90,000,000, including
not only the £75,000,000 of new debt that
was contracted, but the additional 2s. in the
pound land-tax, and what was annually borrowed
of the sinking fund. More than two-thirds
of this expense were laid out in distant
countries; in Germany, Portugal, America,
in the ports of the Mediterranean, in the East
and West Indies. The kings of England had
no accumulated treasure. We never heard of
any extraordinary quantity of plate being
melted down. The circulating gold and silver
of the country had not been supposed to exceed
L.18,000,000. Since the late recoinage
of the gold, however, it is believed to have
been a good deal under-rated. Let us suppose,
therefore, according to the most exaggerated
computation which I remember to
have either seen or heard of, that, gold and silver
together, it amounted to L.30,000,000.
Had the war been carried on by means of our
money, the whole of it must, even according
to this computation, have been sent out and
returned again, at least twice in a period of
between six and seven years. Should this be
supposed, it would afford the most decisive argument,
to demonstrate how unnecessary it is
for government to watch over the preservation
of money, since, upon this supposition, the
whole money of the country must have gone
from it, and returned to it again, two different
times in so short a period, without any
body's knowing any thing of the matter. The
channel of circulation, however, never appeared
more empty than usual during any part of
this period. Few people wanted money who
had wherewithal to pay for it. The profits of
foreign trade, indeed, were greater than usual
during the whole war, but especially towards
the end of it. This occasioned, what it always
occasions, a general over-trading in all
the ports of Great Britain; and this again occasioned
the usual complaint of the scarcity of
money, which always follows over-trading.
Many people wanted it, who had neither
wherewithal to buy it, nor credit to borrow it;
and because the debtors found it difficult to
borrow, the creditors found it difficult to get
payment. Gold and silver, however, were generally
to be had for their value, by those who
had that value to give for them.
The enormous expense of the late war,
therefore, must have been chiefly defrayed,
not by the exportation of gold and silver, but
by that of British commodities of some kind
or other. When the government, or those
who acted under them, contracted with a merchant
for a remittance to some foreign country,
he would naturally endeavour to pay his
foreign correspondent, upon whom he granted
a bill, by sending abroad rather commodities
than gold and silver. If the commodities of
Great Britain were not in demand in that
country, he would endeavour to send them to
some other country in which he could purchase
a bill upon that country. The transportation
of commodities, when properly suited
to the market, is always attended with a
considerable profit; whereas that of gold and
silver is scarce ever attended with any. When
those metals are sent abroad in order to purchase
foreign commodities, the merchant's profit
arises, not from the purchase, but from the
sale of the returns. But when they are sent
abroad merely to pay a debt, he gets no returns,
and consequently no profit. He naturally,
therefore, exerts his invention to find
out a way of paying his foreign debts, rather
by the exportation of commodities, than by
that of gold and silver. The great quantity
of British goods, exported during the course
of the late war, without bringing back any returns,
is accordingly remarked by the author
of the Present State of the Nation.
Besides the three sorts of gold and silver above
mentioned, there is in all great commercial
countries a good deal of bullion alternately
imported and exported, for the purposes of
foreign trade. This bullion, as it circulates
among different commercial countries, in the
same manner as the national coin circulates in
every country, may be considered as the money
of the great mercantile republic. The national
coin receives its movement and direction
from the commodities circulated within
the precincts of each particular country; the
money in the mercantile republic, from those
circulated between different countries. Both
are employed in facilitating exchanges, the
one between different individuals of the same,
the other between those of different nations.
Part of this money of the great mercantile republic
may have been, and probably was, employed
in carrying on the late war. In time
of a general war, it is natural to suppose that
a movement and direction should be impressed
upon it, different from what it usually follows
in profound peace, that it should circulate
more about the seat of the war, and be more
employed in purchasing there, and in the
neighbouring countries, the pay and provisions
of the different armies. But whatever part of
this money of the mercantile republic Great
Britain may have annually employed in this
manner, it must have been annually purchased,
either with British commodities, or with something
else that had been purchased with them;
which still brings us back to commodities, to
the annual produce of the land and labour of
the country, as the ultimate resources which
enabled us to carry on the war. It is natural,
indeed, to suppose, that so great an annual expense
must have been defrayed from a great
annual produce. The expense of 1761, for
example, amounted to more than £19,000,000.
No accumulation could have supported so
great an annual profusion. There is no annual
produce, even of gold and silver, which