[114] In the exports, as delivered to the House of Commons, is included bullion exported. If this, as well as the other sums I have mentioned, is deducted, there will be still a balance left in favour of Britain during this period. Since 1764, it does not appear, from the accounts laid before the House of Commons, as published by Sir Charles Whitworth, that any bullion has been entered for exportation.
[115] The 3 per cent. annuities were then at 105; and, during the first five years of the war which began in 1755, they were higher than they have generally been since the war.
[116] These duties were appropriated to the payment of the interest at 4 per cent. of a capital of 4.400,000l. created in 1747, for which four millions only had been advanced. It is now a part of the capital of the reduced 3 per cent. annuities.
[117] The whole of this sum, (except 16.437,821l. consisting of the old Bank capital, the consolidated 3 per cents, the South-Sea 3 per cent. annuities 1751, the Civil List million, and the East-India annuity) that is, 54.413,433l. was reduced by 23 Geo. II. 1749. from an interest of 4 per cent. to 3½ till 1757, and afterwards to 3 per cent.—The proprietors of a capital of 3.290,042l. refused to consent to this reduction, which, therefore, was paid off; 1.190,042l. with Exchequer Bills (afterwards cancelled); and 2.100,000l. with money borrowed at 3 per cent. and added to the capital of the South-Sea annuities. The whole sum, therefore, reduced and paid off, was 57.703,475l. which produced a saving to the public, and an addition to the Sinking Fund after 1757, of 612,735l. per ann.
The Salt Duties in 1753 had been for some time mortgaged to pay the principal and interest of a million borrowed in 1745. In 1757, after clearing the mortgage, they became free, and were carried into the Sinking Fund, of which they have ever since formed a part. This produced a farther addition to the Sinking Fund, after 1757, of about 220,000l. per ann.
I have not included the million now mentioned in the account given above of the public debts in 1753, because it was in a fixed course of redemption; nor have I included 499,600l. in Exchequer Bills charged on the duty on sweets, because these Exchequer Bills were paid off in 1754.
[118] Having met with no account of the Navy Debt at this time, I have chosen, rather than omit it, to suppose it nearly the same that it was at the commencement of the last war; which, probably, is reckoning it too high.
[119] In this account I have omitted a million borrowed in 1734, because the redemption of it was near being completed by the Salt Duties. I have also omitted Short Annuities amounting to 24,334l. being the remainder of 9 per cent. annuities for 32 years created in 1710, because the term for which they were created was near expiring.
[120] The author of the Considerations on the Trade and Finances of this Kingdom makes this debt 1.318,000l. more than the sum at which I have here stated it. See page 22; and State of the Nation by the same author, page 15, quarto editions.—The reason of this difference is, that this writer has included in the unfunded debt left by the war the deficiencies of grants and funds in 1763 and 1764, and the whole army debt not provided for in those years; whereas I have excluded the former entirely; and admitted only as much of the latter as exceeded the army debts common in subsequent years. See the Postscript.
[121] In 1751 there was applied to the payment of Navy debts 200,000l. and in 1752, the sum of 900,000l. But I have not reckoned these sums, because they did little more than make up the constant deficiency in the Peace Establishment for the Navy.