y,
to be raised by the land-tax, at three shillings in the pound; the malt,
and other duties, the surplus of divers impositions remaining in the
bank and exchequer; one million by annuities at three per cent., charged
on the sinking fund, until redeemed by parliament; and nine hundred
thousand pounds out of the excess or overplus of monies denominated the
sinking fund.

SCHEME FOR REDUCING THE INTEREST OF THE NATIONAL DEBT.

But the capital measure which distinguished this session of parliament
was the reduction of the interest on the public funds; a scheme
which was planned and executed by the minister, without any national
disturbance or disquiet, to the astonishment of all Europe; the
different nations of which could not comprehend how it would be possible
for the government, at the close of a long expensive war, which had so
considerably drained the country, and augmented the enormous burden of
national debt, to find money for paying off such of the public creditors
as might choose to receive the principal, rather than submit to a
reduction of the interest. It was not very much for the honour of the
opposition, that some of its leading members endeavoured to impede this
great machine of civil economy, by taking opportunities of affirming in
parliament, in opposition to his majesty's speech, that the nation, far
from being in a flourishing condition, was almost entirely exhausted;
that commerce drooped and declined; that public credit stood tottering
on the brink of ruin; and that all the treaties lately concluded among
the different powers of Europe were, in effect, disadvantageous and
prejudicial to the interests of Great Britain. In answer to these
assertions, Mr. Pelham undertook to prove, from the register of exports
and imports, that the commerce of the kingdom was more extensive at this
than at any former period; and that the public credit was strong enough
to admit of an experiment, which he would not presume to hazard, except
upon a moral certainty of its being firmly rooted beyond the power of
accident and faction to shake or overturn. He declared, that his design
of reducing the interest upon the funds was the result of the love he
bore his country, and an opinion that it was the duty of the servants of
the crown to ease the burdens of the people. He said, he had conferred
on this subject with persons of the most approved knowledge, and
undoubted experience; and chose to promulgate the method propos