How much the capital has been reduced since that time the minister best knows.
But after paying the interest, abolishing the tax on houses and windows, the commutation tax, and the poor-rates; and making all the provisions for the poor, for the education of children, the support of the aged, the disbanded part of the army and navy, and increasing the pay of the remainder, there will be a surplus of one million.
The present scheme of paying off the national debt appears to me, speaking as an indifferent person, to be an ill-concerted, if not a fallacious job.

The burthen of the national debt consists not in its being so many millions, or so many hundred millions, but in the quantity of taxes collected every year to pay the interest.

If this quantity continues the same, the burthen of the national debt is the same to all intents and purposes, be the capital more or less.

The only knowledge which the public can have of the reduction of the debt, must be through the reduction of taxes for paying the interest.

The debt, therefore, is not reduced one farthing to the public by all the millions that have been paid; and it would require more money now to purchase up the capital, than when the scheme began.
Digressing for a moment at this point, to which I shall return again, I look back to the appointment of Mr.Pitt, as minister.
I was then in America.