Page:The wealth of nations, volume 3.djvu/362

 £9,177,967 15s. 4d.; the greatest loan which at that time had ever been made.

Before this period, the principal, so far as I have been able to observe, the only taxes which in order to pay the interest of a debt had been imposed for perpetuity, were those for paying the interest of the money which had been advanced to government by the Bank and East India Company, and of what it was expected would be advanced, but which was never advanced, by a projected land bank. The bank fund at this time amounted to £3,375,027 17s. 10½d., for which was paid an annuity or interest of £206,501 13s. 5d. The East India fund amounted to £3,200,000, for which was paid an annuity or interest of £160,000; the bank fund being at six per cent, the East India fund at five per cent interest.

In 1715, by the 1st of George I., chap. 12, the different taxes which had been mortgaged for paying the bank annuity, together with several others which by this act were likewise rendered perpetual, were accumulated into one common fund called The Aggregate Fund, which was charged, not only with the payments of the bank annuity, but with several other annuities and burdens of different kinds. This fund was afterward augmented by the 3d of George I., chap. 8, and by the 5th of George I., chap. 3, and the different duties which were then added to it were likewise rendered perpetual.

In 1717, by the 3d of George I., chap. 7, several other taxes were rendered perpetual, and accumulated into another common fund, called The General Fund, for the payment of certain annuities, amounting in the whole to £724,849 6s. 10½d.

In consequence of those different acts, the greater part