them, that, in these confiderations on this serious subject, not any wit, nor any humour except good-humour, is, or was ever intended to be, admitted; nor is the leaft reflection defigned on the conduct of any man, or set of men whatever: my scheme is folely founded on conjecture, arifing from the known principles of human nature, which concludes that men will act in fuch a manner, in fuch circumstances, and fuch fituations. It is not here afferted that any have fo acted in fuch fituations; but only fuppofed, that the generality of mankind eternally will. VOL. II. T THOUGHTS THOUGHTS ON THE NATIONAL DEBT. NO Otwithstanding the practice of funding has prevailed in this country for a century, the nature and effects of a debt by this means contracted seem yet The to be very imperfectly understood. minifters who have contracted it have always been fatisfied with procuring what money they wanted on the best terms they could for the public, and have thought little of its confequences, but have left them to the decifion of time, accidents, and future administrations: the ableft financiers have widely differed in their opinions concerning its nature and effects; fome have confidered it as a perfo nal debt, his fhare of which every individual of which the public is compofed is obliged to discharge; others have looked upon it as a mortgage on all the landed property of the nation, and have computed the poffible extenfion and duration in proportion to its approach to the ultimate value of that property; and hence as many æras have been fixed for the diffolution of the funds as for the end of the world; but happily the political and theological prophets have been equally mif taken. A few have viewed it with lefs terrible apprehenfions, and a very few indeed have ventured, in contradiction to the univerfal fense of mankind, to affert, that it is the fource of all our wealth, power, and profperity. From hence fo many abfurdities, miftakes, and mifreprefentations are daily propagated, both in writings and converfation, concerning the nature and effects of the national debt, that I cannot for bear bear putting together a few plain thoughts on a fubject which has been fo much difcuffed and fo little understood. I pretend to no abilities in fifianciering, and therefore fhall not, like most of my predeceffors, adorn my pages with long rows of figures, or puzzle my reader and myself with intricate calculations, but endeavour, as concifely as poffible, to explain the nature and effects of this debt in a manner agreeable to the dictates of reafon and common fense. What has led most of those who have employed their thoughts and pens on this fubject into errors is this: They have conftantly confidered this national debt as fimilar to a debt contracted between two private individuals, to which it bears not the least resemblance; the private debtor is obliged to pay his creditor, if his effects are fufficient for that purpose; the public are under no obligation to pay theirs, because they originally granted |