Page:The reign of George VI - 1763.djvu/42

 five hundred thousand pounds, this was paid off; and with a liberality boundless, perhaps, in its consequences, dangerous, they augmented that branch of the grants half a million yearly; so that the civil list was now two millions a year: a prodigious sum! increased by degrees for near four centuries: but what made this act of generosity imprudent to the highest degree, was their settling it for life; it is true, their opinion of their new Sovereign was not groundless, but dangerous precedents ought never to be established. Nothing was of greater importance than their debates on the public debt: the amount of it was astonishing; although the fatal year thirty-four had spunged eighty millions of it, it was now above two hundred and ten millions, the interest of which enormous sum alone amounted to eight millions five hundred