ffspring of the Dutch-Anglo revolution, and its handmaid the Hanover
succession.

But it is now too late to enquire how it began. Those to whom it is
due have advanced the money; and whether it was well or ill spent, or
pocketed, is not their crime. It is, however, easy to see, that as
the nation proceeds in contemplating the nature and principles of
government, and to understand taxes, and make comparisons between those
of America, France, and England, it will be next to impossible to keep
it in the same torpid state it has hitherto been. Some reform must,
from the necessity of the case, soon begin. It is not whether these
principles press with little or much force in the present moment. They
are out. They are abroad in the world, and no force can stop them. Like
a secret told, they are beyond recall; and he must be blind indeed that
does not see that a change is already beginning.

Nine millions of dead taxes is a serious thing; and this not only for
bad, but 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 diminish