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Mr. G. did in fact provide no more than £.2,150,000 for the difcharge of thefe bills in two years. It is much to be wished that thefe gentlemen would lay their heads together, that they would confider well this matter, and agree upon fomething. For when the fcanty provifion made for the unfunded debt is to be vindicated, then we are told it is a very small part of that debt which carries intereft. But when the publick is to be reprefented in a miferable condition, and the confequences of the late war to be laid before us in dreadful colours, then we are to be told that the unfunded debt is within a trifle of ten millions, and fo large a portion of it carries intereft that we muft not compute lefs than 3 per cent. upon the whole.

In the year 1764, parliament voted £.650,000 towards the discharge of the navy debt. This fum could not be applied folely to the discharge of bills carrying intereft; because part of the debt due on feamens wages must have been paid, and fome bills carried no intereft at all. Notwithstanding this, we find by an account of the Journals of the house of commons, in the following feffion, that the navy debt carrying intereft was, on the-31ft of December, 1764, no more than £.1,687,442. I am fure therefore that I admit too much when I admit the navy debt carrying intereft, after the creation of the navy annuities in the year 1763, to have been £.2,200,000. Add the exchequer bills; and the E 2

whole

whole unfunded debt carrying intereft will be four millions inftead of ten; and the annual intereft paid for it at 4 per cent. will be £. 160,000 inftead of £.299,250. An errour of no small magnitude, and which could not have been owing to inadvertency.

The mifreprefentation of the encreafe of the peace establishment is still more extraordinary than that of the intereft of the unfunded debt. The encrease is great undoubtedly. However, the author finds no fault with it, and urges it only as a matter of argument to fupport the strange chimerical proposals he is to make us in the close of his work for the encrease of revenue. The greater he made that establishment, the stronger he expected to ftand in argument: but, whatever he expected or propofed, he fhould have ftated the matter fairly. He tells us that this establishment is near £1,500,000 more than it was in 1752, 1753, and other years of peace. This he has done in his ufual manner, by affertion, without troubling himfelf either with proof or probability. For he has not given us any state of the peace establishment in the years 1753 and 1754, the time which he means to compare with the prefent. As I am obliged to force him to that precifion, from which he always flies as from his moft dangerous enemy, I have been at the trouble to fearch the Journals in the period between the two laft wars: and I find

that the peace establishment, confifting of the navy, the ordnance, and the feveral incidental expences, amounted to €.2,346,594. Now is this writer wild enough to imagine, that the peace establishment of 1764 and the fubfequent years, made up from the fame articles, is .3,800,000 and upwards? His affertion however goes to this. But I must take the liberty of correcting him in this grofs mistake, and from an authority he cannot refufe, from his favourite work, and standing authority, the Confiderations. We find there, p. 43*, the peace establishment of 1764 and 1763 stated at £.3,609,700. This is near two hundred thoufand pounds lefs than that given in The State of the Nation. But even from this, in order to render

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the articles which compofe the peace establishment in the two periods correfpondent (for otherwife they cannot be compared), we muft deduct first, his articles of the deficiency of land and malt, which amount to £.300,000. They certainly are no part of the establishment; nor are they included in that fum, which I have stated above for the eftablishment in the time of the former peace. If they were proper to be stated at all, they ought to be ftated in both accounts. We muft alfo deduct the deficiencies of funds, £.202,400. These deficiencies are the difference between the interest charged on the publick for monies borrowed, and the produce of the taxes laid for the difcharge of that intereft. Annual provifion is indeed to be made for them by parliament: but in the enquiry before us, which is only what charge is brought on the publick by interest paid or to be paid for money borrowed, the utmoft that the author Thould do, is to bring into the account the full intereft for all that money. This he has done in p. 15; and he repeats it in p. 18, the very page I am now examining, £.2,614,892. To comprehend afterwards in the peace eftablishment the deficiency of the fund created for payment of that intereft, would be laying twice to the account of. the war part of the fame fum. Suppofe ten millions borrowed at 4 per cent and the fund for payment of the intereft to produce no more than

£.200,000,

£.200,000. The whole annual charge on the publick is £.400,000. It can be no more. But to charge the intereft in one part of the account, and then the deficiency in the other, would be charging £.600,000. The deficiency of funds muft therefore be alfo deducted from the peace establishment in the Confiderations; and then the peace establishment in that author will be reduced to the fame articles with those included in the fum I have already mentioned for the peace establishment before the laft war, in the year 1753, and 1754.

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