What notions this author entertains we shall see presently; notions in my opinion very irrational, and extremely dangerous; and which, if they should crawl from pamphlets into counsels, and be realized from private speculation into national measures, cannot fail of hastening and completing our ruin.
This author, after having paid his compliment to the showy appearances of the late war in our favor, is in the utmost haste to tell you that these appearances were _fallacious_, that they were no more than an _imposition_ .-- I fear I must trouble the reader with a pretty long quotation, in order to set before him the more clearly this author's peculiar way of conceiving and reasoning: "Happily (the K.) was then advised by ministers, who did not suffer themselves to be dazzled by the glare of brilliant appearances; but, knowing them to be _fallacious_, they wisely resolved to profit of their splendor before our enemies should also _discover the imposition_ .-- The increase in the exports was found to have been occasioned chiefly by the demands of _our own fleets and armies_, and, instead of bringing wealth to the nation, was to be paid for by oppressive taxes upon the people of England.

While the British seamen were consuming on board our men of war and privateers, foreign ships and foreign seamen were employed in the transportation of our merchandise; and the carrying trade, so great a source of wealth and marine, _was entirely engrossed by the neutral nations_.

The number of British ships annually arriving in our ports was reduced 1756 sail, containing 92,559 tons, on a medium of the six years' war, compared with the six years of peace preceding it .-- The conquest of the Havannah had, indeed, stopped the remittance of specie from Mexico to Spain; but it had not enabled England to seize it: on the contrary, our merchants suffered by the detention of the galleons, as their _correspondents in Spain were disabled from paying them for their goods sent to America.

The loss of the trade to Old Spain was a further bar to an influx of specie_; and the attempt upon Portugal had not only deprived us of an import of bullion from thence, but the payment of our troops employed in its defence was a fresh drain opened for the diminution of our circulating specie .-- The high premiums given for new loans had sunk the price of the old stock near a third of its original value; so that the purchasers had an obligation from the state to repay them with an addition of 33 per cent to their capital.

Every new loan required new taxes to be imposed; new taxes must add to the price of our manufactures, _and lessen their consumption among foreigners_.