[151] Should this be disregarded, and a long annuity offered, as a douceur, of 1½ per cent. for 90 or 100 years, eight millions might perhaps be borrowed at an interest, including the long annuity, of 4½ per cent. even though the 3 per cents. should fall as low as 73.—And this, probably, would be the very scheme a minister would prefer, who, minding chiefly present ease, did not care how much he burdened the nation hereafter.
[152] In 1774, a million of the 3 per cents. was redeemed at this price; and in 1772, a million and a half at 90.
[153] I mean such a course of redemption as should not be liable to interruption by a WAR; or, as would be the effect of the establishment of such an unalienable sinking fund as has been described in the Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt, and the Observations on reversionary Payments.—Nothing can save us from bankruptcy but such a fund; and were it established, the 3 per cents., when they came to be redeemed, would soon rise to par; and, consequently, the obligation implied in this scheme to pay a part of them at par would occasion no additional expence. It is, however, so little to be expected, that such a fund will be ever established, that it would have been folly to have made the calculation given above, on any supposition less favourable, than that the 3 per cents. will bear the same price after the present war, that they bore after the last; and that we shall go on as we have hitherto done, paying off a million, or a million and a half, now and then in a time of peace.
[154] The conversion of a 3 per cent. stock into a 3½ per cent. stock gives the same advantage in redeeming it, that the power of redeeming it at 85¾ for every 100l. would give.—A million per ann. surplus would redeem 114 millions and a quarter of the latter stock in the same time, and therefore at the same expence, that it would redeem 100 millions of the former. I suppose here the 3 per cents. paid at par; and this I have before observed will be found to be necessary should a time (scarcely the object of hope) ever come when government will set itself in earnest and with any effect to pay the public debts.
Corrections and Additions.
Transcriber’s Note: Whilst minor typesetting errors have been corrected in the course of producing this e-text, the author’s list of corrections and additions below has not been addressed.
In The Second Tract, ([page 120]), after the words Lent at 4 per cent. in 1746, charged on licences for retailing spirituous liquors, and reduced to 3 per cent. by 23d of George II. 1749, add, and consisting of old Exchequer Bills then cancelled and converted into a debt from Government to the Bank, for which the Bank was allowed to add to its capital an equal sum by 19th George II. Ch. 6.
In ([page 128]), instead of the words, In 1751, certain Exchequer tallies and orders, amounting to 129,750l. read, In 1751, the remainder of certain Exchequer tallies and orders charged on the duties on wrought plate, and amounting to 129,750l.