It was the general opinion in his time (not his own indeed, for he endeavoured to shew the fallacy of it) that money borrowed upon the anticipation of a fund, _raised and appropriated for the discharge of it_, was not a debt upon the state; because it did not diminish the former revenue. We have a remarkable instance of the prevalence of this opinion, in the famous memorial presented by M. Desmaretz to Philip Duke of Orleans, after the death of the late King of France; wherein he advances, that during seven campaigns, from 1708 to the peace of Rastad, while he had been at the head of the King’s finances, he had not increased the public debts by more than nine millions of livres capital: and yet when he came into the administration, in 1708, the King’s debts did not amount to 700 millions; and we have seen, that at the time of his death, they were upwards of 2000 millions. But Desmaretz did not reckon the difference of about 1300 millions; because he had settled them upon funds of his own creation. This was so much the language of the times, that no criticism was made upon it. It is remarkable, that Davenant, in giving an account of the debts of England, during the period of which he writes, that is, from the revolution down to the peace of Ryswick, hardly ever takes notice of the sums paid for interest upon them. The minds of men at that time were totally taken up with the payment of capitals; and providing these could be discharged in a few years, it was no matter, they thought, what they cost in the mean time. As long as nations at war observe the same policy in their methods of raising money, the ways in which they proceed are of the less importance: but when any one state makes an alteration, by which more money is thrown into their hands than they could formerly obtain; this circumstance obliges every other state to adopt the same method. Thus while Princes made war with the amount of their treasures and annual income, the balance of their power depended on the balance of such resources: when they anticipated their income on both sides, for a few years, the balance was in proportion still: when, afterwards, they adopted long funds and perpetual interest, the supplies increased; but still the balance was determined as formerly. The usefulness, therefore, of an inquiry into the principles of public credit, has not so much for its object to discover the interest of states in adopting one mode of credit preferably to another, as to discover the consequences of every one; and to point out the methods of making them severally turn out to the best account for the state, considered as a body politic by itself, and for the individuals which compose it.