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For some time after the conclusion of the late war, not only

private people of the best credit, but some of the greatest

companies in London, commonly borrowed at five per cent. who,

before that, had not been used to pay more than four, and four

and a half per cent. The great accession both of territory and

trade by our acquisitions in North America and the West Indies,

will sufficiently account for this, without supposing any

diminution in the capital stock of the society. So great an

accession of new business to be carried on by the old stock, must

necessarily have diminished the quantity employed in a great

number of particular branches, in which the competition being

less, the profits must have been greater. I shall hereafter have

occasion to mention the reasons which dispose me to believe that

the capital stock of Great Britain was not diminished, even by

the enormous expense of the late war.