and a half of surplus taxes; and as by an alliance between week, clear of deductions, during life 117,000l. To the officers of the disbanded corps, during life, 19,500 To fifteen thousand disbanded sailors, 3s. per week 117,000 117,000 Additional pay to the remaining sailors To the officers of the disbanded part of the navy, 19,500 during life 117,000 507,000l. The limits to which it is proper to confine this letter, will not admit of my entering into further particulars. I address it to Mr. Dundas because he took the lead in the debate, and he wishes, I suppose to appear conspicuous; but the purport of it is to justify myself from the charge which Mr. Adam has made. This gentleman, as has been observed in the beginning of this letter, considers the writings of Harrington, More and Hume, as justifiable and legal publications, because they reasoned by comparison, though in so doing they showed plans and systems of government, not only different from, but preferable to, that of England, and he accuses me of endeavouring to confuse, instead of producing a system in the room of that which I had reasoned by comparison of the representative system against the hereditary system; but I have gone further; for I have produced an instance of a government established entirely on the representative system, under which greater happiness is enjoyed, much fewer taxes required, and much higher credit is established, than under the system of government in England. The funds in England have arisen since the war only from 541. to 971. and they have been down since the proclamation, to 871. whereas the funds in America rose in the mean time from 10l. to 1201. His charge against me of "destroying every principle of subordination," is equally as groundless; which even a single paragraph from the work will prove, and which I shall here quote: "Formerly when divisions arose respecting government, recourse was had to the sword, and a civil war ensued. That savage custom is exploded by the new system, and recourse is had to a national convention. Discussion, and the general will, arbitrates the question, and to this private opinion yields with a good grace, and order is preserved uninterrupted." Rights of Man, part ii. That two different charges should be brought at the same time, the one by a member of the legislature, for not doing a certain thing, and the other by the attorney-general for doing it, is a strange jumble of contradiction. I have now justified myself, or the work rather, against the first, by stating the case in this letter, and the justification of the other will be undertaken in its proper place. But in any case the work will go on. I shall now conclude this letter with saying, that the only objecrion I found against the plan and principles contained in the second part of the Rights of Man when I had written the book, was, that they would beneficially interest at least ninety-nine persons out of every hundred throughout the nation, and therefore would not leave sufficient room for men to act from the direct and disinterested principles of honor; but the prosecution now commenced has fortunately removed that objection, and the approvers and protectors of that work now feel the immediate impulse of honor, added to that of national interest. I am, Mr. Dundas, Not your obedient humble servant, But to the contrary, THOMAS PAINE THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ENGLISH SYSTEM OF FINANCE "On the verge, nay even in the gulf of bankruptcy." NOTHING, they say, is more certain than death, and nothing more uncertain than the time of dying; yet we can always fix a period beyond which man cannot live, and within some moment of which he will die. We are enabled to do this, not by any spirit of prophecy, or foresight into the event, but by observation of what has happened in all cases of human or animal existence. If then any other subject, such, for instance, as a system of finance, exhibits in its progress a series of symptoms indicating decay, its final dissolution is certain, and the period of it can be calculated from the symptoms it exhibits. Those who have hitherto written on the English system of finance, (the funding system,) have been uniformly impressed with the idea that its downfall would happen some time or other. They took, however, no data for their opinion, but expressed it predictively, or merely as opinion, from a conviction that the perpetual duration of such a system was a natural impossibility. It is in this manner that Dr. Price has spoken of it; and Smith, in his Wealth of Nations, has spoken in the same manner; that is. down since the proclamation, to 871. whereas the funds in America rose in the mean time from 101. to 1201. His charge against me of “ destroying every principle of subordination," is equally as groundless ; which even a single paragraph from the work will prove, and which I shall here quote : " Formerly when divisions arose respecting government, recourse was had to the sword, and a civil war ensued. That savage custom is exploded by the new system, and recourse is had to a national convention. Discussion, and the general will , arbitrates the question, and to this private opinion yields with a good grace, and order is preserved uninterrupted.” Rights of Man, part ii. That two different charges should be brought at the same time, the one by a member of the legislature, for not doing a certain thing, and the other by the attorney-general for doing it , is a strange jumble of contradiction. I have now justified myself, or the work rather, against the first, by stating the case in this letter, and the justification of the other will be undertaken in its proper place. But in any case the work will go on. I shall now conclude this letter with saying, that the only objecnon I found against the plan and principles contained in the second part of the Rights of Man when I had written the book, was, that they would beneficially interest at least ninety-nine persons out of every hundred throughout the nation, and therefore would not leave sufficient room for men to act from the direct and disinterested principles of honor; but the prosecution now commenced has fortunately removed that objection, and the approvers and protectors of that work now feel the immediate impulse of honor, added to that of national interest. I am, Mr. Dundas, THOMAS PAINE THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ENGLISH SYSTEM OF FINANCE “On the verge, nay even in the gulf of bankruptcy.” Debates in Parliament. NOTHING, they say, is more certain than death, and nothing more uncertain than the time of dying ; yet we can always fix a period beyond which man cannot live, and within some moment of which he will die. We are enabled to do this, not by any spirit of prophecy, or foresight into the event, but by observation of what has happened in all cases of human or animal existence. If then any other subject, such, for instance, as a system of finance, exhibits in its progress a series of symptoms indicating decay, its final dissolution is certain, and the period of it can be calculated from the symptoms it exhibits. Those who have hitherto written on the English system of finance, (the funding system,) have been uniformly impressed with the idea that its downfall would happen some time or other. They took, however, no data for their opinion, but expressed it predictively, or merely as opinion, from a conviction that the perpetual duration of such a system was a natural impossibility. It is in this manner that Dr. Price has spoken of it; and Smith, in his Wealth of Nations, has spoken in the same manner; that is. |