ce.

There now remains only the national debt to be considered. In the year
1789, the interest, exclusive of the tontine, was L9,150,138. How much
the capital has been reduced since that time the minister best knows.
But after paying the interest, abolishing the tax on houses and windows,
the commutation tax, and the poor-rates; and making all the provisions
for the poor, for the education of children, the support of the aged,
the disbanded part of the army and navy, and increasing the pay of the
remainder, there will be a surplus of one million.

The present scheme of paying off the national debt appears to me,
speaking as an indifferent person, to be an ill-concerted, if not a
fallacious job. The burthen of the national debt consists not in its
being so many millions, or so many hundred millions, but in the quantity
of taxes collected every year to pay the interest. If this quantity
continues the same, the burthen of the national debt is the same to all
intents and purposes, be the capital more or less. The only knowledge
which the public can have of the reduction of the debt, must be through
the reduction of taxes for paying the interest. The debt, therefore,
is not reduced one farthing to the public by all the millions that
have been paid; and it would require more money now to purchase up the
capital, than when the scheme began.

Digressing for a moment at this point, to which I shall return again, I
look back to the appointment of Mr. Pitt, as minister.

I was then in America. The war was over; and though resentment had
ceased, memory was still alive.

When the news of the coalition arrived, though it was a matter of no
concern to I felt it as a man. It had something in it which shocked, by
publicly sporting with decency, if not with principle. It was impudence
in Lord North; it was a want of firmness in Mr. Fox.

Mr. Pitt was, at that time, what may be called a maiden character in
politics. So far from being hackneyed, he appeared not to be initiated
into the first mysteries of court intrigue. Everything was in his
favour. Resentment against the coalition served as friendship to him,
and his ignorance of vice was credited for virtue. With the return
of peace, commerce and prosperity would rise of itself; yet even this
increase was thrown to his account.

When he came to the helm, the storm was over, and he had nothing to
interrupt his course. It required even ingenuity to be wrong, and
he succeeded. A lit