FIN 
iii tiiyes of peace, to provide for the extra- 
ordinary charges of a state of warfare, these 
were defrayed by extraordinary contribu- 
tions from the people, which ceased with 
the occasion. Few sovereigns possessed 
sufficient credit, either with their own sub- 
jects or foreigners, to contract debts, so 
that at the conclusion of a war, there was 
no occasion for a greater expenditure than 
before its commencement, and the revenue 
drawn from the people reverted to its for- 
mer state. It is the system of defraying 
extraordinary expences by borrowing the 
money, for which an annual interest must be 
paid; and of suffering the debts thus incurred 
to accumulate, by which the sum to be an- 
nually paid is continually increasing, and 
the expences of every war are rendered far 
greater than those which preceded it, that 
has swelled the revenue and expenditure of 
most of the nations of Europe to an enor- 
mous magnitude, and caused their systems 
of finance to become complicated and op- 
pressive. 
In Great Britain, where the system of 
running in debt, or, as it is commonly term- 
ed the funding system, has been carried to 
a greater height than in any other country, 
its* natural attendants, enormous taxation 
and expenditure, have made equal pro- 
gress; and it is probably owing chiefly to 
the publicity which is given to all matters 
of finance, so that every person, with little 
trouble, may know how all the money 
raised for the public service is expended, 
that the people have been induced to sub- 
mit to taxes, which both from their nature 
and amount would have appeared incredi- 
ble to their forefathers. 
The English system of finance rests on 
the produce of the various taxes which have 
been imposed at different periods, the ag- 
gregate amount of which, after deducting 
the expences of collection, together with a 
few small articles which cannot properly be 
called taxes, forms the whole of the public 
income: this income is annually appro- 
priated to the several branches of the na- 
tional expenditure, and when, in conse- 
quence of any extraordinary expences, it 
is known that the income of the current 
year will be insufficient to meet all the de- 
mands upon it, it is usual to borrow the 
sum necessary to make up the deficiency, 
either from individuals or public bodies, 
and to allow a fixed rate of interest on the 
money thus obtained, till the principal shall 
be repaid, or till the period originally 
agreed upon shall have expired. 
FIN 
FINE, in law, is sometimes called a feoff- - 
ment of record ; or rather, it is an acknow- 
ledgement. of a feoffment on record : it has 
at least the effect of a feoffment in convey- 
• ing lands, though it is one of those convey- 
ances at the common law, by which lands 
and freeholds will pass without livery or sei- 
sin. It is an amicable composition ot a 
suit, either actual or fictitious, by leave ot 
the King’s justices, whereby the lands in 
question become, or are acknowledged to 
be, the right of one of the parties. It is 
now a very general mode of conveyance by 
reason of its extensive and binding effect. 
There are four sorts of fines, blit that most 
usually employed is called fine sur conusance 
du droit come ceo q’uil a de son done, or a 
fine upon acknowledgment ot the right of 
the cognizee, as that which he hath ot the 
gift of the cognizor. The purposes for 
which fines are now levied, are to cut off 
estates tail, to bar the wife of her dower, 
and also to make purchasers more secure 
in their title ; for by virtue of the statute 
4 Henry VII. c. 24, all persons not within 
age, and not under disability, such as fem- 
mes coverts, persons insane, and beyond 
sea, are barred of their rights by a fine le- 
vied of lands, with proclamation, unless they 
claim within five years. The legal learn- 
ing, with respect to the effect and opera- 
tion and mode of levying fines, is so ab- 
struse, that, in a general dictionary, it is 
better to consider them only, as in fact 
they are, a species of solemn conveyance 
for the barring the wife of dower when le- 
vied by her, which she is enabled to do not- 
withstanding coverture, or to cut off en- 
tails, &c. than to attempt an imperfect de- 
scription of fines in particular. 
FINERY, in the iron works, one of the 
forges at which the iron is hammered and 
fashioned into what they call a bloom or 
square bar. See Iron. 
FINESSE, a French term, current in 
this country, and is used chiefly to denote 
that subtilty made use of for the purposes 
of deception. 
FINGER board, in music, that thin, 
black covering of wood laid over the neck 
of a violin, violincelio, &c. on which, in 
performance, the strings are pressed by the 
fingers of the left hand, while the right ma- 
nages the bow 1 . 
FINGERING, in music, the art of dis- 
posing the fingers in a convenient, natural, 
and apt manner, in the performance of any 
instrument, but more especially the organ 
and piano-forte. One of the first things 
