For the regulation of past accounts, I shall therefore propose such a mode, as men, temperate and prudent, make use of in the management of their private affairs, when their accounts are various, perplexed, and of long standing. I would therefore, after their example, divide the public debts into three sorts,--good, bad, and doubtful. In looking over the public accounts, I should never dream of the blind mode of the Exchequer, which regards things in the abstract, and knows no difference in the quality of its debts or the circumstances of its debtors. By this means it fatigues itself, it vexes others, it often crushes the poor, it lets escape the rich, or, in a fit of mercy or carelessness, declines all means of recovering its just demands. Content with the eternity of its claims, it enjoys its Epicurean divinity with Epicurean languor. But it is proper that all sorts of accounts should be closed some time or other,--by payment, by composition, or by oblivion. _Expedit reipublicae ut sit finis litium_. Constantly taking along with me, that an extreme rigor is sure to arm everything against it, and at length to relax into a supine neglect, I propose, Sir, that even the best, soundest, and the most recent dents should be put into instalments, for the mutual benefit of the accountant and the public. In proportion, however, as I am tender of the past, I would be provident of the future. All money that was formerly imprested to the two great _pay offices_ I would have imprested in future to the _Bank of England_. These offices should in future receive no more than cash sufficient for small payments. Their other payments ought to be made by drafts on the Bank, expressing the service. A check account from both offices, of drafts and receipts, should be annually made up in the Exchequer,--charging the Bank in account with the cash balance, but not demanding the payment until there is an order from the Treasury, in consequence of a vote of Parliament.