of that war. Smith, (chapter on
Public Debts,) says, the expense of the war of 1756, was 72 millions and
a quarter.

I proceed to ascertain the expense of the American war, of 1775, by
adding, as in the former cases, one half to the expense of the preceding
war. The expense of the preceding war was 72 millions, the half of which
(36) makes 108 millions for the expense of that war. In the last
edition of Smith, (chapter on Public Debts,) he says, the expense of the
American war was _more than an hundred millions_.

I come now to ascertain the expense of the present war, supposing it to
continue as long as former wars have done, and the funding system not
to break up before that period. The expense of the preceding war was 108
millions, the half of which (54) makes 162 millions for the expense of
the present war. It gives symptoms of going beyond this sum, supposing
the funding system not to break up; for the loans of the last year and
of the present year are twenty-two millions each, which exceeds the
ratio compared with the loans of the preceding war. It will not be from
the inability of procuring loans that the system will break up. On
the contrary, it is the facility with which loans can be procured that
hastens that event. The loans are altogether paper transactions; and
it is the excess of them that brings on, with accelerating speed, that
progressive depreciation of funded paper money that will dissolve the
funding system.

I proceed to ascertain the expense of future wars, and I do this merely
to show the impossibility of the continuance of the funding system, and
the certainty of its dissolution.

The expense of the next war after the present war, according to the
ratio that has ascertained the preceding cases, will be 243 millions.

Expense of the second war 364

---------------- third war 546

---------------- fourth war 819

-------- fifth war 1228

3200 millions;

which, at only four per cent. will require taxes to the nominal amount
of one hundred and twenty-eight millions to pay the annual interest,
besides the interest of the present debt, and the expenses of
government, which are not included in this account. Is there a man so
mad, so stupid, as to sup-pose this system can continue?

When I first conceived the idea of seeking for some common ratio that
should apply as a rule of measurement to all the cases of the funding
system, so far