as premiums likewise, in 1761 and 1762, estimated at twenty-seven and a-half years purchase, were valued at £6,826,875. During a peace of about seven years continuance, the prudent and truly patriotic administration of Mr. Pelham was not able to pay off an old debt of six millions. During a war of nearly the same continuance, a new debt of more than seventy-five millions was contracted.
On the 5th of January 1775, the funded debt of Great Britain amounted to £124,996,086, 1:6¼d. The unfunded, exclusive of a large civil-list debt, to £4,150,236:3:11 7/8. Both together, to £129,146,322:5:6. According to this account, the whole debt paid off, during eleven years of profound peace, amounted only to £10,415,476:16:9 7/8. Even this small reduction of debt, however, has not been all made from the savings out of the ordinary revenue of the state. Several extraneous sums, altogether independent of that ordinary revenue, have contributed towards it. Amongst these we may reckon an additional shilling in the pound land tax, for three years; the two millions received from the East-India company, as indemnification for their territorial acquisitions; and the one hundred and ten thousand pounds received from the bank for the renewal of their charter. To these must be added several other sums, which, as they arose out of the late war, ought perhaps to be considered as deductions from the expenses of it. The principal are,