ABSTRACT
A national debt has been said to bind the public creditors more firmly to the government, and make them its natural supporters by a sense of common interest; and so it does, beyond all doubt. But, as this common interest may attach equally to a bad or a good government, there is just as much chance of its being an injury, as a benefit to a nation. Public credit is the confidence of individuals in the engagements of the ruling power, or government. Public credit affords such facilities to public prodigality, that many political writers have regarded it as fatal to national prosperity. By the establishment of sinking-funds, well-ordered governments have found means to extinguish and discharge their redeemable debt. A sinking-fund is a complete delusion and a fortiori, when it borrows more than it redeems, as England has constantly done, since the year 1793 to the present time.
