as to ascertain the several stages of its approach to
dissolution, I had no expectation that any ratio could be found that
would apply with so much exactness as this does. I was led to the idea
merely by observing that the funding system was a thing in continual
progression, and that whatever was in a state of progression might be
supposed to admit of, at least, some general ratio of measurement,
that would apply without any very great variation. But who could have
supposed that falling systems, or falling opinions, admitted of a ratio
apparently as true as the descent of falling bodies? I have not made the
ratio any more than Newton made the ratio of gravitation. I have only
discovered it, and explained the mode of applying it.

To shew at one view the rapid progression of the funding system to
destruction, and to expose the folly of those who blindly believe in
its continuance, and who artfully endeavour to impose that belief upon
others, I exhibit in the annexed table, the expense of each of the six
wars since the funding system began, as ascertained by ratio, and the
expense of the six wars yet to come, ascertained by the same ratio.

[Illustration: Table318]

* The actual expense of the war of 1739 did not come up to
the sum ascertained by the ratio. But as that which is the
natural disposition of a thing, as it is the natural
disposition of a stream of water to descend, will, if
impeded in its course, overcome by a new effort what it had
lost by that impediment, so it was with respect to this war
and the next (1756) taken collectively; for the expense of
the war of 1756 restored the equilibrium of the ratio, as
fully as if it had not been impeded. A circumstance that
serves to prove the truth of the ratio more folly than if
the interruption had not taken place. The war of 1739 ***
languid; the efforts were below the value of money et that
time; for the ratio is the measure of the depreciation of
money in consequence of the funding system; or what comes
to the same end, it is the measure of the increase of paper.
Every additional quantity of it, whether in bank notes or
otherwise, diminishes the real, though not the nominal value
of the former quantity.--_Author_

Those who are acquainted with the power with which even a small ratio,
acting in progression, multiplies in a long series, will see nothing to
wonder at in