1706.) | 
the nation.” If there was, thus early, 
room for fuch apprehenfions, what muft 
we think after the experience of another 
half-century, during which the debt has 
increafed to upwards of 300 millions; a 
fum which requires more than half the 
annual rental of the kingdom to dif- 
charge its intereft? The predicted ruin 
as, happily, not yet arrived; but, when 
the cloud rapidly blackens, what can be 
expected, but that the ftorm fhould f{peed- 
ily burft over our heads > Dr. Price was 
miftaken, when he fixed the limit of 
public credit at 200 millions. Refources, 
far beyond all previous calculation, have 
arifen from the wonderful ingenuity of 
our manufacturers, from the enterprifing 
{pirit of our merchants, and from the 
extraordinary commercial exigencies of 
foreign ftates; but it requires little 
dkill in political arithmetic to fee, that, 
if the prefent fyftem of finance be con- 
tinued, the dreaded cataftrophe cannot 
be long poftponed. It is neither necef- 
fary to adopt Mr. Paine’s calculation of 
‘an arithmetical progreffion in the ex- 
pences of our wars, nor to enter into 
the more minute and accurate computa- 
taons of Mr. Morgan, to difcover that 
a nation which has encumbered, itfelf, 
im lefs than half a century, with more 
_ than 200 millions of debt, cannot adhere 
to the fame plan through another halt- 
century withour imminent hazard. ‘The 
pedlar, who, day after day, added an- 
other and another pound to his afs’s load, 
at laft broke his back. 
But the finking fund, fays Mr. Chal- 
mers, “is the true anodyne of the fund- 
ing fyftem.’’ ‘That it has operated as an 
~anodyne to the nation will be admitted. 
It will be granted, too—for Dr. Price, 
that accurate calculator, has afferted— 
that, had the finking fund been inva- 
riably applied to the purpofe for which 
it was inflituted, there would, in the 
year 1775, have been inthe revenue a 
furplus of more than frve millions, in- 
ftead of a debt of 137 millions. But, if 
we are to Judge of the future from the 
paft, lirtle confidence is to be placed in 
this remedy. The finking fund, which 
was eftablifhed in 1716, was, in oppofi- 
tion to an exprefs act of parliament, 
foon charged with the payment of the 
intereft of new loans. In 1733, Sir R. 
Walpole applied half a million of this 
fund tothe current expenditure ; a2 mea- 
fure which Sir J. Barnard, at that time, 
pene prediéted would bring upon its 
advifer the curfes of pofterity. The 
Monrury Mac. No. VII, 
The Pypiirer No. Vi. 
o> 339 
fame mifchievous rae was, in fubfc- 
quent periods, ftill purfued; fothat frcha 
the firft alienation of this fund, in 1733, 
to the year 1775, it only difcharged 
eight millions and a half of the national 
debt. Better things might reafonably 
be expeéted from the late aét for the 
appropriation of one mutlion per annum to 
the redemption of loans, could the pub- 
lic be affured, that this plan would be 
fuffered to opexate without interruption, 
and without the counter-a€tion of new 
burdens from new wars. But while the 
debt is fuffered to increafe twenty times 
fafter than it is difcharged, a finking 
fund, or an act for redemption, is a for= 
lorn hope. 
A fyftem thus pregnant with prefentmif- 
chief and future hazard, might without 
hefitation be pronounced unjuft and im- 
politic, had not feveral very ingenious 
gentlemen lately inftruéted the public 
that a national debt is a national benefit. 
According to one writer, the circulation 
of the annual intereft of the debt is the 
great fpur to induftry, and fupport of 
manufactures and commerce : according 
to another, who modeftly admits that 
the nation is fomewhai embarraffed by the 
debt, it is probable, that the induftrious 
claffes dérive fome advantage from the 
active motion which the funds give to 
the circulating value of all things: ac- 
“cording toa third, who abandons alto- 
gether the romantic project of gradually 
diminifhing the debt, the funds are the 
great wheel of that circulation which is 
the efficient caufe of our opulence—the 
general fountain of national profperityy 
difpenfing its golden ftreams through a 
thoufand channels. 
The common argument of all thefe 
writers, in fupport of the utility of the 
national debt, is, fimply, its operation 
in facilitating and increafing circulation, 
That the circulation of property is faci- 
litated and increafed by means of public 
banks will not be difputed: but to im- 
pute the facility of circulation to thofe 
effets which belong to the money cir- 
culated, or rather to that property, pet- 
fonal or real, which money reprefents, 
is manifeft fophiftry. It is to afcribe the 
effeét produced by a machine, not to the 
ingenuity of the artift, or the induftry of 
the workmen, but to the o//ing of the 
wheels. A great advantage in trade is, 
doubtlefs, derived from free circulation ; 
but this advantage may be nearly as well 
obtained by private as by public banks. 
3 That 

