8GG THE NATURE AND CAUSES OK

lustration admits him to a share in the first subscription for anew loan. Hence the inclination or willingness in the sub-jects of a commercial state to lend.

The government of such a state is very apt to repose itselfupon this ability and willingness of its subjects to lend it theirmoney on extraordinary occasions. It foresees the facilityof borrowing, and therefore dispenses itself from the duty ofsaving.

In a rude state of society there are no great mercantile ormanufacturing capitals. The individuals who hoard what-ever money they can save, and who conceal their hoard, doso from a distrust of the justice of government, from a fearthat if it was known that they had a hoard, and where thathoard was to be found, they would quickly be plundered.In such a state of things lew people would be able, andnobody would be willing, to lend their money to govern-ment on extraordinary exigencies. The sovereign feels thathe must provide for such exigencies by saving, because beforesees the absolute impossibility of borrowing. This fore-sight increases still further his natural disposition to save.

The progress of the enormous debts which at present op-press, and will in the long-run probably ruin, all the greatnations of Europe, has been pretty uniform. Nations, likeprivate men, have generally begun to borrow upon what maybe called personal credit, without assigning or mortgagingany particular fund for the payment of the debt; and whenthis resource has failed them, they have gone on to borrowupon assignments or mortgages of particular funds.

What is called the unfunded debt of Great Britain is con-tracted in the former of those two ways. It consists partly ina debt which bears, or is supposed to bear, no interest, andwhich resembles the debts that a private man contracts uponaccount; and partly in a debt which bears interest, and whichresembles what a private man contracts upon his bill or pro-missory note. The debts which are due cither for extraordi-nary services, or for services either not provided for, or notpaid at the time when they are performed ; part of the extra-ordinaries of the army, navy, and ordnance, the arrears ofsubsidies to foreign princes, those of seamen’s wages, &c.usually constitute a debt of the first kind. Navy and Exche-quer bills, which are issued sometimes in payment of a partof such debts and sometimes for other purposes, constitute adebt of the second kind; Exchequer bills bearing interest trom