n this thick night of terrors which he has
thought fit to spread about us. If every one of them, which, attended
with success, would signify anything to our revenue, can have no effect
but to add to our distractions and dangers, we shall be if possible in a
still worse condition from his projects of cure, than he represents us
from our original disorders.

Before we examine into the consequences of these schemes, and the
probability of these savings, let us suppose them all real and all safe,
and then see what it is they amount to, and how he reasons on them:--

Deficiency on land and malt, less by L37,000
Foundling Hospital 20,000
American Surveys 1,800
-------
L58,800

This is the amount of the only articles of saving he specifies: and yet
he chooses to assert,[81] "that we may venture on the credit of them to
reduce the standing expenses of the estimate (from 3,468,161_l._) to
3,300,000_l._"; that is, for a saving of 58,000_l._ he is not ashamed
to take credit for a defalcation from his own ideal establishment in a
sum of no less than 168,161_l._! Suppose even that we were to take up
the estimate of the "Considerations" (which is however abandoned in the
"State of the Nation"), and reduce his 75,000_l._ extraordinaries to the
original 35,000_l._, still all these savings joined together give us but
98,800_l._; that is, near 70,000_l._ short of the credit he calls for,
and for which he has neither given any reason, nor furnished any data
whatsoever for others to reason upon.

Such are his savings, as operating on his own project of a peace
establishment. Let us now consider them as they affect the existing
establishment and our actual services. He tells us, the sum allowed in
his estimate for the navy is "69,321_l._ less than the grant for that
service in 1767; but in that grant 30,000_l._ was included for the
purchase of hemp, and a saving of about 25,000_l._ was made in that
year." The author has got some secret in arithmetic. These two sums put
together amount, in the ordinary way of computing, to 55,000_l._, and
not to 69,321_l._ On what principle has he chosen to take credit for
14,321_l._ more? To what this strange inaccuracy is owing, I cannot
possibly comprehend; nor is it very material, where the logic is so bad,
and the pol