Page:The reign of George VI - 1763.djvu/42

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16
THE REIGN

five hundred thousand pounds, this was paid off; and with a liberality boundless, perhaps, in its consequences, dangerous, they augmented that branch of the grants half a million yearly; so that the civil list was now two millions a year: a prodigious sum! increased by degrees for near four centuries: but what made this act of generosity imprudent to the highest degree, was their settling it for life; it is true, their opinion of their new Sovereign was not groundless, but dangerous precedents ought never to be established. Nothing was of greater importance than their debates on the public debt: the amount of it was astonishing; although the fatal year thirty-four[1] had spunged eighty millions of it, it was now above two hundred and ten millions, the interest of which enormous sum alone amounted to eight millions five hundred

  1. 1834.

thousand