peace of seventeen years' continuance had taken no more than £8,328,354 17s. 11312d. from it. A war of less than nine years' continuance added £31,338,689 18s. 616d. to it.[1]
During the administration of Mr. Pelham, the interest of the public debt was reduced, or at least measures were taken for reducing it, from four to three per cent; the sinking fund was increased, and some part of the public debt was paid off. In 1755, before the breaking out of the late war, the funded debt of Great Britain amounted to £72,289,673. On the 5th of January, 1763, at the conclusion of the peace, the funded debt amounted to £122,603,336 8s. 2¼d. The unfunded debt has been stated at £13,927,589 2s, 2d. But the expense occasioned by the war did not end with the conclusion of the peace; so that though on the 5th of January, 1764, the funded debt was increased (partly by a new loan, and partly by funding a part of the unfunded debt) to £129,586,789 10s. 1¾d., there still remained (according to the very well informed author of the Considerations on the Trade and Finances of Great Britain) an unfunded debt, which was brought to account in that and the following year, of £9,975,017 12s. 21544d. In 1764, therefore, the public debt of Great Britain, funded and unfunded together, amounted, according to this author, to £139,516,807 2s. 4d. The annuities for lives, too, which had been granted as premiums to the subscribers to the new loans in 1757, estimated at fourteen years' purchase, were valued at £472,500; and the annuities for long terms of years, granted as premiums likewise, in 1761 and 1762, estimated at 27½ years' purchase, were valued at £6,826,875. During a peace of about seven years' continuance, the prudent and truly patriot adminis-
- ↑ See James Postlethwaite's "History of the Public Revenue."
