Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/183

A.D.1702] reign, 1696, his ministers proposed the sure and bold scheme of creating a debt, that of forestalling the year's revenue by borrowing money upon state counters or exchequer bills, bearing interest, and secured upon supplies raised in succeeding sessions. That first war cost 80,000 Englishmen, and £36,000,000, of which the interest of £20,000,000 borrowed to support it, at 3½ per cent., has now cost this country more than £200,000,000. The war of the Spanish succession, just commencing at William's death, lasted seven years, and cost 250,000 Englishmen, and £62,500,000 of money, of which £32,500,000 was borrowed and added to the debt, and has cost this country in interest more than £150,000,000. We are still paying for that war alone, and our children will have to pay it after us £1,525,000 a year. With the accession of the Georges, the system of continental interference was pursued. We had to defend a much less important piece of land than Holland, namely, Hanover, and, as it turned out, at an infinitely greater cost.



By these first wars, and the system they established we went on to assist Hanover in fighting against Frederick, called the great of Prussia, and in fighting another war with Spain, which cost £54,000,000, and its interest has cost upwards of £100,000,000. The wars thus waged against France led her to retaliation, and she assisted the United States to deprive us of these states in a war which cost us £136,000,000, and the interest of which has cost us nearly £200,000,000. Thus, by endeavouring to save Holland originally, by this system of interference, we eventually lost America. Then came the great revolutionary war against France, in pursuance of this same system of continental interference, which cost us before Bonaparte was put down £2,220,000,000, a sum which actually stuns the imagination. In short, these wars, thus inaugurated by William III., and descending from each other by a clear logical succession, have cost us more than £3,500,000,000 in principal and interest, and 1,820,000 lives of our countrymen, besides the awful numbers that have fallen on the other side. The contemplation of this terrible picture of