A. t). 1727. 139 



otherwife would have long fince been greatly eafed by the abolition of 

 many taxes, duties, and cuftoms, which are at prefent very heavy clogs 

 on our manufactures and foreign commerce, and enable our rivals to 

 xmderfell us at foreign markets, to our unfpeakable detriment. By the 

 necelTary operation of the finking fund of only one million yearly, it 

 was very plainly fhewn, by a judicious pamphlet, intitled, an Ellay on 

 the public debts of this kingdom, ' that, fuppofmg the national debt, 

 * then of 50 millions, and the finking fund of one million, to be both 

 ' at 4 per cent intereft, the later increafing annually in like proportion 

 ' as iuch a fum put out to compound intereft would do, the whole na- 

 ' tional debt would have been difcharged by the year 1756.' 



We fliall here only farther note, that upon this fecond reduction of 

 the intereft of our national debts, their market price advanced very con- 

 fiderably. 



In this fame year an ad: of parliament pafled for encouraging and 

 promoting fiftieries, manufliclures, and other improvements, in that part 

 of Great Britain called Scotland ; whereby the crown was empowered 

 to appoint commiflioners for managing the application of the funds for 

 improving fiftieries and commerce there : and thofe commiflioners were 

 annually to lay before the king any alterations necelTary for improving 

 the fiftieries and manufidures of that country. 



By a ftatute [i Geo. II, c. 8.] for granting an aid to his majefty by 

 fale of annuities to the bank of England, at 4 per cent, charged on the 

 duties on coals and culm, &c. the bank fund was increafed by 1.70,000 

 intereft on Li ,750,000 advanced on thofe duties, redeemable by parha- 

 ment. And the bank hereupon thought it prudent to declare a reduc- 

 tion of the yearly dividend on their capital ftock from 6 to 5^ per cent, 

 from lady-day 1728. 



By this fame ftatute a million of the national debt was paid off" out of 

 the iinking-fund, viz. L5oo,ooo to the South-fea company, which was 

 to be paid oif by finking lb much of the undiftributed ftock forfeited 

 by the late diredors, 8cc. in the year 1720 ; which was to go to pay 

 the company's debts. Hereupon that company funk L2 50,000 from 

 the capital ftock, and the like fum from South-lea annuity ftock. 



And Ljoo.ooo was in like manner paid to the bank of England, 

 being part of the two millions added to their capital by an adl of the 

 3d of King George I, whereby the total of their capital ftock was re- 

 duced to 1,4,875,027 : 17 : lo^. 



1728. — By a preliminary convention between Great Britain and Spain, 

 figned at the Pardo near Madrid on the 6th of March 1728, it was agreed, 

 on the one hand, that his Britannic majefty Ihouid withdraw his fleets 

 from the coafls of Spain, and from the Spanilli Weft-hidies ; and that 

 the difputes concerning the contraband trade, anil other causes of com- 

 plaint, which the Spaniards mav have in relation to the fliip Prince Fre- 



S2 



