purpose fhould fail of fuccefs, he can feel no pain on his own account. I know (fays he) I have meant to act the part of a good citizen; and I fhall return to obfcurity and filence, fatisfied with this reflection; and happy in the consciousness of wanting nothing this world can give me.' It now remains with government and the public to determine, whether, with the means of redress in our power and with the affurance that prudence and integrity may ftill fave us, we are to be devoted to ruin or not. This is not a queftion, dictated by the spirit of party or of oppofition. Every member of the ftate is effentially concerned in it. The being and profperity of our country depend on a deliberate attention to it and an administration which adopted the plan, proposed by this ingenious Author, perhaps the only plan, that can avail for our fecurity and welfare, would acquire popularity and influence by fuch a step, much more honourable and more lafting, and more effectual likewife to every neceffary purpose, than thofe which arise from an accumulating debt and a growing dependence. Such a measure would be attended with the credit and fatisfaction, objects to which no Briton can be infenfible, of faving the public and pofterity from approaching ruin. It is hoped that the wisdom of government will difcern the neceffity and propriety of adverting to this important object: and that the prefent period fhall be recorded in the annals of our country, as the era of its deliverance from impending destruction. We are perfuaded, that the eyes of the public are opened by these interesting publications; and that the attention of every individual, who has any regard for the intereft of his family or of fociety, is alarmed. And we should not wonder, if we heard of an affociation, formed on the principles of private intereft and public virtue, amongst men of property and character through every part of the kingdom, in order to recommend and enforce a proper attention to the ftate of the nation in this refpect. The idea, however, is flattering to those who feel any concern for the welfare and glory of the nation.

A fmking fund,' fays our Author, according to the most general idea of it, fignifies any faving or furplus, fet apart from the reft of an annual income, and appropriated to the purpofe of paying off or fioking debts.' There are three ways in which a kingdom may apply fuch a faving. ift, The interests, difengaged from time to time by the payments made with it, may be themselves applied to the payment of the public debts. Or, 2dly, They may be spent on current fervices. Or, 3dly, They may be immediately annihilated by abolishing the taxes charged with them.

- In the firft way of employing a finking fund, it becomes a fund always encreasing itself. Every new interest difengaged by it, containing

containing the fame powers with it, and joining its operation to it; and the fame being true of every intereft difengaged by every intereft, it must act, not merely with an increafing force, but with a force, the increase of which is continually accelerated; and which, therefore, however fmall at first, must in time become equal to any effect. In the fecond way of applying a finking fund, it admits of no increase, and muft act for ever with the fame force.-In other words. A finking fund, according to the first method of applying it, is, if I may be allowed the comparison, like a grain of corn fown, which, by having its produce fown, and the produce of that produce, and so on, is capable of an increase that will foon stock a province or fupport a kingdom.-On the contrary. A finking fund, according to the fecond way of applying it, is like a feed the produce of which is confumed; and which, therefore, can be of no farther use, and has all its powers deftroyed. The former, be its income at first ever so much exceeded by the new debts incurred annually, will foon become fuperior to them, and cancel them. The latter, if at first inferior to the new debts incurred annually, will for ever remain fo; and a ftate, that has no other provifion for the payment of its debts, will be always accumulating them, till it finks. What has been now faid of the second mode of applying a fund, is true in a higher degree of the third. For in this cafe, the difengaged interefts, instead of being either added to the fund, or spent from year to year on useful fervices, are immediately given up. In fhort, a fund of the first fort is money bearing compound intereft-A fund of the second fort is money bearing fimple intereft.-And a fund of the third fort is money bearing no intereft.-The difference between them, therefore, is properly infinite.' The Author proceeds to illuftrate these observations by the following example: Let us suppose a nation to be capable of fetting apart the annual fum of 200,000l. as a fund for keeping the debts it is continually incurring in a courfe of redemption; and let us confider what its operation will be, in the three ways of applying it which I have defcribed, fuppofing the public debts to bear an intereft of 5 per cent. and the period of operation 86 years. A debt of 200,000 1. difcharged the first year, will difengage for the public an annuity of 10,000l. If this annuity, instead of being spent on current fervices, is added to the fund, and both employed in paying debts, an annuity of 10,500 l. will be difengaged the fecond year, or of 20,500l. in both years. And this again, added to the fund the third year, will increase it to 220,5001. with which an annuity will be then disengaged of 11,0251.; and the fum of the difengaged annuities will be 31,5251.; which, added to the fund the fourth year, will increase it to 231,5251. and enable it then to difengage an an

nuity of 11,5761. 5 s. and render the fum of the difengaged annuities, in four years, 43,101 l. 5 s.-Let any one proceed in this way, and he may fatisfy himself that the original fund, together with the fum of the annuities difengaged, will increase falter and fafter every year, till, in 14 years, the former becomes 395,9861. and the latter 195,9861. and, in 86 years, the former 13,283,000l. and the latter 13,083,000 1.-The full value, therefore, at 5 per cent. of an annuity of 13,083,000 1. will have been paid in 86 years; that is, very nearly, 262 millions of debt: and, confequently it appears, that though the ftate had been all along adding every year to its debts three millions; that is, though in the time fuppofed it had contracted a debt of 258 millions, it would have been more than difcharged, at no greater expence than an annual faving of 200,000l. But if the fame fund had been employed in the fecond of the three ways I have defcribed, the annuity difengaged by it would have been every year 10,000 l.; and the fum of the annuities difengaged would have been 86 times 10,000l. or 860,000 1. The difcharged debt therefore, would have been no more than the value of fuch an annuity, or 17,200,000l.'

But this the Author fhews is not the whole effect of the fund in these circumftances. The interefts, as they become difengaged, are employed in the former cafe in finking the debts: in this cafe they are applied to current fervices, and, therefore, they will fave an expence, for which otherwife equivalent fums muft have been provided: 10,000l. will be faved at the beginning of the fecond year, 20,000l. at the beginning of the third, 30,000l. at the beginning of the fourth, and 850,000l. at the beginning of the 86th year: and thefe feveral favings form an arithmetical progreffion, the fum of which will be found, by multiplying the fum of the first and laft terms by half the number of terms, equal to 36,550,000l. which, added to 17,200,000l. the debt difcharged, makes 53,750,000!. Subtract the laft fum from 262 millions, and 208,250,000l. will be the complete lofs of the public arifing, in 86 years, from employing an annual fum of 200,000 l. in the fecond way rather than the first. Little need be faid of the effect of the fame fund applied in the third way. It is obvious that the whole advantage derived from it, would be the discharge of a debt of 200,000 I. annually, or of 17,200,000 l. in all.' There is indeed an advantage, with respect to the public, arifing from this latter mode of applying the propofed fund, which our Author has not omitted to mention; that is, the abolition of taxes. But it is an advantage unspeakably overbalanced by difadvantages. It is gaining 36 millions and a half at the expence of 262 millions; or, in other words, procuring an eafe from taxes, which, at the end of 86 years, would have been increafed to 860,000l. per ann. REV. Apr. 1772.

X

at

at the expence of a fund, that, in the fame time, would have eafed the public of above thirteen millions per annum in taxes. But I need not infift on the folly of this, the abolition of taxes being what we know little of in this country,'

The alienation of a fund of this kind, the produce of which, faithfully applied, is omnipotent, is one of the worst evils, that could have happened to this country. The general reasoning by which it has been vindicated, is to the laft degree fallacious; notwithstanding this, the alienation of it is become a fixed meafure of government. It is pleaded, That fince a certain fum e. g. a million, is wanted for the neceffary fupplies of the year, it is indifferent whether it is taken from the finking fund, or procured by making a new loan. If the former is done, an old debt will be continued. If the latter is done, an equal new debt will be incurred, which would have been otherwile faved; and the public intereft can no more be affected by one of these than the other. But the former is eafieft. And it will fave the dif agreeable neceffity of laying on a new tax.'

The fallacioufncis of this argument (fays our Author) confifts in the fuppofition, that no lois can arife to the public from continuing an old debt, when it cannot be difcharged without incurring an equal new debt. I have demonftrated this to be a miftake; and that by practising upon it, or alienating instead of borrowing, an infinite lofs may be fullained. Agreeably to this, I have in the treatife on annuitics, page 339, fhewn, that had but 400,000l. per annum of the finking fund been applied, from the year 1716, inviolably, three millions per annum of our taxes: might now have been annihilated. I will here add, that had a million per annum of it been thus employed, (and the income of the finking fund, taking one year with another, has been confiderably more than this) we fhould now, fuppofing a method poffible of laying out fo much money, have been in possession of a furplus of at leaft fixty millions, inftead of being in debt, a bundred and forty millions.-But I will go further.-Had even the money, that, at different times, has been employed in paying off our debts, been applied but in a different manner; that is, had it been made the produce of a finking fund, which, from 1716 to the prefent year, had never been alienated; above half our prefent debts would have been cancelled *. Such is the importance

*The Author reckons, that about 20 millions of the income of the Sinking Fund has, at different times and in different ways, been employed in paying public debts. Fifty-fix yearly payments of 357,01. make nearly this fum; and, had it been divided into fuch payments, and inviolably applied in the manner here explained, from the yeat 1716, feventy-one millions of debt, bearing 4 per cont.

intereft,

importance of merely the manner of applying money. Such is the prodigious difference, in the prefent cale, between borrowing and alienating! Nor is there any thing in this myfterious. The reafon has been fufficiently explained. When a state borrows, it pays, I have faid, only fimple intereft for money. When it alienates a fund appropriated to the payment of its debts, it lofes the advantage of money, that would have been otherwife improved neceffarily at compound intereft. And can there be any circumftances of a ftate which can render the latter of thefe preferable to the former? Or can the inconveniences, which may attend the impofition of a new tax, deferve in this cafe to be mentioned? What a barbarous policy is that which runs a kingdom in debt, millions, in order to fave thousands; which robs the public of the power of annihilating all taxes, in order to avoid a small prefent increase of taxes? This, in truth, has been our policy; and it would be affronting common sense to attempt a vindication of it."

Such are the pernicious effects attending a total or conflant alienation of the finking fund. The author next examines the effect of a partial alienation of the fame fund. Let us then fuppofe, that its produce is taken from it only every other year. Moft perfons will, perhaps, be ready to pronounce, that this could only take from it, in any given time, half its effect. But the truth is, that fuch an interruption would deftroy almoft its whole effect. An annual fund of 200,000l. would (it has been fhewn) in eighty-fix years, pay off 262 millions, bearing in tereft at 5 per cent. But if its produce is taken from it every other year, it would, in the fame time, pay off no more than twenty-eight millions. In like manner; a fund of a million per annum, which commenced at the time of the establishment of our finking fund, would by this time (in fifty-fix years) have paid off two hundred millions, bearing intereft at 4 per cent. But if alienated every other year, it could not have paid off fifty millions. And, if alienated two years in every three, it could not have paid off twenty-feven millions.Can we then wonder, that the finking fund, thus alienated, has done us fo little fervice ?

Dr. Price concludes from thefe obfervations, that a flate may, without difficulty, redeem all its debts by borrowing money for that purpose, at an equal or even any higher intereft than the debts bear; and, without providing any other funds than fuch fmall ones, as fhall from year to year become neceffary to pay the intereft of the fums borrowed. We must refer, for the illuftration and proof of this general affertion, to the pamphlet itself.

intereft, would now have been difcharged. None can object to the Author's afing the nearest round numbers as the refults of his calculations,