"Hence are derived those exorbitant interests and annuities; hence those large discounts for advances and prompt payment; hence public credit is shaken, and hence great numbers find their profit in prolonging the war."
It is odd, that among a free trading people, as we take ourselves to be, there should so many be found to close in with those counsels, who have been ever averse from all overtures towards a peace. But yet there is no great mystery in the matter. Let any man observe the equipages in this town; he shall find the greater number of those who make a figure, to be a species of men quite different from any that were ever known before the Revolution, consisting either of generals and colonels, or of such whose whole fortunes lie in funds and stocks: so that power, which according to the old maxim, was used to follow land, is now gone over to money; and the country gentleman is in the condition of a young heir, out of whose estate a scrivener receives half the rents for interest, and hath a mortgage on the whole, and is therefore always ready to feed his vices and extravagancies while there is any thing left. So that if the war continues some years longer, a landed man will be little better than a farmer at a rack rent, to the army, and to the public funds.
It may perhaps be worth inquiring from what beginnings, and by what steps we have been brought into this desperate condition: and in search of this, we must run up as high as the Revolution.
Most of the nobility and gentry who invited over the Prince of Orange, or attended him in his expedition, were true lovers of their country and its constitution, in Church and State; and were brought to yield to those breaches in the succession of the crown, out of a regard to the necessity of the kingdom, and the safety of the people, which did, and could only, make them lawful; but without intention of drawing such a practice into precedent, or making it a standing measure by which to proceed in all times to come; and therefore we find their counsels ever tended to keep things as much as possible in the old course. But soon after, an under set of men, who had nothing to lose, and had neither borne the burthen nor heat of the day, found means to whisper in the king's ear, that the principles of loyalty in the Church of England, were wholly inconsistent with the Revolution.[7] Hence began the early practice of caressing the dissenters, reviling the universities, as maintainers of arbitrary power, and reproaching the clergy with the doctrines of divine-right, passive obedience and non-resistance.[8] At the same time, in order to fasten wealthy people to the new government, they proposed those pernicious expedients of borrowing money by vast premiums, and at exorbitant interest: a practice as old as Eumenes,[9] one of Alexander's captains, who setting up for himself after the death of his master, persuaded his principal officers to lend him great sums, after which they were forced to follow him for their own security.
This introduced a number of new dexterous men into business and credit: It was argued, that the war could not last above two or three campaigns, and that it was easier for the subject to raise a fund for paying interest, than to tax them annually to the full expense of the war. Several persons who had small or encumbered estates, sold them, and turned their money into those funds to great advantage: merchants, as well as other moneyed men, finding trade was dangerous, pursued the same method: But the war continuing, and growing more expensive, taxes were increased, and funds multiplied every year, till they have arrived at the monstrous height we now behold them. And that which was at first a corruption, is at last grown necessary, and what every good subject must now fall in with, though he may be allowed to wish it might soon have an end; because it is with a kingdom, as with a private fortune, where every new incumbrance adds a double weight. By this means the wealth of the nation, that used to be reckoned by the value of land, is now computed by the rise and fall of stocks: and although the foundation of credit be still the same, and upon a bottom that can never be shaken; and though all interest be duly paid by the public, yet through the contrivance and cunning of stock-jobbers, there has been brought in such a complication of knavery and cozenage, such a mystery of iniquity, and such an unintelligible jargon of terms to involve it in, as were never known in any other age or country of the world. I have heard it affirmed by persons skilled in these calculations, that if the funds appropriated to the payment of interest and annuities, were added to the yearly taxes, and the four-shilling aid[10] strictly exacted in all counties of the kingdom, it would very near, if not fully, supply the occasions of the war, at least such a part, as in the opinion of very able persons, had been at that time prudence not to exceed. For I make it a question, whether any wise prince or state, in the continuance of a war, which was not purely defensive, or immediately at his own door, did ever propose that his expense should perpetually exceed what he was able to impose annually upon his subjects? Neither if the war lasts many years longer, do I see how the next generation will be able to begin another, which in the course of human affairs, and according to the various interests and ambition of princes, may be as necessary for them as it has been for us. And had our fathers left us as deeply involved as we are like to leave our children, I appeal to any man, what sort of figure we should have been able to make these twenty years past. Besides, neither our enemies, nor allies, are upon the same foot with us in this particular. France and Holland, our nearest neighbours, and the farthest engaged, will much sooner recover themselves after a war. The first, by the absolute power of the prince who being master of the lives and fortunes of his subjects, will quickly find expedients to pay his debts: and so will the other, by their prudent administration, the greatness of their trade, their wonderful parsimony, the willingness of their people to undergo all kind of taxes, and their justice in applotting as well as collecting them. But above all, we are to consider that France and Holland fight in the continent, either upon, or near their own territories, and the greatest part of the money circulates among themselves; whereas ours crosses the sea either to Flanders, Spain, or Portugal, and every penny of it, whether in specie or returns, is so much lost to the nation for ever.
Upon these considerations alone, it was the most prudent course imaginable in the Queen, to lay hold of the disposition of the people for changing the Parliament and ministry at this juncture, and extricating herself, as soon as possible, out of the pupillage of those who found their accounts only in perpetuating the war. Neither have we the least reason to doubt, but the ensuing Parliament will assist her Majesty with the utmost vigour,[11] till her enemies again be brought to sue for peace, and again offer such terms as will make it both honourable and lasting; only with this difference, that the Ministry perhaps will not again refuse them.[12]
Audiet pugnas vitio parentum
Rara Juventus.[13]
[Footnote 1: No. 13 in the reprint. The No. 13 (from Thursday, October 19, to Thursday, October 26, 1710) of the original is omitted from the reprint, and the Nos. from 14 to 48 are slipped back one. No. 49 also is omitted, and Nos. 50 to 52 slipped back two. [T.S.]
[Footnote 2: Virgil, "Aeneid," i. 341-2.
"Her whole tale of wrong
'Twere tedious to relate. But I will give
The leading facts."—R. KENNEDY.
[T.S.]