I shall begin with the most interesting article in the present situation of affairs, namely, how far the wealth of a State, and the affluence of the Subject, may be affected by a national debt?
A general View of the present State of Great Britain.
Mr. Arthur Young’s valuation of the Revenue, in his Political Arithmetic, is the result of his own private observations. Nothing ever occurred to me on the subject, that can come up with the minute accounts he gives us of the different provinces which he has visited in the north, south, and east of England.
I am ready to suppose, with that gentleman, that the joint revenue of England and Scotland may be computed, the landed produce and commercial profits included, at 110 millions sterling.
Mr. Chalmers has published a work on the comparative resources of this country at different periods; a subject, it seems, difficult to touch upon without examining the state of population. This publication, according to my judgement, unites to such solid principles as the matter will admit, a great deal of propriety in the manner of applying them, and of drawing the inferences.
I willingly acquiesce, taking it for granted, with the author, that Great Britain contains 9,350,000 inhabitants: but, at the same time, I apprise the reader, that I do not mean to take any advantage of a population more or less numerous; nor of a larger or smaller amount of the revenue. Data I require; but such I will prefer as most nearly border on reality. There is not a State to which, with a difference in the numbers, one may not apply what I have to say concerning England, in those which I have adopted.
It appears from the estimates of Mr. King, who, in the reign of William and Mary, proved himself as exact an observer as Mr. Young has done in our days, that the produce of Land alone amounted then to 32,000,000; the latter calculator nearly doubles it, by rating it at 63,000,000. The Custom House books, the exactness of which cannot be disputed in one of the two facts they vouch to, (the Burthen of the Shipping, and the Produce of Exportation,) will shew that the former, from the year 1709 to 1773, progressively increased from 289,318, to 775,078 tons; and the years 1697, 1698, 1699, taken upon a medium and compared with 1771, 1772, and 1773, tend to prove that the gradual rise of the Exports has been still more considerable, being from 5,612,058l. to 16,027,937l. (Vide Sir Charles Whitworth’s State of Trade).
The foreign trade of England seems therefore to have trebled since the beginning of the present century. We shall, in the sequel, state the reasons for supposing the commerce of other nations to have experienced the same progression.