On the 31st of December 1697, the public debts of Great Britain, funded and unfunded, amounted to £21,515,742 13 s. 8½ d. A great part of those debts had been contracted upon short anticipations, and some part upon annuities for lives; so that before the 31st of December 1701, in less than four years, there had partly been paid off, and partly reverted to the public, the sum of £5,121,041 12 s. 0¾ d. ; a greater reduction of the public debt than has ever since been brought about in so short a period of time. The remaining debt, therefore, amounted only to £16,394,701 1 s. 7¼ d.
In the war which began in 1702, and which was concluded by the treaty of Utrecht, the public debts were still more accumulated. On the 31st of December 1714, they amounted to £53,681,076 5 s. ⁶¹⁄₁₂ d. The subscription into the South Sea fund of the short and long annuities increased the capital of the public debts, so that on the 31st of December 1722, it amounted to £55,282,978 1 s. 3⅚ d. The reduction of the debt began in 1723, and went on so slowly that, on the 31st of December 1739, during seventeen years of profound peace, the whole sum paid off was no more than £8,328,354 17 s. ¹¹³⁄₁₂ d. the capital of the public debt at that time amounting to £46,954,623 3 s. ⁴⁷⁄₁₂ d.
The Spanish war, which began in 1739, and the French war which soon followed it, occasioned a further increase of the debt, which, on the 31st of December 1748, after the war had been concluded by the treaty of Aix la Chapelle, amounted to £78,293,313 1 s. 10¾ d. The most profound peace of seventeen years continuance had taken no more than £8,328,354 17 s. ¹¹³⁄₁₂ d. from it. A war of less than nine years continuance added £31,338,689 18 s. 6⅙ d. to it.