Though a resolution should be formed by the legislature never to impose any tax which hurts commerce and discourages industry, it will be impossible for men, in subjects of such extreme delicacy, to reason so justly as never to be mistaken, or amidst difficulties so urgent, never to be seduced from their resolution. The continual fluctuations in commerce require continual alterations in the nature of the taxes, which exposes the legislature every moment to the danger both of wilful and involuntary error; and any great blow given to trade, whether by injudicious taxes or by other accidents, throws the whole system of the government into confusion. But what expedient is the public now to fall upon, even supposing trade to continue in the most flourishing condition, to support its foreign wars and enterprises, and to defend its own honour and interests or those of its allies? I do not ask how the public is to exert such a prodigious power as it has maintained during our late wars, where we have so much exceeded, not only our own natural strength, but even that of the greatest empires. This extravagance is the abuse complained of, as the source of all the dangers to which we are at present exposed. But since we must still suppose great commerce and opulence to remain even after every fund is mortgaged, those riches must be defended by proportionable power, and whence is the public to derive the revenue which supports it? It must plainly be from a continual taxation of the annuitants, or, which is the same thing, from mortgaging anew on every exigency a certain part of their annuity, and thus making them contribute to their own defence and to that of the nation; but the difficulties attending this system of policy will easily appear, whether we suppose the king to have become absolute master or to be still controlled by national councils, in which the annuitants themselves must necessarily bear the principal sway.