world would not furnish the quantity required; therefore we can only have recourse to fiction, or imaginary numbers formed by the debt itself, on which the minor question, whether a sovereign is to be worth forty-one sixpenny pieces or forty, and to vary according to the demand for gold or for silver, can have very little effect.

It is the quantity rather than the quality of the circulating medium that is indispensable and the nation requires; and it is worse than useless for a Committee to be sitting merely to determine whether the Bank of England shall be paid in bars or in coin; or whether the gold coin shall represent this or that quantity of silver, which is liable to variation even while the Committee is preparing its report. Such questions tend only to agitate the public mind, calling forth speculation, and may eventually ruin individuals who can form but imperfect ideas as to the value of money in the week ensuing.

To bring the subject more intelligibly before the public, it is requisite to take a view of the existing national debt, the sinking fund, the competency of carrying it into effect, the means by which it is to be supported, and its consequences. The national debt may be regarded as a torpid although grand source of currency; while the unfunded debt possesses a more active character. Notes and money are the immediate transferable media. When the necessities of commerce call for a supply beyond the notes or gold possessed, recourse is had to the grand circulating medium to supply the wants which are thus relieved in a few hours. This is the imaginary wealth of the nation, by which every species of property is not only represented, but assumes its particular nominal value, and without which the created ideal numbers could not exist. They in their turn are supported by lands and tangible property of all descriptions. Should the debt be withdrawn by purchase, or otherwise extinguished, the ideal value disappears, and lands, as well as all other tangible property, can then only be represented by the quantity of specie in the kingdom. Hence it appears, that what is generally termed property, whether consisting of lands, national funds, or notes, are all created by each other, as to their respective value; and that the numbers used dwell only in the imagination. How truly absurd then to shake the one, and expect the other to stand firm! Of what utility is any species of circulating medium but to excite the industry of men, which is alone the basis of all national wealth?

The pound sterling is an assumed arbitrary unit, by which we estimate value, as in mensuration the inch denotes measure; they are both liable to fluctuation, and are not precisely to be defined: with the one we compute wealth, as with the other we ascertain distance; the one comprehends all property, as the other reaches

the Sun; and although the nominal pound may vary in the quantity it represents, as much as three barley corns may differ on being more or less than an inch, still the real property remains unaltered, as does the positive distance to any given point. Real national wealth consists in population, productive labor, science united to industry, soil, climate, and laws. It is these which give one country the superiority over another. When they are combined and in constant active operation in any state, it may be considered as irresistible; nor can it signify whether it possesses the precious metals or not. Mutual confidence and assent furnishes precisely the same excitement to industry, that gold or silver can do, and it is to this confidence and assent, which are termed credit, that the empire is indebted for the foundation of its national prosperity. In soil and climate, England is notoriously deficient, and she has only kept her station by progressive agricultural improvements, affording a superiority which she may and will retain, provided her currency is adequate to her wants, and that she alone depends on her own skill and industry. These had more than compensated for deficiency of climate and of soil; until that fatal stroke of false policy, the free importation of foreign corn, blighted the husbandman's prosperity. This has led to the diminution of the currency; and to increase the evil, a reduction of its substitute is contemplated for the most contemptible of all reasonsbecause the substance has disappeared.

To show that the national debt is dependant on, and emanates from the land-let it be supposed that by Act of Parliament it were declared that the debt should be nominally doubled without any additional value being given by the fundholder, that the rent, the currency, and the wages should be augmented in the same ratio; will any man say that England would be either poorer or richer, or that foreign markets would not take off our manufactures and merchandise? So if an act were passed reducing every thing one-half, the only inconvenience to be encountered would be the regulation of wages, inasmuch as such reduction would operate against the general wish and opinion. In the former instance individuals would acquiesce cordially because the project would flatter their wishes, and parties would be persuaded that they were really richer; but, in the second, they would cavil at the principle, from a blind persuasion that they were intrinsically poorer, though without any substantial reason. But if the Legislature were to impose a tax on capital, equal to one-half of its amount, such a law would act in a very different manner, and the nation would discover that it was instantly relieved of three-fourths of the debt, if the benefit did not extend to the whole; for half the debt being extinguished by taking half the property, the Government

would find that it was relieved of a moiety of the debt, and was plus half the property in the kingdom, with only half of the debt to support. The moiety of the property still remaining in the hands of the people, could only be estimated at half its former value, from the annihilation of half the torpid circulating medium. The only advantage resulting to the monied man, would be in its increased value or that of its representatives, while all other property must in the like proportion be diminished to one-half. Should the principles laid down be true, we may clearly discern that the debt of the nation varies with, and is mutually dependent on, the land; and must, in its present state, be maintained by high rents, high wages, and a high price of corn, unless from fortuitous circumstances, such as a superabundant harvest, the quantity produced should compensate for its decrease in value, assisted by a sufficient currency.

Our ideal numbers were formed, increased, and intended, to answer the purpose of the moment, or as long as occasion should require. They met our difficulties, they were established for our convenience. The internal currency, however, has little to do with foreign markets, or foreign circulation. English currency may be considered as a most stupendous machine, which has shown its powers by the improvement in agriculture, arts, sciences, trade, and commerce; it has proved, that cordially uniting the hand of A. and B. with those of their fellow-countrymen, is more advantageous to each individual and to the community, than those sordid, selfish views, which only make each look to gold or silver in return for his labors.

For example assuming the debt of Great Britain and Ireland to be exactly one thousand millions, and the interest thereon thirty millions; on both of which the Commissioners for the reduction of the national debt are to act: the only source whence their purchases can be upheld is taxation, and that taxation solely proceeding from the revenue of individuals, of which the dividends on the funds, or government securities, form no small proportion: these, combined with the produce of the soil, are to be called forth by Government to meet the imaginary numbers created by the national debt; (the produce of the soil being the prominent feature whence the dividends are derived) yet still the dividends do form a component part of that revenue which is to sustain the credit of the state, and upholds the imaginary nuinbers established by the national debt. The ideal numbers are extended to the produce of the soil, and form the basis of national currency; for the precious metals have very little to do with taxation, and are scarcely to be considered in the requisite operations to maintain the national credit, or, in other words, the payment of the dividends. When Mr.

Pitt's attention was directed to the sinking fund, the highest encomiums were passed on his peculiar sagacity, and the strongest hopes were entertained that he had discovered the means of redeeming the nation, and extricating it from difficulties which nothing, it was said, but his stupendous mind could have led him to hope for success. How far his plan is ultimately to succeed, we shall now bring under consideration; intrepidly at the outset pronouncing that the Sinking Fund, under the present system, can never accomplish the redemption of the national debt; and that no sooner shall it begin to act, than it will prove its own incompetency by the insurmountable obstacles it will create in its progress.

It may be objected, that as one hundred millions have already been reduced, the prediction cannot be correct; but to those who so contend, the only answer is, that more stock or nominal capital has been created than by the Commissioners has been purchased up, and, consequently, there has not yet existed any material difficulties in carrying on their purchases; but no sooner shall that new creation of capital cease, than the difficulties predicted must inevitably arise. To form revenue, the existence of capital, real or nominal, affording an annual return, is absolutely necessary. As the purchases in the Commissioners' names increase, the means arising from stock remaining in private hands diminish, or in other words, as the funds are purchased up by the Commissioners, the stock and the income are wanting in the market. The present moment would not have arrived, ere this want would have been severely felt, had not a substitute been created, in addition to Exchequer bills.

In times of peace, the profits to individuals being diminished, from the circumstance of Government ceasing to be the great customer, yet called on to acknowledge claims on the revenue, which include the gain to its contractors-the tide of profit may be said to go to ebb and then the revenue of individuals begins to prey on the principal, by the Government eating up, in the shape of state taxes, the produce of the stock purchased by the Commissioners; for the produce of the funds sold to the Commissioners, together with the funds themselves, do not merely change hands and remain the same, as some are wont to imagine, in a state of activity, but are absorbed by the demands which individuals may have on the Government, in their claims of dividends; thus, as it were, acting from necessity on itself.

Nothing, therefore, can be more unreasonable than the irritabili ty against Government at the great pressure of taxation; for the chief part of the revenue is called forth to discharge the interest on those sums which have been borrowed by the State in a time of need; and it is unfair to accuse the Government on all occa

sions with extorting from the public, when we ought to lay the blame on our own rapacity, in withholding our assistance on such occasions, unless we obtain exorbitant advantages; first, in the form of profit in the articles furnished; and, secondly, by lending on the most favorable terms.

By those, therefore, who are vociferous against taxation, surely no dividend ought to be expected; as they cavil only at that which furnishes their own subsistence.

Numbers are created, in the first instance, by the national debt, and correspondent ones are formed, as the representatives of all articles, (which are called increase of price,) in support of that debt from which alone they derive an existence. On the creation of a new debt, if it furnish the means of supporting itself, it will necessarily follow, that if it be annihilated, or partially withdrawn, by placing it in an inactive state, the means of support become diminished in exact proportion; and if the same quantity of revenue be required to be drawn from the remaining part unsold, in the hands of individuals, to support the whole, deficiencies must arise, and embarrassment must ensue. Thus, if 1000 millions of debt yield thirty millions of dividends, whenever the Commissioners shall have purchased up 500 millions, fifteen millions of dividends, or income among individuals, will be wanting, and, consequently, there must be fifteen millions of income absorbed by the State, which with the stock was subject to pay taxes, under the denomination of legacy duty, probate duty, powers of attorney, stamp duty, &c.; affecting the generality of other taxes or sources of revenue to the State in like manner, although they may not be quite so obvious to the cursory reader.

As the creation of the debt has augmented the currency, reduced the nominal value of money, it follows, of course, that the reduction of the debt will enhance the value of money, reduce the circulating medium, diminish the rent, and, consequently, the value of the land, thereby placing a positive barrier to the accomplishment of that system, on which we have so much prided ourselves, fondly imagining, that we had discovered the philosopher's stone, the grand panacea of all our national distress, in sustaining the Sinking Fund.

If these strictures on the Sinking Fund be found practically true, is it not the excess of folly to persevere in the persuasion, that the Sinking Fund will ever purchase up the national debt? In theory, it is one of those fallacious principles which may be worked and demonstrated in the closet-but which will fail whenever reduced to practice.

For the sake of argument, let us suppose that its accomplishment does lie within the compass of possibility; to what would it