Wesley Corpus

Yet, comparatively speaking, it is not so great now, as it was in 1759. For if the nation is now (as has been clearly shown) very considerably richer, then it is better able to bear an equal or a greater load of national debt, than it was at that juncture. “To illustrate this by a familiar instance: A private trader, who has but an hundred pounds in the world, is greatly in debt if he owes but twenty pounds; and is in danger of stopping payment for want of cash, or of being crushed by some wealthy rival. But if he has a thousand pounds in stock, and owes two hundred, he is in far less danger. And if he has ten thousand pounds stock, and owes two thousand, he is in no danger; nay, he is a rich man. “Not that I would encourage the running any farther in debt. I only intend to show that our distresses, which raise such tragical exclamations, are more imaginary than real.” Thus far the Dean of Gloucester. And what can be more fair and candid than these reasonings? What can be more satisfactory to you who are of no party, but an honest inquirer after truth? Perhaps you lately heard a strange, broken, maimed account all on one side of the question, of debts without any credits to balance ! And what could you learn from this? Now you hear both sides, and thence may easily see what is the real state of the nation. And how much better is it, in all the preceding respects, than it was eighteen years ago ! What becomes then of all those passionate outcries concerning the “dreadful condition we are in,” when it undeniably appears, to every candid inquirer, that we have not been in so good a condition these fifty years! On how totally insufficient grounds is the contrary supposition built !