debts, a fet of men, who are half merchants, half ftockholders, and may be fuppofed willing to trade for finall profits; because commerce is not their principal or fole fupport, and their revenues in the funds are a fure refource for themfelves and their families. Were there no funds, great merchants would have no expedient for realizing or fecuring any part of their profit, but by making purchases of land; and land has many difadvantages in comparison of funds. Requiring more care and infpection, it divides the time and attention of the merchant; upon any tempting offer or extraordinary accident in trade, it is not fo eafily converted into money; and as it attracts too much, both by the many natural pleafures it affords, and the authority it gives, it foon converts the citizen into the country gentleman. More men, therefore, with large ftocks and incomes, may naturally be fuppofed to continue in trade, where there are public debts; and this, it must be owned, is of fome advantage to commerce, by diminishing its profits, promoting circulation, and encouraging industry. But, in oppofition to these two favourable circumftances, perhaps of no very great importance, weigh the many difadvantages which attend our public debts, in the whole interior ceconomy of the ftate: You will find no comparison between the ill and the good which result from them. First, It is certain, that national debts cause a mighty confluence of people and riches to the capital, by the great fums, levied in the provinces to pay the intereft; and perhaps, too, by the advantages in trade above mentioned, which they give the merchants in the capital above the rest of the kingdom. The queftion is, whether, in our cafe, it be for the public intereft, that fo many many privileges should be conferred on LONDON, which has already arrived at fuch an enormous fize, and feems fill encreafing? Some men are apprehenfive of the confequences. For my own part, I cannot forbear thinking, that, though the head is undoubtedly too large for the body, yet that great city is fo happily fituated, that its exceffive bulk caufes lefs inconvenience than even a fmaller capital to a greater kingdom. There is more difference between the prices of all provifions in PARIS and LANGUEDOC, than between thofe in LONDON and YORKSHIRE. The immenfe greatnefs, indeed, of LONDON, under a government which admits not of difcretionary power, renders the people factious, mutinous, feditious, and even perhaps rebellious. But to this evil the national debts them felves tend to provide a remedy. The firft vifible eruption, or even immediate danger, of public diforders muft alarm all the stockholders, whofe property is the moft precarious of any; and will make them fly to the fupport of government, whether menaced by Jacobitish violence or democratical frenzy. Secondly, Public ftocks, being a kind of paper-credit, have all the difadvantages attending that fpecies of money. They banifh gold and filver from the most confiderable commerce of the ftate, reduce them to common circulation, and by that means render all provifions and labour dearer than otherwife they would be. Thirdly, The taxes, which are levied to pay the interefts of these debts, are apt either to heighten the price of labour, or be an oppreffion on the poorer fort. Fourthly, As foreigners poffefs a great share of our national funds, they render the public, in a manner, tri butary butary to them, and may in time occafion the transport of our people and our industry. Fifthly, The greatest part of public stock being always in the hands of idle people, who live on their revenue, our funds give great encouragement to an useless and unactive life. But though the injury, that arifes to commerce and industry from our public funds, will appear, upon balancing the whole, not inconfiderable, it is trivial, in comparison of the prejudice that refults to the ftate confidered as a body politic, which must fupport itself in the fociety of nations, and have various transactions with other states in wars and negociations. The ill, there, is pure and unmixed, without any favourable circumstance to atone for it; and it is an ill too of a nature the highest and most important. We have, indeed, been told, that the public is no weaker upon account of its debts; fince they are mostly due among ourselves, and bring as much property to one as they take from another. It is like transferring money from the right hand to the left; which leaves the person neither richer nor poorer than before. Such loose reafonings and fpecious comparisons will always pass, where we judge not upon principles. I afk, Is it poffible, in the nature of things, to overburthen a nation with taxes, even where the fovereign refides among them? The very doubt feems extravagant; fince it is requifite, in every community, that there be a certain proportion obferved between the laborious and the idle part of it. But if all our present taxes be mortgaged, must we not invent new ones? And may not this matter be carried to a length that is ruinous and deftructive? VOL. I. Bb In In every nation, there are always fome methods of levying money more easy than others, agreeably to the way of living of the people, and the commodities they make use of. In BRITAIN, the excifes upon malt and beer afford a large revenue; because the operations of malting and brewing are tedious, and are impoffible to be concealed; and at the fame time, thefe commodities are not fo abfolutely neceffary to life, as that the raifing their price would very much affect the poorer fort. These taxes being all mortgaged, what difficulty to find new ones! what vexation and ruin of the poor! Duties upon confumptions are more equal and easy than those upon poffeffions. What a loss to the public, that the former are all exhaufted, and that we must have recourse to the more grievous method of levying taxes! Were all the proprietors of land only stewards to the public, must not neceffity force them to practise all the arts of oppreffion ufed by ftewards; where the absence or negligence of the proprietor render them fecure against enquiry? It will fcarcely be afferted, that no bounds ought ever to be set to national debts; and that the public would be no weaker, were twelve or fifteen fhillings in the pound, land-tax, mortgaged, with all the present cuftoms and excifes. There is fomething, therefore, in the cafe, befide the mere transferring of property from one hand to another. In 500 years, the pofterity of thofe now in the coaches, and of those upon the boxes, will probably have changed places, without affecting the public by these revolutions. Suppose the public once fairly brought to that condition, to which it is haftening with fuch amazing rapidity; fuppofe fuppofe the land to be taxed eighteen or nineteen shillings in the pound; for it can never bear the whole twenty; fuppofe all the excifes and cuftoms to be fcrewed up to the utmost which the nation can bear, without en tirely lofing its commerce and industry; and suppose that all those funds are mortgaged to perpetuity, and that the invention and wit of all our projectors can find no new impofition, which may ferve as the foundation of a new loan; and let us confider the neceffary confequences of this fituation. Though the imperfect ftate of our political knowledge, and the narrow capacities of men, make it difficult to foretel the effects which will refult from any untried measure, the feeds of ruin are here scattered with fuch profufion as not to escape the eye of the most carelefs obferver. In this unnatural ftate of fociety, the only perfons; who poffefs any revenue beyond the immediate effects of their industry, are the ftock-holders, who draw almost all the rent of the land and houses, befides the produce of all the cuftoms and excifes. These are men, who have no connexions in the ftate, who can enjoy their revenue in any part of the globe in which they chufe to refide, who will naturally bury themselves in the capital or in great cities, and who will fink into the lethargy of a stupid and pampered luxury, without fpirit, ambition, or enjoyment. Adieu to all ideas of nobility, gentry, and family. The stocks can be transferred in an instant, and being in fuch a fluctuating ftate, will feldom be tranfmitted during three generations from father to fon. Or were they to remain ever fo long in one family, they convey no hereditary authority or credit to the poffeffor; and by this means, the feveral ranks of men, which form a kind of independant magiftracy in a state, instituted by B b 2 the A |