and wide; hence the embarrassments of private fortunes, and the daily bankruptcies arising from an universal fondness for appearance and expensive pleasures; and hence, in some degree, the mismanagements of public business; for habits of business and ability in it, are acquired only by practice; and where universal dissipation, and the perpetual pursuit of amusement, are the mode; the youth, educated in it, can rarely afterwards acquire that patient attention and close application to affairs, which are so necessary to a statesman charged with the care of national welfare. Hence their frequent errors in policy; and hence the weariness at public councils, and backwardness in going to them; the constant unwillingness to engage in any measure that requires thought and consideration; and the readiness for postponing every new proposition: which postponing is therefore the only part of the business that they come to be expert in, an expertness produced necessarily by so much daily practice. Whereas in America, men bred to close employment in their private affairs, attend with ease to those of the public, when engaged in them, and nothing fails through negligence. 3. Respecting frugality; the manner of living in America is more simple and less expensive than that in England: plain tables, plain clothing, and plain furniture in houses prevail, with few carriages of pleasure; there, an expensive appearance hurts credit, and is avoided: in England, it is often assumed to gain credit, and continued to ruin.-Respecting public affairs, the difference is still greater. In England, the salaries of officers, and emoluments of office, are enormous. The king has a million sterling per annum, and yet cannot maintain his family free of debt: Secretaries of State, Lords of Treasury, Admiralty, &c. have vast appointments: an Auditor of the Exchequer has sixpence in the pound, or a fortieth part of all the public money expended by the nation; so that when a war costs forty millions, one million is paid to him. An Inspector of the Mint, in the last new coinage, received as his fee 65,000l. sterling per annum: to all which rewards, no service these gentlemen can render the public is by any means equivalent. All this is paid by the people; who are oppressed by taxes so occasioned; and thereby rendered less able to contribute to the payment of necessary national debts. In America, salaries, where indispensable, are extremely low; but much of the public business is done gratis. The honor of serving the public ably and faithfully, is deemed sufficient. Public spirit really exists there, and has great effects. In England, it is universally deemed a non-entity, and whoever pretends to it, is laughed at as a fool, or suspected as a knave. The committees of congress, which form the board of war, the board of treasury, the board of foreign affairs, the naval board, that for accounts, &c. all attend the business of their respective functions, without any salary or emolument whatever; though they spend in it much more of their time than any Lord of Treasury or Admiralty in England can spare, from his amusements.--A British minister lately computed, that the whole expense of the Americans, in their civil government, over three millions of people, amounted to but 70,000/. sterling; and drew from thence a conclusion, that they ought to be taxed, until their expense was equal in proportion to that which it costs Britain to govern eight millions. He had no idea of a contrary conclusion; that if three millions may be well governed for 70,000l. eight millions may be as well governed for three times that sum; and that therefore the expense of his own government should be diminished. In that corrupted nation, no man is ashamed of being concerned in lucrative government jobs, in which the public money is egregiously misapplied and squandered, the treasury pillaged, and more numerous and heavy taxes accumulated; to the great oppression of the people. But the prospect of a greater number of such jobs by a war is an inducement with many to cry out for war upon all occasions, and to oppose every proposition of peace. Hence the constant increase of the national debt, and the absolute improbability of its ever being discharged. 4. Respecting the amount and certainty of income, and solidity of security: the whole Thirteen States of America are engaged for the payment of every debt contracted by the congress; and the debt to be contracted by the present war, is the only debt they will have to pay; all, or nearly all the former debts of particular colonies being already discharged. Whereas England will have to pay, not only the enormous debt this war must occasion, but all their vast preceding debt, or the interest of it;—and while America is enriching itself by prizes made upon the British commerce, more than it ever did by any commerce of its own, under the restraints of a British monopoly; Britain is growing poorer by the diminution of its revenues; and of course less able to discharge the present indiscreet increase of its expenses. 5. Respecting prospects of greater future ability, Britain has none such. Her islands are circumscribed by the ocean; and excepting a few parks or forests, she has no new land to cultivate, and cannot therefore extend her improvements. Her numbers, too, instead of increasing from increased subsistence, are continually diminishing from growing luxury, and the increasing difficulties of main taining families, which of course discourages early marriages. Thus she will have fewer people to assist in paying her debts, and that diminished number will be poorer.—America, on the contrary, has, besides her lands already cultivated, a vast territory yet to be cultivated; which being cultivated, continually increases in value with the increase of people; and the people, who double themselves by a natural propagation every twenty-five years, will double yet faster, by the accession of strangers, as long as lands are to be had for new families; so that every twenty years, there will be a double number of inhabitants obliged to discharge the public debts; and those inhabitants being more opulent, may pay their shares with greater ease. 6. Respecting prudence in general affairs, and the advantages to be expected from the loan desired; the Americans are cultivators of land; those engaged in fishery and commerce are few, compared with the others. They have ever conducted their several governments with wisdom, avoiding wars, and vain expensive projects; delighting only in their peaceable occupations, which must, considering the extent of their uncultivated territory, find them employment still for ages. Whereas England, ever unquiet, ambitious, avaricious, imprudent, and quarrelsome, is half of the time engaged in war; always at an expense infinitely greater than the advantage to be obtained by it, if successful. Thus they made war against Spain in 1739, for a claim of about 95,000/. (scarce a groat for each individual of the nation) and spent forty millions sterling in the war, and the lives of fifty thousand men; and finally made peace without obtaining satisfaction for the sum claimed. Indeed, there is scarce a nation in Europe, against which she has not made war on some frivolous pretext or other; and thereby imprudently accumulated a debt that has brought her on the verge of bankruptcy.-But the most indiscreet of all her wars, is the present against America; with which she might, for ages, have preserved her profitable connexion, only by a just and equitable conduct. She is now acting like a mad shopkeeper, who, by beating those that pass his doors, attempts to make them come in, and be his customers. America cannot submit to such treatment, without being first ruined; and being ruined, her custom will be worth nothing. England, to effect this, is increasing her debt, and irretrievably ruining herself. -America, on the other hand, aims only to establish her liberty, and that freedom of commerce which will be advantageous to all Europe; and by abolishing that monopoly which she labored under, she will profit infinitely more than enough, to repay any debt which she may contract to accomplish it. 7. Respecting character in the honest payment of debts: the punctuality with which America has discharged her public debts, was shown under the first head. -And the general good disposition of the people to such punctuality, has been manifested in their faithful payment of private debts to England, since the commencement of this war. There were not wanting some politicians [in America] who proposed stopping that payment, until peace should be restored; alleging that in the usual course of commerce, and of the credit given, there was always a debt existing equal to the trade of eighteen months: that the trade amounting to five millions sterling per annum, the debt must be seven millions and a half; that this sum paid to the British merchants, would operate to prevent that distress, intended to be brought upon Britain, by our stoppage of commerce with her for the merchants receiving this money, and no orders with it for farther supplies, would either lay it out in the public funds; or in employing manufacturers, to accumulate goods, for a future hungry market in America, upon an expected accommodation; by which means the funds would be kept up, and the manufacturers prevented from murmuring. But against this it was alleged, that injuries from ministers should not be revenged on merchants; that the credit was in consequence of private contracts, made in confidence of good faith; that those ought to be held sacred, and faithfully, complied with; for that whatever public utility might be supposed to arise from a breach of private faith, it was unjust; and would in the end be found unwise; honesty being, in truth, the best policy. On this principle, the proposition was universally rejected; and though the English prosecuted the war with unexampled barbarity, burning our defenceless towns in the midst of winter, and arming savages against us; the debt was punctually paid; and the merchants of London have testified to the parliament, and will testify to all the world, that from their experience in dealing with us, they had, before the war, no apprehension of our unfairness; and that since the war, they have been convinced that their good opinion of us was well founded.-England, on the contrary, an old, corrupt, extravagant, and profligate nation, sees herself deep in debt, which she is in no condition to pay; and yet is madly and dishonestly running deeper, without any possibility of discharging her debt, but by a public bankruptcy. It appears, therefore, from the general industry, frugality, ability, prudence, and virtue of America, that she is a much safer debtor than Britain; to say nothing of the satisfaction generous minds must have in reflecting, that by loans to America, they are opposing tyranny, and aiding the cause of liberty, which is the cause of all mankind, A CATECHISM Relative to the English National Debt. Question 1. Supposing this debt to be only 195 millions of pounds sterling at present,' although it is much more, and that it was all to be counted in shillings, that a man could count at the rate of 100 shillings per minute, for 12 hours each day, till he has counted the whole, how long would he take in doing it? Answer. One hundred forty-eight years, one hundred nine days, and twentytwo hours. Q. 2. The whole of this sum being 3,900 millions of shillings, and the coinage standard being sixty-two in the troy pound, what is the whole weight of this sum? A. Sixty-one millions, seven hundred fifty-two thousand, four hundred and seventy-six troy pounds. Q. 3. How many ships would carry this weight, suppose 100 tons each? A. Three hundred and fourteen ships. Q. 4. How many carts would carry this weight, suppose a ton in each? A. Thirty-one thousand, four hundred and fifty-two carts. Q. 5. The breadth of a shilling being one inch, if all these shillings were laid in a straight line, close to one another's edges, how long would the line be that would contain them? A. Sixty-one thousand, five hundred fifty-two miles, which is 9,572 miles more than twice round the whole circumference of the earth. Q. 6. Suppose the interest of this debt to be three and a half per cent. per annum, what does the whole annual interest amount to? A. Six millions, seven hundred and seventy thousand pounds. Q. 7. How doth government raise this interest annually? A. By taxing those who lent the principal, and others. Q. 8. When will government be able to pay the principal? A. When there is more money in England's treasury than there is in all Europe. Q. 9. And when will that be? A. Never. VOL. III. 'At present (1777) it is said to be at least 230 millions. N |