THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 3 



Country of Wales, and the town of Berwick upon 

 Tweed. Thus all the expenfive armaments, and 

 fplendid victories of thofe warlike monarchs, whofe 

 names are mentioned with admiration by every En- 

 glifhman, ferved only to impovcrifli their fubjects, 

 and defolate their country, which was ib greatly re- 

 duced by thofe exertions, that, had not the fea proved 

 a barrier of defence, it muft have become a province 

 to the kingdom which it had long ftruggled to 

 fubjed. 



But though the projects of the middle ages were 

 barbarous in their object, calamitous in their ope- 

 ration, and delufive in the fequel ; yet this nation, 

 inftead of reprobating the deftructive meafures of 

 their anceflors, hath confiderably improved upon 

 them. 



It was left to the sera of the Revolution * to devife 

 an engine, by which we might not only deftroy, and 

 be deitroyed, upon the European continent 5 but 



. * Nothing is hereby meant refpec~ring the principles of the Re- 

 volution ; and though the Whigs tirft let the example of borrowing 

 money upon the public credit, with a view to ftrengthen the pro- 

 teflant interefl, in the eitablifhment of a new fucceilion, we find 

 them early difpofed to redeem thofe debts, infomuch that the reduc- 

 tion of them was one of the nrft objects of parliamentary attention, at 

 the acceffion of the prefent royal family. This gave rife, in the year 

 1716, to a celebrated fcheme, of which Sir Robert Walpole was 

 the father. " All the taxes charged with the national debt were 

 now made perpetual, and digefted into three funds, called the aggre- 

 gate, the South Sea, and the general funds. At the fame time a 

 confiderable faving was obtained, by the reduction of intereil from 

 6 to <; per cent, and this faving, together with former favings, 

 and all that mould afterwards arife, w r ere to be collected into a 

 fourth fund, diftinguimed under the name of the SINKING FUND, 

 the account of which was to be kept feparate, and the whole produce 

 appropriated inviolably to the payment of the national debt. 

 About the year 1728, however, the lame Sir Robert Walpole began 

 the practice of alienating this fund ; and in 1735 it was even antici- 

 pated and mortgaged. Thus then expired, after an exiftence of about 

 eleven years, the Jinking fund that facred blciimg once the 

 nation's'only hope prematurely and cruelly destroyed by its own 



parent ! " 



A 2 alfo 



