The only statesman, indeed, active or speculative, who did not share in the general delusion was Edmund Burke.

David Hume, undoubtedly one of the most profound political economists of his time, declared that our madness had exceeded the madness of the Crusaders.
Richard Coeur de Lion and Saint Lewis had not gone in the face of arithmetical demonstration.

It was impossible to prove by figures that the road to Paradise did not lie through the Holy Land; but it was possible to prove by figures that the road to national ruin was through the national debt.

It was idle, however, now to talk about the road; we had done with the road; we had reached the goal; all was over; all the revenues of the island north of Trent and west of Reading were mortgaged.

Better for us to have been conquered by Prussia or Austria than to be saddled with the interest of a hundred and forty millions.
[370] And yet this great philosopher--for such he was--had only to open his eyes, and to see improvement all around him, cities increasing, cultivation extending, marts too small for the crowd of buyers and sellers, harbours insufficient to contain the shipping, artificial rivers joining the chief inland seats of industry to the chief seaports, streets better lighted, houses better furnished, richer wares exposed to sale in statelier shops, swifter carriages rolling along smoother roads.
He had, indeed, only to compare the Edinburgh of his boyhood with the Edinburgh of his old age.