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punctual in his payments, but they could only be made by his putting his hand into your own pockets. It is folly to say, that the public debt of a nation is nothing, being only owing from the community at large to a part of it, and so returning in a circle; likening it to money due from members of the same family to one another, which, it was said, would leave the family just the same as if no such loans amongst themselves had existed. There might be some colour for this comparison if the whole population were public creditors in equal proportions; but what would become of the argument, if the lenders were not more than a twelfth part of the people, and if those who, when the taxes were brought back by government into circulation, received any part of them for services or from favour were but another twelfth part of them?—could it, in such a case, be maintained as a grave argument that the five-sixths of the public, paying the same as individuals, but receiving nothing in return for their equal contributions, were yet on a footing of equality with others
