onnected with commerce and adventure.

To provide for all those accidents, and whatever else may befall, I take
the number of persons who, at one time or other of their lives, after
fifty years of age, may feel it necessary or comfortable to be better
supported, than they can support themselves, and that not as a matter of
grace and favour, but of right, at one-third of the whole number, which
is one hundred and forty thousand, as stated in a previous page, and
for whom a distinct provision was proposed to be made. If there be more,
society, notwithstanding the show and pomposity of government, is in a
deplorable condition in England.

Of this one hundred and forty thousand, I take one half, seventy
thousand, to be of the age of fifty and under sixty, and the other half
to be sixty years and upwards. Having thus ascertained the probable
proportion of the number of aged persons, I proceed to the mode of
rendering their condition comfortable, which is:

To pay to every such person of the age of fifty years, and until he
shall arrive at the age of sixty, the sum of six pounds per annum out of
the surplus taxes, and ten pounds per annum during life after the age of
sixty. The expense of which will be,

Seventy thousand persons, at L6 per annum L 420,000
Seventy thousand persons, at L10 per annum 700,000
-------
L1,120,000

This support, as already remarked, is not of the nature of a charity but
of a right. Every person in England, male and female, pays on an average
in taxes two pounds eight shillings and sixpence per annum from the day
of his (or her) birth; and, if the expense of collection be added, he
pays two pounds eleven shillings and sixpence; consequently, at the end
of fifty years he has paid one hundred and twenty-eight pounds fifteen
shillings; and at sixty one hundred and fifty-four pounds ten shillings.
Converting, therefore, his (or her) individual tax in a tontine, the
money he shall receive after fifty years is but little more than the
legal interest of the net money he has paid; the rest is made up from
those whose circumstances do not require them to draw such support, and
the capital in both cases defrays the expenses of government. It is on
this ground that I have extended the probable claims to one-third of
the number of aged persons in the nation.--Is it, then, better that