Before this period, the principal, so far as I have been able to observe, the only taxes which in order to pay the interest of a debt had been imposed for perpetuity, were those for paying the interest of the money which had been advanced to government by the Bank and East India Company, and of what it was expected would be advanced, but which was never advanced, by a projected land bank. The bank fund at this time amounted to £3,375,027 17 s. 10½ d. for which was paid an annuity or interest of £206,501 13 s. 5 d. The East India fund amounted to £3,200,000 for which was paid an annuity or interest of £160,000; the bank fund being at six percent, the East India fund at five percent interest.
In 1715, by the first of George I c. 12 the different taxes which had been mortgaged for paying the bank annuity, together with several others which by this act were likewise rendered perpetual, were accumulated into one common fund called The Aggregate Fund, which was charged, not only with the payments of the bank annuity, but with several other annuities and burdens of different kinds. This fund was afterwards augmented by the third of George I c. 8 and by the fifth of George I c. 3 and the different duties which were then added to it were likewise rendered perpetual.
In 1717, by the third of George I c. 7. several other taxes were rendered perpetual, and accumulated into another common fund, called The General Fund, for the payment of certain annuities, amounting in the whole to £724,849 6 s. 10½ d.
In consequence of those different acts, the greater part of the taxes which before had been anticipated only for a short term of years, were rendered perpetual as a fund for paying, not the capital, but the interest only, of the money which had been borrowed upon them by different successive anticipations.