I must confess that there is a strange supineness, from long custom, crept into all ranks of men with regard to public debts, not unlike what divines so vehemently complain of with regard to their religious doctrines. We all own that the most sanguine imagination cannot hope either that this or any future ministry will be possessed of such rigid and steady frugality as to make any considerable progress in the payment of our debts, or that the situation of foreign affairs will, for any long time, allow them leisure and tranquillity for such an undertaking.​[30] What then is to become of us? Were we ever so good Christians and ever so resigned to Providence, this, methinks, were a curious question, even considered as a speculative one, and what it might not be altogether impossible to form some conjectural solution of. The events here will depend little upon the contingencies of battles, negotiations, intrigues, and factions. There seems to be a natural progress of things which may guide our reasoning. As it would have required but a moderate share of prudence when we first began this practice of mortgaging to have foretold, from the nature of men and of ministers, that things would necessarily be carried to the length we see, so now that they have at last happily reached it, it may not be difficult to guess at the consequences. It must, indeed, be one of these two events—either the nation must destroy public credit, or public credit will destroy the nation. It is impossible they can both subsist after the manner they have been hitherto managed, in this as well as in some other nations.