LIST of PRIZES, continued from Page 288. From the LONDON GAZETTE. from Cumberland harbour, fhe fell in with two schooners, apparently of fome force; the mafter bore up for Jamaica; the Atalanta, one of the privateers, outfailed her confort, left her, and continu ADMIRALTY-OFFICE, Jan. 28. Extract of a Letter from Captain Lucas, of his Majesty's Skip Sphynx, to Mr. Stephens, dated Plymouth, the 11fted the chace all day, and till about four inftant. I HAVE the honour to acquaint you, for the information of my lords commiffioners of the admiralty, that, being on a Cruize off Cape Clear, on Sunday the 12th infant, we law a fail to the westward, Randing before the wind: we tacked and stood after her. At noon fhe bore up to crofs us, which was prevented. At two P. M. The began an unsuccessful fire, and hoifted the national flag, and in about ten or twelve minutes ftruck to his majesty's colours. Feb. 11. Sunday a letter was received from Commodore Ford, commander in chief at Jamaica, inclosing an account from Capt. Rowley, of the Penelope frigate, of the capture of the Inconftant French frigate by the Penelope and Iphigenia, after the exchange of a few broadfides, in which the Penelope had one man killed and feven wounded, (among the latter is Mr. John Allen, midihipman;) and the Inconftant had fix killed, (amongst whom was the first lieutenant,) and the captain and twenty-three wounded; three of whom are fince dead. From the gallant behaviour of Lieut. Malcolm, the officers, and fhip's company, Capt. Rowley fays, he has every reafon to flatter himself, that, had either of his majesty's frigates been fingle, they would have been equally fortunate in capturing her. The Antelope failed from Port Royal, Jamaica, Nov. 27-On the first of De.. cember, on the coast of Cuba, not far. up with the packet, and, having exchangP. M. when, the wind falling, the rowed ed feveral fhots, fheered off again. Du ring the night the frequently bore down, and fhot was fired on both fides. At five rowed up and grappled the Antelope on on Monday morning, it being calm, the the ftarboard fide, pouring in a broadfide, repulfed with great laughter; by this and made an attempt to board, which was broadfide, unfortunately, the mafter, Curtis, who commanded, fell, as did the fhip's fteward and a French gentleman, aid-de-camp to Monf. Loppenos, a paffenger, and the first mate, who was thot through the body; the command then devolved on the boatfwain, (for the fecond mate had died of the fever after their failing from Port Royal,) who, with the few brave men left, aflifted by the paffengers, repulfed repeated attempts to board, during a confiderable time the vellels were along-fide. The boattwain at last observing that they had cut their grapplings, and himself, and lafhed the privateer's fquarewere attempting to fheer off, ran aloft fail yard to the Antelope's fore-shrouds, and immediately pouring in a few vollies of small arms, which did great execution, the furvivors of the fchooner's crew called for quarter, which was immediately granted them. The prize was taken poffeffion of, and carried into Annotta Bay about eleven next morning. The Ant lope failed from Portugal with twenty-feven hands, but had four loft before the action by the fever, and then two unfit for duty; fo that reckoning four dead, two ill, and the doctor, who must neceffarily go to his quarters in the cockpit, they entered the engagement with only twenty men, befides the paflengers. The Atalanta was fitted out at Charlestown, mounted eight three-pounders, and carried fifty-fix men. Mr. Rodm, formerly of the navy, a passenger, fignalized himself. I The Citoyen, loaded with ftores for Pondicherry, is taken by Admiral Cornwallis, off Pondicherry. I 2 This appears to be the most gallant action that has happened during the war. The house of reprefentatives at Jamaica have voted five hundred guineas as a reward: two hundred to be paid to Curtis's widow, one hundred to Mitchell the first mate, one hundred to the boatswain, and and one hundred among the rest of the crew. The Hermione frigate has captured an American ship called the Rifing Sun, mounting twenty guns, fuppofed to have a great quantity of money on-board belonging to the French commiflary at St. Domingo, M. Santhonax, who has not yet been able to effect his escape. The Arab Packet, from Corunna to Falmouth, taken by the French, is retaken, and arrived in Mount's Bay. The Hyæna frigate is re-taken from the French in the Weft-Indies. Capt. George Murray, of La Nymphe, has taken and fent into Portfmouth, a brig called the Mary, Ifaac Cuttex mafter, from Bofton, laden with coffee, cotton, indigo, and fugar, bound to Havre-deGrace. The Sally letter of marque, belonging to Liverpool, has taken and carried into Scilly, a large American bark, laden with flour, &c. from Philadelphia to Brest, after a chace of five hours and a half. The Nyfus, Lieut. Abbott, has taken two large privateers which the fell in with and captured, twelve leagues to the westward of the Land's End, after a very fmart refiftance. They are two fightly veffels, one mounting fixteen guns, and the other twenty; and have done confiderable damage fince they were fitted out. The Prince of Wales letter of marque, Capt. Thompfon, has re-taken an Englith brig, and fent her for Oporto, which had been captured by a French man of war of feventy-four guns.-The Prince of Wales has alfo taken and carried into Dublin, a large French merchant-thip from Breft to Philadelphia, after a chace of fix hours. She likewife took two French fchooners, laden with brandy, which the fent into Waterford. His majesty's loop of war Zebra has captured the Swedish brig Die Alte Fraudthaft, Ichann Ohlfen, mafter, from Hamburgh, bound to Genoa, for having onboard property belonging to the French. The George, of Liverpool, mounting twenty-four guns, taken by a French frigate bound to North America, iş re The Ceres, Judas, from Guernsey, and Ant floop, of Cork, bound to Lisbon, taken by a French privateer, are re-taken by the Circe frigate. The Marianne, Halling, from Liverpool to the South Seas, taken by the Flora French frigate, is re-taken by the Concord frigate, and arrived at Falmouth. On the 28th of December a veflel belonging to London brought into Barba does a fhip from the South Fishery, under French colours, faid to be full. On the 3d of January his majesty's ship Beaulieu brought in a fhip from the South Fishery, under American colours. The schooner Le Courier, a prize to the King Grey, cut out of Ackeen, with a cargo of cotton and indigo, and five French gentlemen and two negroes onboard, is arrived at Port Royal, Jamaica. The American fhip Samfon, mountiug fixteen fix and four pounders, and manned with forty men, loaded with fugar, indigo, coffee, and cotton, and bound from Port-au-Prince to Baltimore, is taken by his majesty's fhip Penelope.-The Penelope has alfo taken the French fhip Le Rapporteur, of fourteen guns, and ninety men, loaded with fugar and coffee, and bound from Port-au-Prince to Bourdeaux. The American brig Juno, loaded with copper fugar-boilers, ftills, &c. and hav ing eight negroes and fix thousand dollars on board, from Port-au-Prince to the Havannah, is taken by the Alligator frigate, Capt. Affleck, and arrived at Port Royal. A gallant and defperate enterprize was fome time fince effected by a number of English failors, who had been taken prifoners by the French cruizers in the WeltIndies: about two hundred and fifty of them were confined at St. Marc, in the Bite of Leogane, and, exasperated by extreme ill treatment, they refolved to die or to gain their liberty; taking a favourable opportunity, they overpowered their guards, and then made towards the harbour, to feize a veffel which might convey them to Jamaica: they were oppofed by a large body of military and feveral hundreds of the inhabitants; a defperate conflict enfued: the tars bravely effected their object, and of their number nineteen were killed and fixteen wounded. The veffel which they cut out of the harbour, and which is arrived at Jamaica, is valued at forty thousand pounds. RISE AND PROGRES OF THE NATIONAL DEBT. "THIS HIS being a fubject of confiderable importance to every inha bitant of these kingdoms, we fhall endeavour to give as clear and comprehenfive a view of it as the bounds prescribed us will admit. In order to this, it may not be improper to refer back to the times that have gone before us, that we may the better difcover the nature of public revenues, the manner of their expenditure, and the causes of public debt. In that rude state of fociety which precedes the extenfion of commerce and the improvements of manufac tures, when thofe expenfive luxuries which commerce and manufactures can alone introduce are generally altogether unknown; the perfon who poffeffes a large revenue can spend or enjoy that revenue in no other way than by maintaining nearly as many people as it can maintain. Among our feudal ancestors, the long time during which eftates ufed to continue in the fame family fufficiently demonftrates the general difpofition of people to live within their income. Though the ruftic hofpitality conftantly exercifed by the great landholders may not to us in the prefent times feem confiftent with that order, which we are apt to confider as infeparably connected with good œconomy, yet we must certainly allow them to have been at least fo far frugal as not commonly to have spent their whole income. Some part of this money, perhaps, they spent in purchafing the few objects of vanity and luxury with which the circumftances of the times could furnish them; but fome part of it they feem commonly to have hoarded. They could not well indeed do any thing elfe but hoard whatever money they saved. To trade was difgraceful to a gentleman; and to lend money at interest, which at that time was confidered as ufury and prohibited by law, would have been ftill more fo. The fame difpofition to fave and to hoard prevailed in the fovereign as well as in the fubjects. Among nations to whom commerce and manuVOL. I. No. 12. factures are little known, the fovereign is in a fituation which naturally difpofes him to the parfimony requisite for accumulation. In that fituation the expence even of a fovereign cannot be directed by that vanity which delights in the gaudy finery of a court. The ignorance of the times affords but few of the trinkets in which that finery confifts. Standing armies are not then neceffary; fo that the expence even of a fovereign, like that of any other great lord, can be employed in fcarce any thing but bounty to his tenants and hofpitality to his retainers. But bounty and hospitality very feldom lead to extravagance; though vanity almost always does. All the ancient fovereigns of Europe accordingly had treafures. Every Tartar chief in the present times is faid to be rich. In a commercial country abounding with every fort of expensive luxury, the fovereign, in the fame manner as almoft all the great proprietors in his dominions, naturally spends a great part of his revenue in purchasing thofe luxuries. His own and the neighbouring countries fupply him abundantly with all the coftly trinkets which compofe the fplendid but infignificant pageantry of a court. His ordinary expence becomes equal to his ordinary revenue, and it is well if it does not frequently exceed it. The amaffing of treasure can no longer be expected; and, when extraordinary exigencies require extraordinary expences, he muft neceffarily call upon his fubjects for an extraordinary aid. The late king of Pruffia and his father are the only great princes of Europe who, fince the death of Henry IV. of France in 1610, are fuppofed to have amaffed any confiderable treasure. The parfimony which leads to accumulation has become almost as rare in republican as in monarchical governments. The Italian republics, the United Provinces of the Netherlands, are all in debt. The canton of Berne is the fingle republic in Europe which has amaffed any confiderable treafure. The other Swifs republics have not Y y Th The taste for some fort of pageantry, for fplendid buildings at least and other public ornaments, frequentlyprevails as much in the apparently fober fenate-houfe of a little republic as in the diffipated court of the greateft king. The want of parfimony in time of peace impofes the neceffity of contracting debt in time of war. When war comes, there is no money in the treasury but what is neceffary for carrying on the ordinary expence of the Peace establishment. In war an eftablishment of three or four times that expence becomes neceffary for the defence of the ftate, and confequently a revenue three or four times greater than the peace-revenue. Suppofing that the fovereign fhould have, what he fcarcely ever has, the immediate means of augmenting his revenue in proportion to the augmentation of his expence; yet still the produce of the taxes, from which this increase of revenue must be drawn, will not begin to come into the treasury till perhaps ten or twelve months after they are impofed. But the moment in which war begins, or rather the moment in which it appears likely to begin, the army muff be augmented, the fleets must be fitted out, the garrifoned towns must be put into a pofture of defence; that army, that fleet, those garrifoned towns, muft be furnished with arms, ammunition, and provifions. An immediate and great expence must be incurred in that moment of immediate danger, which will not wait for the gradual and flow returns of the new taxes. In this exigency government can have no other refources but in borrowing. The fame commercial Itate of fociety which, by the operation of moral caufes, brings government in this manner into the neceffity of borrowing, produces in the fubjects both an ability and an inclination to lend. If it commonly brings along with it the neceffity of borrowing, it likewife brings along with it the facility of doing fo. A country abounding with merchants and manufacturers neceffarily abounds with a fet of people thro' whofe hands not only their own capi tals, but the capitals of all those who either lend them money or truft them with goods, país as frequently or more frequently than the revenue of private man, who without trade or bufinefs lives upon his income, paffes through his hands. The revenue of fuch a man can regularly pass through his hands only once in a year. But the whole amount of the capital and credit of a merchant who deals in a trade of which the returns are very quick, may fometimes pass through his hands two, three, or four, times in a year. A country abounding with merchants and manufacturers, therefore, neceffarily abounds with a set of people who have it at all times in their power to advance, if they choose to do fo, a very large fum of money to government. Hence the ability in the subjects of a commercial state to lend. The progrefs of the enormous debts which at prefent opprefs, and will in the long run probably ruin, all the great nations of Europe, has been pretty uniform. In England, after the Revolution, when new connections with Europe introduced a new fyftem of foreign politics, the expences of the nation, not only in fettling the new eftablishment, but in maintaining long wars, as principals, on the continent, for the fecurity of the Dutch barrier, reducing the French monarchy, fettling the Spanifh fucceffion, fupporting the house of Auftria, maintaining the liberties of the Germanic body, and other purposes, increased to an unusual degree infomuch, that it was not thought advifeable to raife all the expences of any one year by taxes to be levied within that year, left the unaccustomed weight of them fhould' create murmurs among the people. It was therefore the policy of the times to anticipate the revenues of their pofterity, by borrowing immenfe fums for the current fervice of the ftate, and to lay no more taxes upon the fubject than would fuffice to pay the annual intereft of the fums fo borrowed; by this means converting the principal debt into a new fpecies of property, transferable from one man to another at any time in any quantity. This fyftem indeed feems to have had its original in the ftate of Florence, A. D. 1344; which government then owed about 60,000l. fterling; and, being unable to pay it, formed the principal into an aggregate fum, called metaphorically a mount or bank, the fhares whereof were transferable like our stocks, with intereft at five per cent. the prices varying according to the exigencies of the state. This laid the foundation of what is called the national debt: for a few long annuities created in the reign of Cha. II. will hardly deferve that name. Nations, like private men, have generally begun to borrow upon what may be called perfonal credit, without affigning or mortgaging any particular fund for the payment of the debt; and, when this refource has failed them, they have gone on to borrow upon affignments or mortgages of par ticular funds. What is called the unfunded debt of Great Britain is contracted in the former of thofe two ways. It confifts partly in a debt which bears, or is fuppofed to bear, no intereft, and which resembles the debts that a private man contracts upon account; and partly in a debt which bears intereft, and which refembles what a private man contracts upon his bill or promiffory note. The debts which are due either for extraordinary fervices, or for fervices either not provided for or not paid at the time when they are performed; part of the extraordinaries of the army, navy, and ordnance; the arrears of fubfidies to foreign princes; thofe of feamens wages, &c. ufually conftitute a debt of the first kind. Navy and exchequer-bills, which are iffued fometimes in payment of a part of fuch debts, and fometimes for other purposes, conftitute a debt of the fecond kind; exchequer-bills bearing interest from the day on which they are iffued, and navy-bills fix months after they are iffued. The bank of England, either by voluntarily discounting thofe bills at their current value, or by agreeing with government for certain confiderations to circulate exchequer-bills, that is, to receive them at par, paying the intereft which happens to be due upon them, keeps up their value, and facilitates their circulation, and thereby frequently enables government to contract a very large debt of this kind. During the great recoinage in King William's time, when the bank of England thought proper to put a ftop to its ufual tranfactions, exchequer-bills and tallies are faid to have fold from twenty-five to fixty per cent. discount; owing partly, no doubt, to the fuppofed inftability of the new government established by the Revolution, but partly too to the want of the fupport of the bank of England. When this refource is exhaufted, and it becomes neceffary, in order to raife money, to affign or mortgage fome particular branch of the public revenue for the payment of the debt, government has upon different occafions done this in two different ways. Sometimes it has made this affignment or mortgage for a short period of time only, a year or a few years, for example; and fometimes for perpetuity. In the one cafe, the fund was fuppofed fufficient to pay within the limited time both principal and intereft of the money borrowed: in the other it was fuppofed fufficient to pay the interest only, or a perpetual annuity equiva lent to the intereft; government being at liberty to redeem at any time this annuity upon paying back the principal fum borrowed. When money was raised in the one way, it was faid to be raised by anticipation; when in the other, by perpetual funding, or, more fhortly, by funding. In the reign of King William, when the debt began to be amaffed, and during a great part of that of Queen Anne, before we had become fo familiar as we are now with the practice. of perpetual funding, the greater part of the new taxes were impofed but for a fhort period of time (for four, five, fix, or feven, years only), and a great part of the grants of every year confifted in loans upon anticipation of the produce of thofe taxes. The produce being frequently infufficient for paying within the limited term the principal and intereft of the money Y y 2 borrowed, |