III

During the administration of Mr. Pelham, the interest of the public debt was reduced, or at least measures were taken for reducing it, from four to three percent; the sinking fund was increased, and some part of the public debt was paid off. In 1755, before the breaking out of the late war, the funded debt of Great Britain amounted to £72,289,673 On the 5th of January 1763, at the conclusion of the peace, the funded debt amounted to £122,603,336 8 s. 2¼ d. The unfunded debt has been stated at £13,927,589 2 s. 2 d. But the expense occasioned by the war did not end with the conclusion of the peace; so that though, on the 5th of January 1764, the funded debt was increased (partly by a new loan, and partly by funding a part of the unfunded debt) to £129,586,789 10 s. 1¾ d. there still remained (according to the very well informed author of the Considerations on the trade and finances of Great Britain ) an unfunded debt which was brought to account in that and the following year, of £9,975,017 12 s. ²¹⁵⁄₄₄ d. In 1764, therefore, the public debt of Great Britain, funded and unfunded together, amounted, according to this author, to £139,561,807 2 s. 4 d. The annuities for lives too, which had been granted as premiums to the subscribers to the new loans in 1757, estimated at fourteen years purchase, were valued at £472,500; and the annuities for long terms