wars, as principals, on the continent, for the ſecurity of the Dutch barrier, reducing the French monarchy, ſettling the Spaniſh ſucceſſion, ſupporting the houſe of Auſtria, maintaining the liberties of the Germanic body, and other purpoſes, increaſed to an unuſual degree: inſomuch that it was not thought adviſable to raiſe all the expenſes of any one year by taxes to be levied within that year, left the unaccuſtomed weight of them ſhould create murmurs among the people. It was therefore the policy of the times, to anticipate the revenues of their poſterity, by borrowing immenſe ſums for the current ſervice of the ſtate, and to lay no more taxes upon the ſubject than would ſuffice to pay the annual intereſt of the ſums ſo borrowed: by this means converting the principal debt into a new ſpecies of property, transferrable from one man to another at any time and in any quantity. A ſyſtem which ſeems to have had it's original in the ſtate of Florence, A. D. 1344: which government then owed about 60000𝑙. ſterling, and, being unable to pay it, formed the principal into an aggregate ſum, called metaphorically a mount or bank, the ſhares whereof were transferrable like our flocks, with intereſt at 5 per cent. the prices varying according to the exigencies of the ſtate[1]. This laid the foundation of what is called the national debt: for a few long annuities created in the reign of Charles II will hardly deſerve that name. And the example then ſet has been ſo cloſely followed during the long wars in the reign of queen Anne, and ſince, that the capital of the national debt, (funded and unfunded) amounted in January 1765 to upwards of 145,000,000𝑙. to pay the intereſt of which, and the charges for management, amounting annually to about four millions and three quarters, the extraordinary revenues juſt now enumerated (excepting only the land-tax and annual malt-tax) are in the firſt place mortgaged, and made perpetual by parliament. Perpetual, I ſay; but ſtill redeemable by the ſame authority that impoſed them: which, if it at any time can pay off the
- ↑ Pro tempore, pro ſpe, pro commode, minuitur eorum pretium atque augeſcit. Aretin. See Mod. Un. Hiſt. xxxvi. 116.
