families. Were there no funds great merchants would have no expedient for realizing or securing any part of their profit but by making purchases of land, and land has many disadvantages in comparison of funds. Requiring more care and inspection, it divides the time and attention of the merchant; upon any tempting offer or extraordinary accident in trade, it is not so easily converted into money; and as it {p88} attracts too much, both by the many natural pleasures it affords and the authority it gives, it soon converts the citizen into the country gentleman. More men, therefore, with large stocks and incomes, may naturally be supposed to continue in trade where there are public debts; and this, it must be owned, is of some advantage to commerce by diminishing its profits, promoting circulation, and encouraging industry.
But, in opposition to these two favourable circumstances, perhaps of no very great importance, weigh the many disadvantages which attend our public debts in the whole interior economy of the state; you will find no comparison between the ill and the good which result from them.
First, it is certain that national debts cause a mighty confluence of people and riches to the capital, by the great sums which are levied in the provinces to pay the interest of those debts; and perhaps, too, by the advantages in trade above mentioned, which they give the merchants in the capital above the rest of the kingdom. The question is, whether, in our case, it be for the public interest that so many privileges should be conferred on London, which has already arrived at such an enormous size and seems still increasing? Some men are apprehensive of the consequences. For my part, I cannot forbear thinking that though the head is undoubtedly too big for the body, yet that great city is so happily situated that its excessive bulk causes less inconvenience than even a smaller capital to a greater kingdom. There is more difference between the prices of all provisions in Paris and Languedoc than between those in London and Yorkshire.