THE WEALTH OK NATIONS.

885

proof of an increasing consumption, and consequently of anincreasing produce, which could alone support that consump-tion. Great Britain seems to support with ease, a burdenwhich, half a century ago, nobody believed her capable ofsupporting. Let us not, however, upon this account rashlyconclude that she is capable of supporting any burden; noreven be too confident that she could support., without greatdistress, a burden a little greater than what has already beenlaid upon her.

When national debts have once been accumulated to a cer-tain degree, there is scarce, 1 believe, a single instance of theirhaving been fairly and completely paid. The liberation ofthe public revenue, if it has ever been brought about at all,has always been brought about by a bankruptcy; sometimesby an avowed one, but always by a real one, though fre-quently by a pretended payment.

The raising of the denomination of the coin has been themost usual expedient by which a real public bankruptcy hasbeen disguised under the appearance of a pretended pay-ment. If a sixpence, for example, should either by act ofparliament or royal proclamation be raised to the denomina-tion of a shilling, and twenty sixpences to that of a poundsterling, the person who under the old denomination hadborrowed twenty shillings, or near four ounces of silver,would, under the new, pay with twenty sixpences, or withsomething less than two ounces. A national debt of abouta hundred and twenty-eight millions, nearly the capital ofthe funded and unfunded debt of Great Britain, might in thismanner be paid with about sixty-four millions of our presentmoney. It would indeed be a pretended payment only, andthe creditors of the public would really be defrauded of tenshillings in the pound of what was due to them. The cala-mity too would extend much further than to the creditors ofthe public, and those of every private person would suffer aproportionable loss; and this without any advantage, but inmost cases with a great additional loss, to the creditors ofthe t ’ ”c. If the creditors of the public indeed weregenerally much in debt to other people, they might insome measure compensate their loss by paying their cre-ditors in the same coin in which the public had paid them.But in most countries the creditors of the public are, thegreater part of them, wealthy people, who stand more inthe relation of creditors than in that of debtors towards the