But nothing is more certain than that error and delusion cannot, by any human effort, be prolonged for a very long period. With the advent of the time when the interest to deceive has ceased, or a new generation of deceivers has succeeded, the whole fabric falls to pieces. As certainly and mercilessly as the vices or follies of preceding monarchs are portrayed by those who have succeeded to the inheritance of their results, are the ruinous consequences of former delusions in democratic Governments exposed by succeeding Administrations who find themselves hampered by their effects. Many a popular Nero is cast down from his pedestal, almost before the vital warmth has left his body; many a republican Necker is exposed by a republican Bailly, when he finds the public finances rendered desperate by the measures which had been pursued with the cordial approbation of the whole Liberal party in the state. It is the same with our present Chancellor of the Exchequer. He finds the public finances, in the midst of boasted commercial and manufacturing prosperity, in so deplorable a condition, that he is fain to lay the whole blame upon his predecessors; and, after deploring the extraordinary fact, that during twenty years of profound peace, Liberal government, and retrenching Administrations, we have not only made no reduction whatever in the public debt, but added twenty-seven millions to its amount, he very naturally and justly observes, “What should we say to a private individual who should conduct his affairs in this manner?” We have been so accustomed, during twenty years of Liberal and popular rule, to see every successive Administration live only from hand to mouth, and to be content if they can get over present difficulties, without bestowing a thought on the future, that the nation has almost forgotten what it was to have a prudent and foreseeing Government at the head of affairs: or rather, nearly the whole generations who have risen to manhood have come to think that such a system of government is impossible, and is to be ranked with the El Dorado of Sir Walter Raleigh, or the Utopia of Sir Thomas More. To enlighten their minds on this subject, we subjoin two Tables, showing what was done by the corrupt old Tory Governments—even during the anxieties and expenditure of a most protracted and costly war, or when the national finances were slowly recovering from its effects—to put the finances on a good footing, and lay, in present fortitude and sacrifice, a solid foundation for future relief and prosperity. TABLE I., showing the growth of the Money applied to the reduction of the Debt, and the Sums paid off from 1792 to 1815, being twenty-three years of war.