instead of employing their capital, to disguise the hazards they ran. They
have found, in the loans they raised, a casual resource, which encouraged
their enterprises. They have seemed, by their manner of erecting
transferable funds, to leave the capital for purposes of trade, in the
hands of the subject, while it is actually expended by the government. They
have, by these means, proceeded to the execution of great national
projects, without suspending private industry, and have left future ages to
answer, in part, for debts contracted with a view to future emolument. So
far the expedient is plausible, and appears to be just. The growing burden
too, is thus gradually laid; and if a nation be to sink in some future age,
every minister hopes it may still keep afloat in his own. But the measure,
for this very reason, is, with all its advantages, extremely dangerous, in
the hands of a precipitant and ambitious administration, regarding only the
present occasion, and imagining a state to be inexhaustible, while a
capital can be borrowed, and the interest be paid.

We are told of a nation who, during a certain period, rivalled the glories
of the ancient world, threw off the dominion of a master armed against them
with the powers of a great kingdom, broke the yoke with which they had been
oppressed, and almost within the course of a century raised, by their
industry and national vigour, a new and formidable power, which struck the
former potentates of Europe with awe and suspense, and turned the badges of
poverty with which they set out, into the ensigns of war and dominion. This
end was attained by the great efforts of a spirit awakened by oppression,
by a successful pursuit of national wealth, and by a rapid anticipation of
future revenue. But this illustrious state is supposed not only, in the
language of a former section, to have pre-occupied the business; they have
sequestered the inheritance of many ages to come.

Great national expense, however, does not imply the necessity of any