to this account, the whole debt paid off, during
eleven years of profound peace, amounted
only to L.10,415,476 : 16 : 97⁄8. Even this
small reduction of debt, however, has not
been all made from the savings out of the ordinary
revenue of the state. Several extraneous
sums, altogether independent of that
ordinary revenue, have contributed towards
it. Amongst these we may reckon an additional
shilling in the pound land tax, for three
years; the two millions received from the
East-India company, as indemnification for
their territorial acquisitions; and the one hundred
and ten thousand pounds received from
the bank for the renewal of their charter. To
these must be added several other sums, which,
as they arose out of the late war, ought perhaps
to be considered as deductions from the
expenses of it. The principal are,
The produce of French prizesL.690,449189
Composition for French prisoners670,00000
What has been received from the sale of the ceded islands95,50000
——————————
Total,L.1,455,949189
If we add to this sum the balance of the earl
of Chatham's and Mr. Calcraft's accounts,
and other army savings of the same kind, together
with what has been received from the
bank, the East-India company, and the additional
shilling in the pound land tax, the
whole must be a good deal more than five
millions. The debt, therefore, which, since
the peace, has been paid out of the savings
from the ordinary revenue of the state, has
not, one year with another, amounted to half
a million a-year. The sinking fund has, no
doubt, been considerably augmented since the
peace, by the debt which had been paid off,
by the reduction of the redeemable four per
cents to three per cents, and by the annuities
for lives which have fallen in; and, if
peace were to continue, a million, perhaps,
might now be annually spared out of it towards
the discharge of the debt. Another
million, accordingly, was paid in the course
of last year; but at the same time, a large civil-list
debt was left unpaid, and we are now
involved in a new war, which, in its progress,
may prove as expensive as any of our former
wars.[78] The new debt which will probably be
contracted before the end of the next campaign,
may, perhaps, be nearly equal to all the
old debt which has been paid off from the savings
out of the ordinary revenue of the state.
It would be altogether chimerical, therefore,
to expect that the public debt should ever be
completely discharged, by any savings which
are likely to be made from that ordinary revenue
as it stands at present.
The public funds of the different indebted
nations of Europe, particularly those of England,
have, by one author, been represented
as the accumulation of a great capital, superadded
to the other capital of the country, by
means of which its trade is extended, its
manufactures are multiplied, and its lands
cultivated and improved, much beyond what
they could have been by means of that other
capital only. He does not consider that the
capital which the first creditors of the public
advanced to government, was, from the moment
in which he advanced it, a certain portion
of the annual produce, turned away from
serving in the function of a capital, to serve
in that of a revenue; from maintaining productive
labourers, to maintain unproductive
ones, and to be spent and wasted, generally in
the course of the year, without even the hope
of any future reproduction. In return for
the capital which they advanced, they obtained,
indeed, an annuity of the public funds, in
most cases, of more than equal value. This
annuity, no doubt, replaced to them their capital,
and enabled them to carry on their trade
and business to the same, or, perhaps, to a
greater extent than before; that is, they were
enabled, either to borrow of other people a
new capital, upon the credit of this annuity
or, by selling it, to get from other people a
new capital of their own, equal, or superior, to
that which they had advanced to government.
This new capital, however, which they in this
manner either bought or borrowed of other
people, must have existed in the country before,
and must have been employed, as all capitals
are, in maintaining productive labour.
When it came into the hands of those who
had advanced their money to government,
though it was, in some respects, a new capital
to them, it was not so to the country, but was
only a capital withdrawn from certain employments,
in order to be turned towards
others. Though it replaced to them what
they had advanced to government, it did not
replace it to the country. Had they not advanced
this capital to government, there would
have been in the country two capitals, two
portions of the annual produce, instead of
one, employed in maintaining productive labour.
When, for defraying the expense of government,
a revenue is raised within the year,
from the produce of free or unmortgaged
taxes, a certain portion of the revenue of private
people is only turned away from maintaining
one species of unproductive labour,
towards maintaining another. Some part of