136 ENGLAND. 



debt 500,468,930/. exclusive of 23,952,329/. on account of Ireland,, 

 and 7,042,805/. on account of the emperor of Germany. 



To check, in some measure, the too rapid accumulation of a debt 

 already so enormous, a part of the supplies for the years 1798 and 

 1799 were raised within the year. In 1798 a voluntary subscription 

 was entered into for the service of government, which produced 

 about a million and a half; and the taxes called the assessed taxes 

 were trebled, and in some instances quadrupled, with allowance of re- 

 lief in certain cases : these produced about five millions. In the 

 year 1799 an act passed for levying a tenth of all income upwards of 

 200/. per annum, with a tax, according to a certain scale, on all income 

 from 200/. to 60/. per annum. The expected produce of this tax was 

 estimated at ten millions, but amounted only to about six. In the year 

 1803 a similar tax was laid on all income arising from property, at the 

 rate of five per cent, above 150/. per annum, and according -to a cer- 

 tain scale below that sum to 60/. 



The total sum to be raised for the expenditure of the year 1804, for 

 the interest of ths public debt, the civil list, the army, navy, pen- 

 sions, bounties, extraordinary and secret services, Sec. amounted, ac- 

 cording to the statement of the chancellor of the exchequer (Mr. 

 Pitt) to the house of commons, to 71,498,431/. ; and the total of the 

 ordinary revenue and extraordinary resources, including a lottery and 

 a loan of fourteen millions, to 71,307,278/. 



No permanent provision had ever been made for the progressive 

 and certain payment of this immense debt, until 1786; when parlia- 

 ment had the wisdom and the firmness to pass an act for vesting una- 

 lienably, in commissioners, the sum of one million annually : in which 

 act every possible precaution was taken that could be devised for pre- 

 venting the surplus from being diverted, at any future time, and for 

 carrying to the account of the commissioners, for the purpose of the 

 act, the interest of such stock as should be purchased, and such tem- 

 porary annuities as should fall in under the provisions of this act- 

 Op the 5th of January, 1804, the commissioners had purchased 

 77,698,467/. of the capital of the debt.* 



The expenses defrayed by the civil list are those that, in any shape, 

 relate to civil government, as the expenses of the household, all sa- 

 laries to officers of state, to the judges, and every one of the king's 

 servants ; the appointments to foreign ambassadors, the maintenance 

 oi the queen and royal family, the king's private expenses, or privy- 

 purse ; and other very numerous outgoings, as secret-service money, 

 pensions, and other bounties. These, sometimes, have so far exceed- 

 ed the revenues appointed for that purpose, that application has been 



* Dr. Price's calculation plainly , shows what this difference is: " One penny 

 put out at our Saviour's birth, at 5 per cent, compound interest, would, in 

 the year 1781, have increased to a greater sum than would be contained in 

 200.000,000 of earths, all solid gold; but if put out to simple interest, it at the 

 same time would have amounted to no more than seven shillings and sixpence. 

 All governments that alienate funds destined for reimbursements, choose to im- 

 prove money in the last rather than the first of these ways." He adds : " A mil- 

 lion borrowed annually, for twenty years, will pay off, in this time, 55 millions 3 

 pc cent stock, if discharged at 60/. in money for every 100/. stock; and in 40 

 years more, without any further aid from loans, 333 million (that is, 388 millions 

 in all) would be paid off. 



" The addition of nineteen years to this period would pay off 1000 millions. 



" A surplus of half a million per annum, made up to a million by borrowing 

 half a million every year for twenty years, would discharge the same sums in the 

 same periods." 



