He procurado, en el Libro Cuarto, explicar, tan plena y distintamente como me ha sido posible, esas diferentes teorías y los principales efectos que han producido en diferentes edades y naciones.
To explain in what has consisted the revenue of the great body of the people, or what has been the nature of those funds, which, in different ages and nations, have supplied their annual consumption, is the object of these Four first Books.
The Fifth and last Book treats of the revenue of the sovereign, or commonwealth. In this book I have endeavoured to show;
- first, what are the necessary expenses of the sovereign, or commonwealth; which of those expenses ought to be defrayed by the general contribution of the whole society; and which of them, by that of some particular part only, or of some particular members of it:
- secondly, what are the different methods in which the whole society may be made to contribute towards defraying the expenses incumbent on the whole society, and what are the principal advantages and inconveniencies of each of those methods:
- and, thirdly and lastly, what are the reasons and causes which have induced almost all modern governments to mortgage some part of this revenue, or to contract debts, and what have been the effects of those debts upon the real wealth, the annual produce of the land and labour of the society.