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a plan was framed, and it would not, surely, be very difficult to devife a plan, for the gradual extinction of this horrid commerce, the fupernumerary artizans and manufacturers at home, would have leifure and opportunity to apply themselves by degrees to other kinds of employment; and, if a wife and liberal fyftem of policy was embraced, I doubt not but a trade to the Coaft of Africa, far more extenfive and beneficial than the prefent, might be established, on a much more folid and permanent foundation. But these are fpeculations into which I forbear to enter. Upon the whole, however, we may with confidence affirm, that regulations for the purpofe of obviating the political inconveniencies which might refult from the abolition of the Slave Trade, would do honour to the most enlightened Legiflature; but a feeble attempt to fatisfy the demands of honour and confcience, by any pretended regulations, for the mere purpose of preventing or of rectifying the abufes of that trade, which is itfelf the moft flagrant of all abuses which the annals of the world exhibit, would difgrace the understandings, and detract from the dignity, even of a Convention of Hottentots.

ESSAY XXIV.

On the NATIONAL DEBT.

A

T the era of the Revolution no National

Debt existed; i. e. no Debt borrowed on parliamentary fecurity, for discharging the interest of which national taxes were impofed and mortgaged. It is one of the moft aftonishing facts in all the records of hiftory, that in the century which has elapfed fince that memorable event, a Debt has been contracted by the Government of this country, which cannot be estimated at lefs than two hundred and fifty millions fterling; a fum fo vaft, that it probably exceeds the whole aggregate value of the precious metals actually in circulation throughout all the kingdoms of the globe. A political phænomenon fo extraordinary, could not fail to excite the attention, and employ the fagacity, of the ableft ftatesmen and philofophers, clofely connected as it is with confiderations of the utmost importance to the welfare, and even the existence of the State. In oppofition, however, to the most confident predictions, and, indeed, contrary to every apparently reasonGg 2 able

able ground of expectation, we find by experience, that the kingdom is not only capable of sustaining the preffure of this immenfe load, but that it exhibits plain indications of internal vigour, and even of increafing wealth and profperity. That there is a point, however, beyond which the accumulation of the Public Debt must prove deftructive and fatal, cannot be doubted; and to this general conviction we owe the late inftitution of a permanent fund for its gradual redemption.

It is well known, that in the year 1716 Sir Robert Walpole established a fund, distinguished by the appellation of the Sinking Fund, which was appropriated, under the authority of Parliament, to the fole purpose of redeeming the National Debt, at that time amounting to about fifty millions. This Fund was formed by the reduction of the legal rate of interest, from fix to five per cent. aided by various furpluffes, arifing from the different duties and taxes impofed for the payment of the interests of particular loans. It is evident that a fund fo conftituted, if faithfully and invariably applied to its original destination, must be not only a fund continually increasing, but a fund increafing with a perpetually accelerated rapidity; for not only the interefts of the fums annually discharged by the original fund were to be regularly added to it, but the interests of the fums discharged by thofe interests, and fo on in progreffion, ad infinitum; or, in other words, the original fund was a fund continually improving

proving at compound interest; and as the public Debt at that period bore an intereft of five per cent. a very flight knowledge of figures will fuffice to prove, that at the termination of a period of about fourteen years, the fund would be able to difengage annuities equal to its own amount. Eftimating, therefore, the original fund at one million, at the end of fifty-fix.years it would be increased to no less than fixteen millions; that is to fay, three hundred millions of Debt, bearing five per cent. intereft would, at the expiration of this term, be totally extinguifhed. This is, indeed, amazing; but, as it admits of an eafy demonftration, it cannot, at least it certainly ought not, to incur the reproach fo often caft on the airy dreams of fpeculative politicians, The radical idea of this plan of redemption is, it must be owned, fo obvious and fimple, that it is very eafily conceivable even the Minifter who esta. blished it might not himself be fully fenfible of its latent energies. When we confider, however, the great abilities of Sir Robert Walpole as a Financier, and his extenfive political knowledge, as well as the very able and masterly manner in which the nature and powers of this fund were explained and defended by the minifterial advocates and writers of that time, it can fcarcely be imagined that Sir Robert Walpole was himself the dupe of thofe defpicable arguments, by which the Houfe of Commons was induced by him to confent to the total alienation of the Sinking

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Fund, in a very few years after its first establishment. The true motives which influenced the conduct of that Minifter, therefore, it may be prefumed, were the defire of avoiding the odium of impofing new taxes, in order to provide for current fervices during a time of profound peace, and a fecret reluctance in the Court, to leffen the political influence and fecurity which the reigning family was fuppofed, not without reafon, to derive from the existence of a public Debt of fuch magnitude. For almost half a century after the practice of alienation commenced, the attempts made to reftore the Sinking Fund to its original ftate, were few and feeble; and, at length, notwithstanding the prodigious increase of the National Debt, in confequence of the wars termi, nated by the treaties of Aix la Chapelle and Fontainebleau, all ideas of its nature and efficacy appeared to be totally loft; and the whole nation, abforbed in contefts as difgraceful to its reputation as injurious to its interests, poffeffed neither leifure nor inclination to direct its views to an object, in comparison of which the political controverfies of the day appear egregioufly trifling and ridiculous. At length, however, about the year 1772, a private clergyman, not of the establishment, once more awakened the attention of the reflecting and intelligent part of the community, by a moft animated and mafterly "Appeal to "the Public on the Subject of the National "Debt;" but though it was fcarcely poffible, by any exertion

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