series, recurring series, the differential method, the method of increments, chances, and life annuities. Some of the subjects that occur in this part are dispatched with too much. haste. They are curious and interesting in their application, and they deserved peculiar attention. On the subject of chances and annuities, we are merely referred to De Moivre, and no notice is taken of Simpson, Dodson, Price, Maseres, Morgan, &c. The fourth part contains the application of algebra to geometry, the nature of curves, the construction of equations, and the general properties of curved lines. The second volume, the subject of which is Fluxions, is divided into 13 sections. The first contains the definition of a fluxion and the method of finding the fluxions of various quantities. The second comprehends those problems that relate to the maxima and minima of quantities, the method of drawing tangents to curves, and the investigation of the binomial theorem. The third illustrates the method of finding fluents in the more simple cases, as well as by logarithms and by circular arcs. The fourth shews how to find the areas of curves, the contents of solids, the length of curves, and the surfaces of solids. The fifth applies fluxions to the investigation of the centres of gravity, gyration, percussion, and oscillation. The sixth treats of the attraction of bodies; and the seventh of the motion of bodies attracted to a centre of force, and of the motion of bodies in resisting mediums. eighth explains the nature of 2d, 3d, &c. fluxions, and shews how to determine the point of contrary flexure of curves and the radius of curvature. The subject of the ninth is logarithms, and that of the tenth the fluxions of exponentials and the fluents of quantities. The eleventh contains the summation of series. The twelfth investigates the maxima and minima of curves; ard the thirteenth contains several miscellaneous propositions. The Mr. Vince has explained the nature and properties of fluxions in a very concise and yet perspicuous manner. The problems which he has selected for exemplifying the application of fluxions are not only curious, but important and useful; and we observe, amid the great variety of examples which the different sections of the volume contain, several that are original as well as interesting. It would be invidious to compare one volume of a general work, in which the authors professedly unite their labours, and co-operate in the completion of an useful undertaking, with another, and to pronounce on the decided superiority of either-but this we may be allowed to say, that, as they 04 advance advance, they improve; and we wish them life, health, and leisure, as well as sufficient encouragement, to finish their plan. ART. XV. An Appeal to the People of Great Britain, on the present alarming State of the Public Finances, and of Public Credit. By William Morgan, F. R. S. 8vo. pp. 87. Is. 6d. Debrett, 1797. TE HE talents of Mr. Morgan as a financier are well known, and this pamphlet has not in the least disappointed the high expectations which any work from his pen naturally excites in our minds. Finance is perhaps the driest and most fatiguing subject that an author can discuss; yet, without aiming at any other ornament than a smooth and didactic stile, Mr. Morgan has interspersed this essay with so many striking facts and interesting observations, that few who take it up will be unwilling to give it a complete perusal. He possesses, above any financial writer that we recollect, the art of representing with clearness the state of the finances of the country, and of disentangling them from the intricacy and confusion in which they appear enveloped, to those who have not made them their particular study. After some introductory observations, we find in p. 8. a statement, shewing the comparative expence of the War-establishment at different periods, and distinguishing the sums that were expended with the previous consent, from those that were expended without the previous consent, of Parliament. Here then we see the progress of an abuse, which, after having increased by imperceptible degrees during half a century, has advanced from the beginning of the seven years war with a rapidity which threatens the utter annihilation of our rights and property. It might however have been expected in the present war, where the estimates have so far surpassed all that ever preceded them, that the extraordinaries would have been proportionably moderate; but the enormity of the one is no security against a greater enormity in the other, and the administration of our affairs in the last year has been distinguished, for the first time in the annals of this country, by a far greater expenditure without than with the previous consent of Parliament. Nay, the abuse in this year is aggravated by the cir cumstance of its having increased in a more tremendous degree than ever, while the estimated expences in it were nearly one million less than they had been in the preceding year. If this course is to be still pursued; or, in other words, if the estimates are to be continually reduced in proportion as the extraordinaries are increased, the public expenditure will soon become entirely subject to the discretion of the Minister, while Parliament will have no other share in the management of it than to vote the payment of those sums which have been squandered without their sanction or controul. But this evil is not injurious to Parliament only; it extends its pernicious effects to the whole body of the nation; for by giving them false statements of the expences of the year, they are led to acquiesce in the continuance of the war, and being thus enticed by one delusion after another, they are prevented from perceiving their ruin till it is too late to avoid it.' The amount of the bills drawn on the Treasury is the next subject of Mr. M.'s animadversion. Before the commencement of the seven years war, there is hardly a trace to be found of any such bills in the Journals of Parliament. During the whole of that war they amounted to 39,000/ nearly; and from its conclusion to the beginning of the American war they amounted on an average to about 32,000l. per annum. In the course of the American war, when abuses of every kind had become more flagrant and enormous than ever, these bills had gradually increased so as at last to exceed 100,000l. per annum, and, in conse quence, to excite the alarm and indignation of the friends of liberty and and public œconomy. But, compared with its tremendous growth in the present war, the evil appears in that period to have only been in its infancy. In the year 1755, when this expensive correspondence with the Treasury seems to have begun, the whole amount of the bills drawn by the governors did not exceed 850%. In the year 1756, they were 1969. In the year 1776, they had risen to 90,909. What they were in the last year, or 1796, may be learned from the following statement: Bills drawn on the Treasury in the year 1796, by the Governor of Guernsey Dominica Jamaica Nova Scotia Bahama Islands St. Domingo Corsica Bermuda St. Vincent's Gibraltar St. Kitt's, Tobago, &c. £.9,016 59,096 4,743 6,184 20,804 1,181,020 57,764 8,421 8,033 5,655 4,070 £.1,364,806 The extraordinary services which required these unprecedented demands are neither stated nor known. The expences, in the present instance, have been incurred not only without the previous consent of Parliament, but even without the consent or knowledge of the Treasury; and the nation, in this growing profusion of the gover nors, enjoys the consoling prospect of soon having as many Chancellors of the Exchequer as it has foreign settlements and dependencies. Considered in this light, it is perhaps a fortunate circumstance that our conquests, particularly in the West Indies, have been so very inadequate to our expences; for if the possession of a narrow neck of land in St. Domingo has obliged the governor of that district to expend above 1,100,000l. on the extraordinaries in his single department, what must have been the amount of that expenditure, if the whole island had been in our possession*? But this discretionary power of drawing upon the Treasury is not confined to the governors alone; the same privilege is assumed by the military commanders, the commissaries, the deputy commissaries, the deputy paymasters, and by almost every other officer who is employed in the public service. The following articles are selected, in order to give some idea of the enormity of this evil: * Exclusive of these immense drafts of the governor in the last year, about eleven hundred thousand pounds have been drawn by the commander, the commissary, and other officers in this destructive island.' • Bills • Bills drawn on the Treasury in the year 1796*. By the military commanders Deputy-paymasters Presidents of the different councils Commissaries-general Deputy commissaries Public treasurers of St. Vincent's and Grenada £.101,694 105,636 7,058 1,705,776 502,145 22,304 L.2,444,613' In page 20, is a statement shewing that the Minister augmented the national debt 3,632,750. by funding the navy bills in 1795 and 1796, on terms extravagantly profitable to the holders of them; and in p. 29 we find the following *The whole amount of the bills drawn upon the Treasury in 1796, exclusive of those drawn for wheat for the Emperor, and for the Prince of Conde's army, is, From the Windward and Leeward Islands St. Domingo Corsica and the Mediterranean Jersey, Guernsey, and Alderney St. Vincent and Grenada The Continent, by Commissary Watson's deputies By the deputy commissary to the army under the .723,384 2,211,069 435,367 60,179 16,930 Colonel Nesbitt, inspector-general of foreign corps 187,113 Toulonese, &c. |