It may perhaps be worth inquiring from what beginnings, and by what steps we have been brought into this desperate condition:  and in search of this, we must run up as high as the Revolution.

Most of the nobility and gentry who invited over the Prince of Orange, or attended him in his expedition, were true lovers of their country and its constitution, in Church and State; and were brought to yield to those breaches in the succession of the crown, out of a regard to the necessity of the kingdom, and the safety of the people, which did, and could only, make them lawful; but without intention of drawing such a practice into precedent, or making it a standing measure by which to proceed in all times to come; and therefore we find their counsels ever tended to keep things as much as possible in the old course.  But soon after, an under set of men, who had nothing to lose, and had neither borne the burthen nor heat of the day, found means to whisper in the king’s ear, that the principles of loyalty in the Church of England, were wholly inconsistent with the Revolution.[7] Hence began the early practice of caressing the dissenters, reviling the universities, as maintainers of arbitrary power, and reproaching the clergy with the doctrines of divine-right, passive obedience and non-resistance.[8] At the same time, in order to fasten wealthy people to the new government, they proposed those pernicious expedients of borrowing money by vast premiums, and at exorbitant interest:  a practice as old as Eumenes,[9] one of Alexander’s captains, who setting up for himself after the death of his master, persuaded his principal officers to lend him great sums, after which they were forced to follow him for their own security.

This introduced a number of new dexterous men into business and credit:  It was argued, that the war could not last above two or three campaigns, and that it was easier for the subject to raise a fund for paying interest, than to tax them annually to the full expense of the war.  Several persons who had small or encumbered estates, sold them, and turned their money into those funds to great advantage:  merchants, as well as other moneyed men, finding trade was dangerous, pursued the same method:  But the war continuing, and growing more expensive, taxes were increased, and funds multiplied every year, till they have arrived at the monstrous height we now behold them.  And that which was at first a corruption, is at last grown necessary, and what every good subject must now fall in with, though he may be allowed to wish it might soon have an end; because it is with a kingdom, as with a private fortune, where every new incumbrance adds a double weight.  By this means the wealth of the nation, that used to be reckoned by the value of land, is now computed by the rise and fall of stocks:  and although the foundation of credit be still the same, and upon a bottom that can never be shaken; and though all interest be duly