his own opinion in such a manner, that from the variety of proposals which every one makes, from the difficulties raised, and from the objections brought up against the manner of carrying on this trade, we are now brought, by unhappy degrees, to all manner of confusion of thoughts about it, and from everybody laying down a way how to carry it on, to everybody crowding in their suspicions, their suggestions of this and that being impracticable, and the other too hazardous; one way not safe, another not just, a third not feasible, and the like; as if, because ye are not at a certainty which way it shall be done, or which is the best way to do it, that therefore it cannot be done at all.

Whether it be the real opinion of these objectors that the thing is impracticable in itself, or whether some men, for reasons worse grounded, think it convenient, if possible, to have it appear so, is not the present debate; if the mist may be taken off by cool reasoning, and people brought to see by a clear light, they will be the less influenced by the design of any who may find it convenient, for other purposes, that this case should be as much perplexed as possible.

To this end this short tract is made public, in which, if the case may be stated clearly, the false glosses, mists, and shadows, with which this age is amused, taken away, and the prejudices of people on either hand removed, perhaps we may come to a right understanding of the case. Having premised this by way of introduction, it seems naturally to lead the reader to a view of the doubts now started among us about this trade.

1. Whether this trade to the South Seas can be carried on, or no?

2. Whether the manner of proposing this trade be rational and just?

It seems indispensably necessary to inquire into these things first, before we meddle with the manner how it is to be carried on, since the objections that seem most to perplex the town now, whether by design or no, are laid against the thing in general, that it will come to nothing, that it is a chimera, a sham, has nothing in it, is impracticable, will be dropped again, was taken up to serve a turn, and the like.

The allegations to sustain this are such as these:

1. They say the scheme is impracticable; that you propose a thing not to be done; impossible in the general notions of trade; that this was not a season for it; that the countries you propose to trade with are in the possession of the French and Spaniards, our declared enemies; that it is time enough to talk of trading thither when you have some of the country in possession; that conquering nations is a work which does not belong to merchants and companies, whose stock will be exhausted by any attempt of that kind; that to talk of trade before conquest, and conquest before any attempt made, are equally ridiculous.

2. That when any part of this country may be taken from the enemy and possessed, it ought to be proved that the enemy shall not be in any manner able to dispossess you again, to attack or molest you; in which case commerce and trade will not only be interrupted, but entirely disappointed.

3. That neither of the nations who possess South America, viz. the French or Spaniards, will ever capitulate with you, or upon any terms, whether in peace or war, consent to a free trade, and therefore it cannot be expected that the scheme, as it is proposed, can answer the ends of trade.

4. That it is evident the affair of trade was not the main end of the proposal, but other aims are couched under this pretence, which other aims are not pleasing to the parties concerned, and therefore were glossed over with this pretended advantage, to make them pass the more easily and undiscovered with the people; but that the pretence being equally liable to objection, as the thing designed, so both together render the minds of the people more uneasy than they were before.

The second question lies against the manner of proposing this trade, which they say is violent and unusual, a force upon the people against their will, inconsistent with their liberty, and that therefore it is entered upon with a general dissatisfaction, cursed by them that are to go into it, hated by those that refuse it, and ridiculed by all; that it is a mere project of a party, a contrivance to serve the turn they are carrying on by it, and to put a face of payment upon a debt which they know not what to do with, and which made them uneasy; and all this without a reality, that they might stifle the clamour of those whose just demands upon the government could no otherwise be answered.

If the objectors have not full scope given them here in relating their objections, it is only because the reproaches and reflections which they study to set them off with, and which they very plenti fully bestow upon the government and upon the persons who they think are the instruments of it, are left out as things which seem not to be necessary at all, either to make their argument more forcible or add to the number of reasons; and this omission, it is hoped, they will excuse in an author who is not writing to reproach any side, but to calm and quiet the minds of every side, and bring things, if possible, to a clear and right understanding.

The reader will pardon the breach of order, if, in speaking of the objections, the latter come first in course; because, as they lie rather against the part already acted introductory to the South Sea trade, rather than against the part that shall afterwards be acted, they seem to demand to be first spoken to.

In order to this, it may seem necessary a little historically to enter into the steps taken on every hand to introduce this affair into the world, and this, without excusing or accusing one side or other, may be sufficient to give a right view of the thing, and restore people to their temper in judging about it.

In the consultations which of course employ the heads of the ministers of state, every year about the time of the sitting of the parliament, these three things are generally the chief.

1. How and where to carry on the war.
2. How to pay debts and support credit.
3. How to raise money.

When these things, in their ordinary course, came to be debated the last parliament, two

things with a more than ordinary weight, seemed to press upon the public.

1. A vast debt, which, whether by the misconduct of the former managers, or by the necessity of the public affairs, is not to the purpose here, was lying upon the nation in the several offices of the navy, victualling, ordnance, &c., together with other deficiencies, amounting to several millions, which as justice on the one hand called loudly upon them to make good, so on the other hand the public credit was touched by it; and if some provision was not made for it, there was reason to fear parliamentary credit would receive a blow which would not be easy to recover, and which might be fatal to all the schemes and proposals for funds and loans which might follow, since the people who had trusted the government with such great sums of money, would too much influence the future lending and lenders of money, if no care was taken to make payment to them, whose debts were so just as well as so great.

2. The second weight was the long omitted article of attacking the enemy in that most sensible part from whence they derived so eminently their chief support, and from whence the sinews of war (viz. their money) were constantly supplied to them, I mean their colonies in America; the omission of which seemed a most unaccountable neglect in former times and persons, and the attempting which seemed so inviting at this time, on two accounts. First, as it would interrupt the advantageous commerce of the enemy; and secondly, as it would open a door of trade to our people, which they never yet had an opportunity to meddle with, and this occasion being lost, we were not to hope for another.

Note. This last notion is founded on the treaty of the general confederacy, called more commonly the grand alliance, wherein by the 6th article it is stipulated that, "it shall be lawful for his royal majesty of Great Britain, and the lords, the states general, by common advice, and for the benefit and enlargement of the navigation and commerce of their subjects, to seize by their forces what land and cities they can, belonging to the Spanish dominion in the Indies, and whatsoever they shall so take, shall be their own.' Vide the Treaty of the Grand Alliance,' p. 68. Note. This is the occasion, which, as above, it is humbly presumed may never happen again, and therefore was not now to be omitted.

These two material articles coming into consideration at the same time, it came into the heads of some, whose thoughts were more especially intent upon applying proper remedies to both these maladies,-that perhaps some method might be found out to cure them both with one plaster, or, as we say more vulgarly, kill both these birds with one stone. To explain it more fully: a scheme is formed, wherein it is suggested, that bringing both cases together, viz. the debt which was to be paid, and the attacking the enemy in America, which was necessary to be done, one might be so made assisting and concurring to and with the other, that both might be with the more ease effected and brought to pass.

In examining nicely the state of these several cases, it appeared they were to be naturally divided into two heads of proposals contained in the following abridgement :

1. The payment of the debt; and thi srequired two considerations.

1. To pay the principal debt; or

2. To establish a fund for the payment of the interest redeemable, and until redeemed, by parliament.

2. The falling upon the enemy in their American plantations; and this also had two branches. 1. The dispossessing the French of the footing they had gained among the Spaniards; together with gaining such a possession in that part of America, now called New Spain, as might answer that great end, viz. pinching the enemy in that most sensible part, viz. the fountain of wealth and treasure, by which, as before, they have been enabled to carry on the war, and

2. The planting our own people in those rich climates, where, by laying a foundation of trade which was never yet engaged in, our subjects might come to be enriched, and made full amends for the loss of their Spanish trade; and also the channel of silver which has hitherto flowed with so full a stream into France and Spain, to the support of our enemies, might be turned, and might with the same fulness and freedom empty itself among our merchants; and further, the settlements to be made there might be so many magazines of wealth to us and our posterity.

It is unhappy that a design big with so many advantages has met with this misfortune, that the joining together these two, though great and just prospects, has been casually and eventually the ruin of both; not that we grant them yet ruined, but that the difficulties started, and the uneasinesses among us raised at the beginning. are the causes of ruinous quarrels, breaches, and clamours about it, which is the most easy to prove are founded upon the want of a right understanding and distinguishing the case; by which also, if perhaps in the contriving and joining these great events together any mistake has been made, it might with ease come to be rectified, without gratifying those who seem glad of private mistakes, in order to push on the greater mistake, viz. the design of rendering the whole abortive and ineffectual.

To distinguish, therefore, rightly of this matter, and thereby come to a clear understanding in it, we ought to debate it two ways.

1. In its separate pre-existent state, as a debt, and as a trade respectively.

2. In the now conjoined circumstance, as blended together, whereby the debt and the trade is called, though wrong and erroneously, one South Sea stock.

In its separate or pre-existent state we find, as before, two things upon the wheel; or to speak more plain, the ministry had two things upon their hands, either of them necessary to be done, and both having their respective difficulties in the management.

1. The debt of the navy, ordnance, victualling, &c., it is no part of this work to inquire how the government came to be embarrassed with so great a debt unprovided for; whether the concealing it from the nation so long, or the very being a debt, may be laid to any man's door, or no, is not the case here; perhaps the writer of these sheets differs something from every side in his opinion, and may reserve that opinion to

The case of the debt is evident; the act for making provision for it has set it forth at large; there remained due and owing great sums, for which there seemed to be no parliamentary provision made, other than the credit of the public, and which there seemed to be an absolute necessity to make some present provision for, both as it respected the people concerned, who were in distress for their money, and as it respected the public credit, which began to suffer by the high discounts allowed on the sale of these debts. The debts are as follows: —

Not reckoning into this account the principal and interest of money lent the year before upon the general mortgage, and the interest of the whole sum from the 25th of March to the 25th of December 1711, being nine months, both which sums amount to one million, seven hundred and fifty-seven thousand, seven hundred and fiftythree pounds, nine shillings and one penny more. This is the account as, by the act of parliament for settling this matter, it is cast up; a vast debt.

A vast debt to be cleared in one session of parliament, and that in a session, too, in which so great a sum for the ordinary service of the coming year was absolutely necessary to be given, and was given accordingly, amounting to above six millions sterling; so that inclusive of the sum above voted to be provided for, this parliament were obliged to raise such a sum as never was heard of in the world, and such a sum, as when talked of in foreign countries, in the dialect of their finances, will make such a sound as must amaze the world, and make them conclude that a nation which can raise such sums can never be subdued for want of money: let any man but think of fourteen millions sterling to be raised in one session of parliament, making, in Spain, seven and forty millions of pieces of eight, or in French livres, or German florins, above one hundred and sixty-four millions.

These things are not hinted to enlarge the sound of words; but the sum being really thus great, which was of necessity to be raised, seems to argue very strongly with those gentlemen, who being creditors to the government in the articles above, seem to quarrel with the manner of their being paid, viz. by an established interest, that they ought to have been paid in money,

Were I an utter enemy to the very name and persons of the present managers of public affairs; were I bent to quarrel at all they did, because they did it; were I to set apart a pen dipped in gall to asperse and reproach every action of their ministry, and resolved, as far as in me lay, to be a general evil genius, to blast and scandalize things for the sake of men, men for the sake of parties, and parties for the sake of prejudice, a practice too much the mode among us for some years past; were this paper, I say, directed by such a spirit as this, yet I could not find any room in this part of the affair, to raise the least objection; for I cannot see, speaking with the utmost impartiality, that in the circumstances of public affairs, as they then stood, the parliament could do anything less or more than they did.

1. They could not do less than take some care to bring the debt to some point of certainty.

The demand was great and loud; the sum was branched out into multitudes of hands, and those hands such as, being the trading sort of people, could not the best of any be without their mo ney; this was attended with several intolerable evils.

1. It caused the poor people to run to the stock-jobbers, to the man-eating discounters, and money-lending extortioners, either to pledge or sell their bills; and the payments in course appearing every day more and more remote and uncertain, those cannibals, for in some sense they are such, made every day their advantage of it to prey upon the necessitous and indigent people, till the discount of these bills came to near 40 per cent., and the tickets of poor sailors to above 50 per cent. discount, if sold; and loans upon thein were worse, they being not to be had under 10 to 12 per cent. interest, which in a few years would swallow up the whole debt, principal and interest, as is plain, without putting the reader to the trouble to run over tables of calculation.

This every day sunk the credit of the navy, &c. so that the rates of everything rising in proportion to the discount of their bills, would soon have brought the queen's affairs to the same or a worse posture than his late Majesty King William struggled with, when the sum given by parliament, through the extravagance of discount, prices of goods, and deficiencies of funds, &c. were generally to be accounted in real aid of the public service to be not above one-third of what they were called in the votes of the house.

These things being before them, it is left to any one to consider whether the parliament only giving money for the ordinary service of the navy, victualling, ordnance, transport, &c, every year, and so leaving payments to be made in course, had been either prudent or practicable, since every year the ordinary service brought us in debt further than the sums demanded by acci dents unforeseen, and impossible to be provided for.

There might be much more said, but it is left to the most dissatisfied rational man in the nation to say, whether to have left the case to payments

in course, as above, had been anything else than just a putting off the evil day, and leaving the debt as a growing disease, which may at present be borne with, but will at last infallibly prove mortal, bring a slow, but certain death upon the body, increasing every day, till at last it should have been so great, that they could never have paid it at all. This I take to be the true, impartial state of the case at that time; and therefore I say the parliament could not have done less than they did, viz. to bring the debt to a point; fix the sum; establish a fund of interest for the payment and annual discharge of the increase, that they might know what they were in debt, and might hereafter take a convenient occasion, as the public affairs would permit, to discharge the whole.

||terest, which he had no title to before; and which I mention, because it will occur again to be spoken of, as being a full equivalent to all that advance, which can be recalled out of his hands for the stock of the South Sea Company, of which by itself.

2. This brings us to the consideration of this affair in its complex posture, in its conjoined circumstances, viz. as the payment of this debt is blended together with a thing foreign, say some, in its nature exotic, and remote to the notions and understandings of the generality of the people particularly concerned in this debt; out of their way; foreign to their business, and consequently disagreeable and unsatisfying.

The ministry, if I may venture to say so, I believe had quite other notions of this part of the case, and annexed this article to the other as an additional consideration to the debt aforesaid,

Let any man judge this with impartiality, and censure it if they can; I must own I do not see what the parliament could do less than they did in the case of the debt; viz. to put it upon a fund for the payment of the interest, till provision may be made for the principal, which principal it is evident they were not in a condition to make a present provision for; and this leads me to the second head, viz.

2. That I do not see what they could do more. There are but two articles in the case of a debt. 1. Payment of principal. 2. Payment of interest. If the first cannot be done, the last must. This is only a consideration for the party's staying till the other can be done. No man, though he cannot pay a debt, can be called a bankrupt, if he offers security, and pays the interest. It is no reproach to the nation or the government to say they cannot pay this great principal debt, at least now; but you are offered in the nation's behalf the payment of interest, and that interest continued till the principal be paid; so that in the common course and the nature of things, the nation is no way to be termed bankrupt; the debt is secured, and were there not something else in it, would have been allowed to be very good; for why should we tread on one another's heels to purchase annuities of interest at but 6 per cent. and pay our ready money with such eagerness for them, and yet refuse the same interest for a debt which we would before have sold for 30 per cent. discount, or perhaps had bought with that allowance? This is a most unaccountable paradox; and to consider the debt in its separate capacity, it is really something mysterious on other accounts, of which hereafter.

I might add here also, to increase the wonder, that the settlement allows the past interest to be cast up, and to be added to the principal, and the running interest for the future to be paid upon the whole; so that the creditor turns usurer upon the government, and receives interest upon in

of a trade to the South Seas should be received with a particular satisfaction, should be valued at something in the rate of their debt, and should have made the subscription more worth to those that subscribed; that it was given in as an encouragement to all people who should hereafter trust the government; that in consideration of their having been kept out of their money, these things were thrown in, both to gratify and oblige them. (1) The turning their past interest into principal; and (2) the giving them an exclusive trade to the South Seas, a trade so improved in the hands of the French, and so capable to be improved in ours.

I am persuaded, speaking without the least respect to persons, the projectors who contrived, the government or ministry who managed, nay, the very parliament who granted this act, understood this case in some measure as I have put it, and the reasons are these.

1. Because, really, in the nature of the thing, abstracted from prejudice and party, it seems that it is certainly so. How infinitely, then, does the plague of parties influence all our affairs! and how does it change the very nature and consequence of things!

2. Because, had they not conceived thus of it, they would never have tacked it to a thing of this value and consequence, since I believe it will be readily granted that either of these things, viz. the settling a fund of interest for the debt, and the erecting a public company for a trade to the South Seas, would have been leaped at apart by every one concerned in the first, or capable of venturing in the last; and I think I do not speak without book in either of these.

It remains to inquire why that, which in a separate consideration is so clear, and without exception, should fall under such a general dislike when brought together; that there are some reasons to be assigned, which are invidious, personal, and which the author of this cares not to mention, is a thing rather to be sighed for than disputed; but some reasons other than these may be hinted at.

1. The seeming force there is in the act, to make these the company, and none else, and to. oblige these to be the people.

2. The unhappy sorting of the people, in the consequence of the act, putting them upon the

trade, who are neither qualified by circumstances nor genius to it, and who by their ignorance have brought themselves to dislike it, even because they do not understand.

Both these I take to be misfortunes to the proposers of this affair; and yet both are things which (1) they could not easily foresee; and (2) foreseeing, they could not easily prevent without putting all upon a hazard.

1. They could not easily foresee it; for who could have imagined that a thing so generally applauded before, which we had been blamed so often and so publicly for neglecting, which our enemies, the French, have made such infinite advantage of, should not be esteemed an advantage to us? Or that, to oblige them all to an equal and proportioned subscription should be taken as an imposition? I must own I am against all manner of force, and think it had been better here left more to choice; but how better? I do not mean better for the people, but better for the ministry; that their work had been easier, and the popular clamour less without it; for the advantage proposed is to the people, not to the ministry; and the force then is no more than as you would have forced a child or a lunatic out of a house that was on fire; and I rather put it thus upon a supposition, that there is some constraint, than argue, though the case might bear it, strictly speaking, that really here is no force at all. 2. But to suppose the ministry had foreseen that the notion of a force, how much soever to our advantage, is so irksome a thing, that it would hazard the bringing the proposal into a general dislike. Since liberty is so nice a thing that it should not be touched upon, though it was never so much to the advantage of the person; yet I own I do not see how they could go forward, viz. in joining the two proposals, and leave the thing more to choice than they have done.

Liberty is an invaluable privilege, and no man can in his right understanding be easily able to be too careful of it. I remember a story of two English soldiers in Catalonia this very war: the general finding that the liberty our people took in eating grapes and other luscious fruits in those hot countries, was very destructive to the health of the men, that it threw them into fluxes and fevers, and destroyed great numbers of them, made an order that none of the men, under great penalty, should eat any grapes. The English soldiers had transgressed the order, and carried the punishment along with the crime, for they fell into a flux, and were dangerously ill. The officer ordered them to be brought before him, in order to punish them: one of the men answered, "The general may e'en let us alone, for we shall not trouble him long." However, sick as they were, orders in the army must be observed, and they were brought before him, for go they could not. The officer asked them "How durst they eat grapes when they knew the order?" The fellow boldly told him, "That in all his orders as to the service they had obeyed punctually, and never transgressed; but in this, as what concerned themselves only, they were Englishmen and freemen, and thought they ought to be at liberty to kill themselves whenever they had a mind to it."

Indeed, upon these nice principles of liberty here may be some force alleged, but in the main it cannot be so properly called force; because every man that does not think fit to come in may remain in the state he was before; nor do I think that state is or can be worse than before, because other provision than a parliamentary fund of interest could never be made, or be expected to be made: and if I judge right of the additional article, which they call the South Sea stock, which is reckoned an incumbrance, it stands upon this foot, viz. that it takes nothing from the subscription which it does not first add to it; because the interest which is paid by this subscription upon the arrear of interest allowed to be added to the principal, amounts in time to much more than the 10 per cent. which is to be called in by the company to form the stock for carrying on the trade.

Perhaps this has not been much thought of by those who complain of the hardships that this trade is to them; and this may be farther improved by such whose business it is to defend the proposal in general. These sheets are not prepared to defend one side against another, but, as far as is possible, to set the matter in a clear light be tween both, that they may see for themselves what it is proper to do or say in the case.

It seems very unhappy to this nation that such uneasiness, and such strife and clamour, and party-making, should be amongst us, about not the things themselves, but the mere joining them together; since, as it is noted before, take them asunder, and I make no doubt but we should be very ready to embrace them both: I explain myself thus.

I cannot think but that all the persons concerned in the debt upon the navy, transport, victualling, ordnance, &c. whose debt was in the posture and condition as was before observed, would have been very well contented and satisfied with an act of parliament establishing a fund of perpetual interest at 6 per cent. for their debt till the principal shall be paid, and would have taken it as a very great advantage to have the arrear of interest added to the principal debt; had the act gone no farther than this, I firmly believe every one had been fully satisfied and thankful: my reasons for it are these.

1. Why should we not think so, when we reflect on the precarious condition of those debts before? 1. How impossible to be paid in many ages by the course of the navy. 2. How certain to increase every year by the same necessity that brought them to the height they were

at.

2. Why should we not think so, when we reflect how well content people were with the like method? Though with but 4 per cent. interest in former cases, as in that of the orphans' debts in the city of London, and how long and earnestly the creditors of the exchequer debt have been soliciting for the same grace; in either of which cases the debt was not less just, or more unlikely to be some time or other paid than this. But if these are thought remote instances, there are other nearer our view which I need not name. Let such as question this look back to our old transport debt, parliamentary deficiencies, loans on coals, and culm, glass, &c., Irish estates, army