Page:The reign of George VI - 1763.djvu/82

 earth, and another formidable kingdom: these successes secured him abroad, but at home all was confusion. The stopping payment of the interest of the public debt had thrown innumerable families into extreme indigence; yet the measure was absolutely necessary, and the very existence of the nation had been preserved by it. But as the war was now at an end, the parliament took under their consideration the state of the national debt; and, after a multitude of proposals, calculations, and debates, they agreed, by a small majority, that the interest, at the rate it then stood, was a burthen too great for the nation to bear; and appointed a committee to draw up a bill for reducing it. The preamble to this bill set forth the sad internal state of the nation—painted, in the strongest colours, the impossibility of paying the interest on the national funds—showed