rd to
the limits of the world.

In such a nation, every year produces negotiations of peace, or
preparations for war, new schemes and different measures, by which
expenses are sometimes increased, and sometimes retrenched. In such a
nation, every thing is in a state of perpetual vicissitude; because its
measures are seldom the effects of choice, but of necessity, arising
from the change of conduct in other powers.

Nor is the multiplicity and intricacy of our domestick affairs less
remarkable or particular. It is too well known that our debts are great,
and our taxes numerous; that our funds, appropriated to particular
purposes, are at some times deficient, and at others redundant; and that
therefore the money arising from the same imposts, is differently
applied in different years. To assert that this fluctuation produces
intricacy, may be imagined a censure of those to whose care our accounts
are committed; but surely it must be owned, that our accounts are made
necessarily less uniform and regular, and such as must require a longer
time for a complete examination.

Whoever shall set his foot in our offices, and observe the number of
papers with which the transactions of the last twenty years have filled
them, will not need any arguments against this motion. When he sees the
number of writings which such an inquiry will make necessary to be
perused, compared, and extracted, the accounts which must be examined
and opposed to others, the intelligence from foreign courts which must
be considered, and the estimates of domestick expenses which must be
discussed; he will own, that whoever is doomed to the task of this
inquiry, would be happy in exchanging his condition with that of the
miners of America; and that the most resolute industry, however excited
by ambition, or animated by patriotism, must sink under the weight of
endless labour.

If it be considered how many are employed in the publick offices, it
must be confessed, either that the national treasure is squandered in
salaries upon men who have no employment, or that twenty years may be
reasonably supposed to produce more papers than a committee can examine;
and, indeed, if the committee of inquiry be not more numerous than has
ever been appointed, it may be asserted, without exaggeration, that the
inquiry into our affairs for twenty years past, will not be accurately
performed in less than twenty years to come; in which time those whose
conduct is now suppos