Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/356

348 the former war; and to have continued our land and malt tax, with those others which have since been mortgaged: these, with some additions, would have made up such a sum, as with prudent management might, I suppose, have maintained a hundred thousand men by sea and land; a reasonable quota in all conscience for that ally, who apprehended least danger, and expected least advantage. Nor can we imagine that either of the confederates, when the war began, would have been so unreasonable as to refuse joining with us upon such a foot, and expect that we should every year go between three and four milllons in debt, (which hath been our case) because the French could hardly have contrived any offers of a peace so ruinous to us, as such a war. Posterity will be at a loss to conceive, what kind of spirit could possess their ancestors, who, after ten years suffering, by the unexampled politicks of a nation maintaining a war by annually pawning itself; and during a short peace, while they were looking back with horrour on the heavy load of debts they had contracted, universally condemning those pernicious counsels which had occasioned them; racking their invention for some remedies or expedients to mend their shattered condition; I say, that these very people, without giving themselves time to breathe, should again enter into a more dangerous, chargeable, and extensive war, for the same, or perhaps agreater period of time, and without any apparent necessity. It is obvious in a private fortune, that whoever annually runs out, and continues the same expenses, must every year mortgage a greater quantity of land than he did before; and as the debt doubles and trebles upon