t in a great measure for foreign government. By putting the power
of making war into the hands of the foreigners who came for what they
could get, little else was to be expected than what has happened.

Reasons are already advanced in this work, showing that whatever the
reforms in the taxes may be, they ought to be made in the current
expenses of government, and not in the part applied to the interest
of the national debt. By remitting the taxes of the poor, they will be
totally relieved, and all discontent will be taken away; and by striking
off such of the taxes as are already mentioned, the nation will more
than recover the whole expense of the mad American war.

There will then remain only the national debt as a subject of
discontent; and in order to remove, or rather to prevent this, it
would be good policy in the stockholders themselves to consider it as
property, subject like all other property, to bear some portion of the
taxes. It would give to it both popularity and security, and as a great
part of its present inconvenience is balanced by the capital which it
keeps alive, a measure of this kind would so far add to that balance as
to silence objections.

This may be done by such gradual means as to accomplish all that is
necessary with the greatest ease and convenience.

Instead of taxing the capital, the best method would be to tax the
interest by some progressive ratio, and to lessen the public taxes in
the same proportion as the interest diminished.

Suppose the interest was taxed one halfpenny in the pound the first
year, a penny more the second, and to proceed by a certain ratio to be
determined upon, always less than any other tax upon property. Such
a tax would be subtracted from the interest at the time of payment,
without any expense of collection.

One halfpenny in the pound would lessen the interest and consequently
the taxes, twenty thousand pounds. The tax on wagons amounts to this
sum, and this tax might be taken off the first year. The second year the
tax on female servants, or some other of the like amount might also be
taken off, and by proceeding in this manner, always applying the tax
raised from the property of the debt toward its extinction, and not
carry it to the current services, it would liberate itself.

The stockholders, notwithstanding this tax, would pay less taxes than
they do now. What they would save by the extinction of the poor-rates,
and the tax on houses and windows,