Notwithstanding all the precautions taken by the Author not to frighten his readers, there remains such a leap for him to clear, that he is seen, as it were on his knees, begging he may be permitted to try twenty times, if he cannot clear it in ten: in other words, he earnestly wishes that his work may not receive its final judgement before it has been perused to the end; and in fact, it is not impossible but that a detached proposition, the absurdity of which is striking when considered singly, may be found conclusive when successively brought near to all those that are to follow it.
An Editor owes more to the Public, than to any work, even such as he could wish to bring into some trifling repute: I think then, it is my duty (in foro conscientiæ) to declare, that it will not be till the Reader has perused fifty pages or more, that he will suspect the reason why the Writer has not announced in the very first, some singular opinion, which he meant insidiously to establish as it were step by step in his pamphlet; but, at length, we begin to have some notion of what we are to expect from a man who has been trying to wheedle us into a belief, that taxes are a trifling evil;—that thesaurisation would be a very great one;—that a reimbursement is at best useless;—and who afterwards modestly intimates, that some singularities may perhaps escape him in the sequel; as if it were possible to imagine any thing more singular than the three propositions I have just quoted.
Yet too much severity should not be used. Has the Reader been but amused with the part of the picture hitherto exposed to his view? Let him humour the Author in his little conceits. Who would exhibit for public entertainment, if he were not at liberty to draw up the curtain in his own way; if he had not a right to display, at every shifting of the scene, that part only of his curiosities upon which he meant for that instant to fix the eyes of the spectator?
But if the Reader, in spite of the different positions into which he has been attracted, has not observed the least alteration in the compass; if he has not been moved by the arguments with which he has been lured before he came to that part of the work—let him throw the piece into the fire; for the Author, of whom I do not pretend to imitate the circumspection, or adopt the fears, or justify the temerity, or share in the guilt, aims at nothing less than to induce all Europe (all Europe!) to investigate,
1st,
Whether it could possibly cost England more than 5 millions sterling, (found once for all) to secure for ever, in the most solid manner, the payment of the interest on a debt of 238 millions, that interest rated at 9 millions, of the same currency?
2dly,
Whether there be not, (without its being suspected), in the system of finance in England, some of those imperfections so well remarked, so fully, so bitterly criticised in that of France; and whether a national reimbursement be not the easiest of all the sports a Minister of finance can think of, to amuse society without serving it?
3dly,