Chapter XXVI: Part IV: Of Public Credit (6)

Perhaps in Change alley, where calculation is carried to the utmost pitch of refinement, even this eventual advantage to government might sink the value of the new 4 _per cents._ Let this be allowed. The answer is, that when people compute with such nicety, and comprehend in their calculations every circumstance the most minute, it is, I think, the interest of a state (whose views should extend far beyond the period of human life) to grant a premium upon such subscriptions more than sufficient to indemnify the subscribers, according to the most rigid calculation concerning their present advantage.

The smallest profit to be discovered by the nicest pen will engage the monied man to subscribe; consequently, the capitals of debts may be diminished, at a loss to the public almost imperceptible. And for this imperceptible loss in the mean time, the greatest national advantage may be obtained at a distant period.

It is now full time to close this book, which has swelled far beyond its due proportion. The subject of credit and debts is so connected with many questions relating to taxes, and to the application of their amount, that the connection of the subject would have suffered little in blending them together. But as I find it is a great relief to the memory to interpose, now and then, a pause; and as taxes were intended to be treated of by themselves, according to the plan I at first proposed, I shall make no alteration in it.

At the end of the first and second books, I subjoined a chapter of recapitulation; in the third book, this was supplied by a very full table of contents; here, because of the intimate connection of the subject of this and the following book, I shall refer the reader to the end of the volume, for a full recapitulation of both.

END OF THE FOURTH BOOK.

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