That we are without treasure, and that our trade, by which only our
funds can be supplied, has lately been very much diminished, is too
easy to prove in opposition to the specious display which the noble
lord, who spoke last, has been pleased to make of the exuberance of
our wealth.
If the abundance of our riches be such as it has been represented, why
are no measures formed for the payment of the publick debts? of which
no man will say, that they are not in themselves a calamity, and the
source of many calamities yet greater; of which it cannot be denied,
that they multiply dependence by which our constitution may sometimes
be endangered. Why are those debts not only unpaid, but increased by
annual additions to such a height, that the payment of them must soon
become desperate, and the publick sink under the burden?
That our trade, my lords, and by consequence our wealth, is of late
diminished, may be proved beyond controversy, even to those whose
interest it is not to believe it, and upon whom, therefore, it cannot
be expected, that arguments will have a great effect. The produce of
the customs was the last year less by half a million than the mean
revenue; and as our customs must always bear a certain proportion to
trade, we may form an indisputable estimate from them of its increase
or its decline.
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