The Cardinal, upon the supposition of an approaching peace, enters into the plan of paying off what had been contracted. He was resolved to preserve credit; for even at that time, the consequence of that great engine was sufficiently felt by this great man, to relieve the people, and to get rid of the debts. After a long detail of all the branches of the revenue, and after shewing how they might be improved, he draws out a general state of them, and of the debts affecting them; and then adds, “The total revenue of the kingdom amounts to near 80 millions;” (the silver was then at 27 livres 10 sols the marc fine, which, valued at 2_l._ 4_s._ sterling, makes the 80 millions worth above 6 millions sterling) “of which there is above 45 millions engaged for the debts. By good management I pretend that this immense load of debts, which seems to be the ruin of the King, shall turn out to his ease and opulence. Some imagine it would be a right measure to free the state entirely of her burthen, (a general spunge) but as she cannot, certainly, support all the burthen, so neither does reason dictate that she should be entirely set free.” No modern statesman could form a better judgment of things. The Cardinal’s ideas are just and profound; and it is astonishing how a man uninstructed by our experience should see so far into remote consequences. He next lays down different schemes for paying the debts, upon the return of peace and tranquillity. They are all arbitrary, more or less, according to the standard of English ideas of credit. But if we abstract from one expedient lately discovered, to wit, the diminishing the interest, and allowing the capitals to remain, I doubt if any modern statesman could discover any other than those which the Cardinal has proposed. A preliminary step to all his schemes was, _by an act of power_, to reduce the debts which bore a higher interest, to that of the 16 penny, or to a little more than 6 _per cent._ This method of reduction has constantly been and is still practised in France. Then he proposes to enter into an account with the creditors for the sums they had received; and to consider whatever they had obtained above the legal interest, as payments in part of the capital. This scheme however he rejects, upon examination. He says it is agreeable to equity; but that it would have the effect of totally destroying all credit for the future. The second expedient was, to reimburse the creditors the sums which they really paid for the annuities assigned to them: but that he found impossible to verify; because they had had the address to specify, in their contracts, sums far exceeding what they really paid. For this reason he rejects the second expedient also; and adopts a third, as the best plan of any for paying off the debts. This was, to value the capitals at what they then sold for in the market, before the peace was concluded.