neration of the people in England did not make the
Government, they are not accountable for any of its defects; but,
that sooner or later, it must come into their hands to undergo a
constitutional reformation, is as certain as that the same thing has
happened in France. If France, with a revenue of nearly twenty-four
millions sterling, with an extent of rich and fertile country above four
times larger than England, with a population of twenty-four millions
of inhabitants to support taxation, with upwards of ninety millions
sterling of gold and silver circulating in the nation, and with a debt
less than the present debt of England--still found it necessary, from
whatever cause, to come to a settlement of its affairs, it solves the
problem of funding for both countries.

It is out of the question to say how long what is called the English
constitution has lasted, and to argue from thence how long it is to
last; the question is, how long can the funding system last? It is a
thing but of modern invention, and has not yet continued beyond the
life of a man; yet in that short space it has so far accumulated, that,
together with the current expenses, it requires an amount of taxes at
least equal to the whole landed rental of the nation in acres to defray
the annual expenditure. That a government could not have always gone on
by the same system which has been followed for the last seventy years,
must be evident to every man; and for the same reason it cannot always
go on.

The funding system is not money; neither is it, properly speaking,
credit. It, in effect, creates upon paper the sum which it appears to
borrow, and lays on a tax to keep the imaginary capital alive by the
payment of interest and sends the annuity to market, to be sold for
paper already in circulation. If any credit is given, it is to the
disposition of the people to pay the tax, and not to the government,
which lays it on. When this disposition expires, what is supposed to be
the credit of Government expires with it. The instance of France under
the former Government shows that it is impossible to compel the payment
of taxes by force, when a whole nation is determined to take its stand
upon that ground.

Mr. Burke, in his review of the finances of France, states the quantity
of gold and silver in France, at about eighty-eight millions sterling.
In doing this, he has, I presume, divided by the difference of exchange,
instead of the standard of twenty-four