When, in the course of
the contest, they were conjoined, it was in a raw, an ill-cemented, an
unproductive, union. For the whole duration of the war, and long after,
the names and other outward and visible signs of approximation rather
augmented than diminished our insular feuds. They were rather the causes
of new discontents and new troubles than promoters of cordiality and
affection. The now single and potent Great Britain was then not only two
countries, but, from the party heats in both, and the divisions formed
in each of them, each of the old kingdoms within itself, in effect, was
made up of two hostile nations. Ireland, now so large a source of the
common opulence and power, and which, wisely managed, might be made much
more beneficial and much more effective, was then the heaviest of the
burdens. An army, not much less than forty thousand men, was drawn from
the general effort, to keep that kingdom in a poor, unfruitful, and
resourceless subjection.
Such was the state of the empire. The state of our finances was worse,
if possible. Every branch of the revenue became less productive after
the Revolution. Silver, not as now a sort of counter, but the body of
the current coin, was reduced so low as not to have above three parts in
four of the value in the shilling. In the greater part the value hardly
amounted to a fourth. It required a dead expense of three millions
sterling to renew the coinage. Public credit, that great, but ambiguous
principle, which has so often been predicted as the cause of our certain
ruin, but which for a century has been the constant companion, and often
the means, of our prosperity and greatness, had its origin, and was
cradled, I may say, in bankruptcy and beggary.
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