This proves that, even in London, the excess of taxes is not yet such as to create a retrograde effect, and it proves it in a very striking manner. Though there may, at first sight, appear something ludicrous in the idea of emigrating from the seventeenth to the nineteenth, from the reign of Queen Elizabeth to that of his present majesty, it is a perfectly fair comparison, and will hold good, examine it as much as one will. The common expression, (and a very significant one it is,) that one part of the country is a century behind another, or twenty years, or fifty years, is exactly the same idea, expressed in other words, for it is a comparison between the changes which a lapse of time makes in one case, and a removal of place in the other. The present times are then better to live in than those of Elizabeth, as London is better than any distant part of the country. That the ability of the nation to sustain a given burthen, for a certain number of years, is no proof of a permanent ability to support it, must be admitted, even if the same annual resources were to continue; but, that permanent ability becomes much less certain, when we consider that the annual resources are perpetually varying, that, therefore, they have so many uncertain quantities, that it is impossible to resolve the problem. As to the effect, with respect to the increasing the burthens of the people, that has been treated under the general head of taxation. Whether the money goes to pay for a ship of war, a regiment of soldiers, or the interest of loans, makes no difference to him who pays the tax; and, indeed, makes little to the general system of national economy, as, in every case, what is paid to the state is employed on unproductive labourers or idle people. That is to say, it is consumed, and never appears again. [end of page #238] National debt, then, so far as it increases the taxes of a country, is like any other national expenditure; and, in maintaining unproductive and idle people, it is also the same; but it has, in another point of view, a different effect, and that effect is an advantageous one. In every nation, the greatest part of the capital is employed, or, as it is called, sunk. Land, houses, machines, merchandize, &c. are the principal employments of capital. As those are transferred from one to another, or as the use or produce of them is paid for, by one to another, money is wanted occasionally; and, if there were no other employments, money must either be lying idle in some persons =sic= hands, till an employment could be found for it, or the possessor of it must begin some enterprise, and sink it himself.