opposition. The more taxes may have been
multiplied, the higher they may have been
raised upon every different subject of taxation;
the more loudly the people complain
of every new tax, the more difficult it becomes,
too, either to find out new subjects of
taxation, or to raise much higher the taxes already
imposed upon the old. A momentary
suspension of the payment of debt is not immediately
felt by the people, and occasions
neither murmur nor complaint. To borrow
of the sinking fund is always an obvious and
easy expedient for getting out of the present
difficulty. The more the public debts may
have been accumulated, the more necessary it
may have become to study to reduce them;
the more dangerous, the more ruinous it may
be to missapply any part of the sinking fund;
the less likely is the public debt to be reduced
to any considerable degree, the more likely,
the more certainly, is the sinking fund to be
misapplied towards defraying all the extraordinary
expenses which occur in time of peace.
When a nation is already overburdened with
taxes, nothing but the necessities of a new
war, nothing but either the animosity of national
vengeance, or the anxiety for national
security, can induce the people to submit,
with tolerable patience, to a new tax. Hence
the usual misapplication of the sinking fund.
In Great Britain, from the time that we
had first recourse to the ruinous expedient of
perpetual funding, the reduction of the public
debt, in time of peace, has never borne
any proportion to its accumulation in time of
war. It was in the war which began in 1668,
and was concluded by the treaty of Ryswick,
in 1697, that the foundation of the present
enormous debt of Great Britain was first
laid.
On the 31st of December 1697, the public
debts of Great Britain, funded and unfunded,
amounted to L.21,515,742 : 13 : 8½.
A great part of those debts had been contracted
upon short anticipations, and some
part upon annuities for lives; so that, before
the 31st of December 1701, in less than four
years, there had partly been paid off, and
partly reverted to the public, the sum of
L.5,121,041 : 12 : 0¾; a greater reduction
of the public debt than has ever since been
brought about in so short a period of time.
The remaining debt, therefore, amounted only
to L.16,394,701 : 1 : 7¼.
In the war which began in 1702, and which
was concluded by the treaty of Utrecht, the
public debts were still more accumulated. On
the 31st of December 1714, they amounted to
L.53,681,076 : 5 : 61⁄12. The subscription into
the South-sea fund, of the short and long
annuities, increased the capital of the public
debt; so that, on the 31st of December 1722,
it amounted to L.55,282,978 : 1 : 35⁄6. The reduction
of the debt began in 1723, and went
on so slowly, that, on the 31st of December
1739, during seventeen years of profound
peace, the whole sum paid off was no more
than L.8,328,354 : 17 : 113⁄12, the capital of
the public debt, at that time, amounting to
L.46,954,623 : 3 : 47⁄12.
The Spanish war, which began in 1739, and
the French war which soon followed it, occasioned
a further increase of the debt, which,
on the 31st of December 1748, after the war
had been concluded by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle,
amounted to L.78,293,313 : 1 : 10¾.
The most profound peace of 17 years continuance,
had taken no more than L.8,328,354 : 17 : 11¼ from it.
A war, of less than nine
years continuance, added L.31,338,689 : 18 : 61⁄6 to it.[77]
During the administration of Mr. Pelham,
the interest of the public debt was reduced, or
at least measures were taken for reducing it,
from four to three per cent.; the sinking
fund was increased, and some part of the public
debt was paid off. In 1755, before the
breaking out of the late war, the funded debt
of Great Britain amounted to L.72,289,673.
On the 5th of January 1763, at the conclusion
of the peace, the funded debt amounted
to L.122,603,336 : 8 : 2¼. The unfunded
debt has been stated at L.13,927,589 : 2 : 2.
But the expense occasioned by the war did
not end with the conclusion of the peace; so
that, though on the 5th of January 1764, the
funded debt was increased (partly by a new
loan, and partly by funding a part of the
unfunded debt) to L.129,586,789 : 10 : 1¾,
there still remained (according to the very
well informed author of Considerations on the
Trade and Finances of Great Britain) an unfunded
debt, which was brought to account in
that and the following year, of L.9,975,017, 12s. 215⁄44d.
In 1764, therefore, the public
debt of Great Britain, funded and unfunded
together, amounted, according to this author,
to L.139,561,807 : 2 : 4. The annuities for
lives, too, which had been granted as premiums
to the subscribers to the new loans in
1757, estimated at fourteen-years purchase,
were valued at L.472,500; and the annuities
for long terms of years, granted as premiums
likewise, in 1761 and 1762, estimated at
twenty-seven years and a-half purchase, were
valued at L.6,826,875. During a peace of
about seven years continuance, the prudent
and truly patriotic administration of Mr. Pelham
was not able to pay off an old debt of six
millions. During a war of nearly the same
continuance, a new debt of more than seventy-five
millions was contracted.
On the 5th of January 1775, the funded debt
of Great Britain amounted to L.124,996,086,
1s. 6¼d. The unfunded, exclusive of a large
civil-list debt, to L.4,150,236 : 3 : 117⁄8. Both
together, to L.129,146,322 : 5 : 6. According