870 THE NATURE AND CAUSES OK

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course of a few years would have liberated the public re-venue, without any other attention of government besides thatof not overloading the fund by charging it with more debtthan it could pay within the limited term, and of not antici-pating a second time before the expiration of the first antici-pation. But the greater part of European governmentshave been incapable of those attentions. They have fre-quently overloaded the fund even upon the first anticipation;and when this happened not to be the case, they have gene-rally taken care to overload it, by anticipating a second anda third time before the expiration of the first anticipation.The fund becoming in this manner altogether insufficient forpaying both principal and interest of the money borrowedupon it, it became necessary to charge it with the interestonly, or a perpetual annuity equal to the interest, and suchimprovident anticipations necessarily gave birth to the moreruinous practice of perpetual funding. But though this prac-tice necessarily puts off the liberation of the public revenuefrom a fixed period fo one so indefinite that it is not verylikely ever to arrive; yet as a greater sum can in all cases beraised by this new practice than by the old one of anticipation,.the former, when men have once become familiar with it, hasin the great exigencies of the state been universally preferredto the latter. To relieve the present exigency is always theobject which principally interests those immediately concernedin the administration of public affairs. The future liberationof the public revenue, they leave to the care of posterity.

During the reign of queen Anne, the market rate of inte-rest had fallen from six to five per cent., and in the twelfthyear of her reign five per cent, was declared to be the highestrate which could lawfully be taken for money borrowed uponprivate security. Soon after the greater part of the temporarytaxes of Great Britain had been rendered perpetual, and dis-tributed into the Aggregate, South Sea, and General funds,the creditors of the public, like those of private persons, wereinduced to accept of five per cent, for the interest of theirmoney, which occasioned a saving of one per cent, upon thecapital of the greater part of the debts which had been thusfunded for perpetuity, or of one sixth of the greater part olthe annuities which were paid out of the three great fundsabove-mentioned. This saving left a considerable surplus inthe produce of the different taxes which had been accumu-lated into those funds, over and above what was necessary