st of three pounds per centum, to commence from
the twenty-fifth day of December, in the year one thousand seven hundred
and fifty-seven, subject to the same provisions, notices, and classes of
redemption, to which their respective sums at four per centum were then
liable, should, in lieu of their present interest, be entitled to
four per centum till the twenty-fifth day of December, in the year one
thousand seven hundred and fifty; and after that day, to three pounds
ten shillings per centum per annum, till the twenty-fifth day of
December, one thousand seven hundred and fifty-seven; and no part of
that debt, except what was due to the East India company, should be
redeemable to this period. That if any part of the national debt,
incurred before last Michaelmas, redeemable by law, and carrying an
interest of four per centum, should remain unsubscribed on or before the
thirtieth day of May, the government should pay off the principal. For
this purpose Ins majesty was enabled to borrow of any person or persons,
bodies politic or corporate, any sum or sums of money not exceeding that
part of the national debt which might remain unsubscribed, to be charged
on the sinking fund, upon any terms not exceeding the rate of interest
in the foregoing proposal.

All the duties appropriated to the payment of the interest were still
continued, and the surplus of these incorporated with the sinking
fund for the discharge of the principal. Books were opened for the
subscription at the Exchequer, the Bank of England, and the South Sea
house; and copies of these resolutions transmitted to the directors of
all the monied corporations.]

[Footnote 322: Note 2 R, p. 322. The most remarkable circumstance
attending the progress of this bill, which made its way through both
houses, and obtained the royal assent, was the number of contradictory
petitions in favour and in prejudice of it, while it remained under
consideration. The tanners of leather in and about the town of Sheffield
in Yorkshire, represented, That if the bill should pass, the English
iron would be undersold; consequently, a great number of furnaces and
forges would be discontinued; in that case the woods used for fuel would
stand uncut, and the tanners be deprived of oak bark sufficient for the
continuance and support of their occupation. They nevertheless owned,
that should the duty be removed from pig iron only, no such consequence
could be apprehended; because, should the