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the public revenue so far as it was affected by his annuity.When annuities are granted upon tontines, the liberation ofthe public revenue does not commence till the death of allthe annuitants comprehended in one lot, which may some-times consist of twenty or thirty persons, of whom the sur-vivors succeed to the annuities of all those who die beforethem; the last survivor succeeding to the annuities of thewhole lot. Upon the same revenue more money can alwaysbe raised by tontines than by annuities for separate lives.An annuity, with a right of survivorship, is really worth morethan an equal annuity for a separate life, and from the confi-dence which every man naturally has in his own good for-tune, the principle upon which is founded the success of alllotteries, such an annuity generally sells for something morethan it is worth. In countries where it is usual for govern-ment to raise money by granting annuities, tontines are uponthis account generally preferred to annuities for separatelives. The expedient which will raise most money is almostalways preferred to that which is likely to bring about inthe speediest manner the liberation of the public revenue.

In France a much greater proportion of the public debtsconsists in annuities for lives than in England. Accordingto a memoir presented by the parliament of Bourdeaux tothe king in 1704, the whole public debt of France is esti-mated at twenty-four hundred millions of livres; of whichthe capital for which annuities for lives had been granted issupposed to amount to three hundred millions, the eighthpart of the whole public debt. The annuities themselvesare computed to amount to thirty millions a year, the fourthpart of one hundred and twenty millions, the supposed in-terest of that whole debt. These estimations, I know verywell, are not exact, but having been presented by so veryrespectable a body as approximations to the truth, they may,

I apprehend, be considered as such. It is not the differentdegrees of anxiety in the two governments of France andEngland for the liberation of the public revenue, which oc-casions this difference in their respective modes of borrow-ing : it arises altogether from the different views and in-terests of the lenders.

In England, the seat of government being in the greatestmercantile city in the world, the merchants are generally thepeople who advance money to government. By advancingit they do not mean to diminish, but, on the contrary, to in-

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