4 GENERAL VIEW OF 



alfo enabled to extend the calamities of war to every 

 quarter of the v/orld. Of all the inventions for the 

 deftruftion of the human fpecies, this hath proved 

 the mod effedual 5. neither can the moft fertile ima- 

 gination propofe a method, whereby a commercial 

 nation may, with greater expedition and facility, 

 transfer its trade and manufactures to its rivals in 

 arts and arms. This device is called Funding ; or in 

 other words, anticipating the property of pofterity, 

 without conveying to that pofterity any permanent 

 equivalent, whereby it may difcharge the burdens 

 thus ungeneroufly entailed upon it, as will appear 

 by the following retrofpective view of events from 

 the Revolution in 1688, to theprefent time. 



/ 



Sketch of the Britijh Politics and Wars from the Re- 

 volution to the Tear 17 8 4, including the Origin and 

 Progrefs of the national Debt Difmemberment, and 

 rapid Fall of the Empire Perulous Situation of 

 Government, and the Nation in general War the 

 Cauje of our own Dijtreffes, and thoje which we have 

 brought upon a confiderable Part of Mankind. 



When William prince of Orange afcended the 

 throne of thefe kingdoms in 1688, his cotemporary, 

 Lewis XIV, at the head of a gallant nation, panting 

 after military fame, was meditating the eftablifhment 

 of the French monarchy over Europe ; a project 

 which gave rife to a general confederacy, who chofe 

 William as their generaliHImo, or commander in 

 chief, againft the common enemy. 



That war was carried on with various fuccefs dur- 

 ing eight years, when a general peace was concluded 

 at Ryfwick, without any material benefit to either 

 of the contending parties 5 and England, at the death 

 of king William in 1701, found itfelf involved in 

 The firft national debt> which amounted to the then 

 wnheard-of Turn of . 16,000,000 



Queen 



