ontinuance, and who artfully endeavour to impose that belief upon
others, I exhibit in the annexed table, the expense of each of the six
wars since the funding system began, as ascertained by ratio, and the
expense of the six wars yet to come, ascertained by the same ratio.

[Illustration: Table318]

* The actual expense of the war of 1739 did not come up to
the sum ascertained by the ratio. But as that which is the
natural disposition of a thing, as it is the natural
disposition of a stream of water to descend, will, if
impeded in its course, overcome by a new effort what it had
lost by that impediment, so it was with respect to this war
and the next (1756) taken collectively; for the expense of
the war of 1756 restored the equilibrium of the ratio, as
fully as if it had not been impeded. A circumstance that
serves to prove the truth of the ratio more folly than if
the interruption had not taken place. The war of 1739 ***
languid; the efforts were below the value of money et that
time; for the ratio is the measure of the depreciation of
money in consequence of the funding system; or what comes
to the same end, it is the measure of the increase of paper.
Every additional quantity of it, whether in bank notes or
otherwise, diminishes the real, though not the nominal value
of the former quantity.--_Author_

Those who are acquainted with the power with which even a small ratio,
acting in progression, multiplies in a long series, will see nothing to
wonder at in this table. Those who are not acquainted with that subject,
and not knowing what else to say, may be inclined to deny it. But it is
not their opinion one way, nor mine the other, that can influence the
event. The table exhibits the natural march of the funding system to its
irredeemable dissolution. Supposing the present government of England to
continue, and to go on as it has gone on since the funding system began,
I would not give twenty shillings for one hundred pounds in the funds to
be paid twenty years hence. I do not speak this predictively; I produce
the data upon which that belief is founded; and which data it is every
body's interest to know, who have any thing to do with the funds, or
who are going to bequeath property to their descendants to be paid at a
future day.

Perhaps it may be asked, that as governments or ministers proceeded by
no ratio in making