CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF TREATIES.

(Continued from Vol. p. 502.)

1750 October 5: Treaty between England and Spain, by which England renounced the Assiento contract for the supply of slaves, included in the peace of Utrecht, in

1713.

1755 June 8: Commencement of war by the English, by the attack on two French frigates in America.

1756 January 16: Treaty of alliance between Prussia and England. Hanover put under the safeguard of the King of Prussia.

1756 May 1: Alliance between Austria and France, concluded at Versailles.

1756 June 9: War formally declared by France against England.

1756 August 17: Saxony invaded by Frussia. Beginning of the Seven Years' War.

1756 September 30: War between Austria and Prussia.

1757 July 17: War between Great Britain and Austria.

1757 August 24: Hostilities commenced between Sweden and Prussia.

1757 September 10: Convention of Closterseven.

1757 October 22: Treaty of peace concluded between the province of Pennsylvania, and the Delaware and the Shawanee Indians.

1761 August 15: The Family Compact between the different branches of the House of Bourbon, signed at Paris.

1762 January 23: War declared by England against Spain, in consequence of the Family Compact.

1762 May 1: The Spanish and French invade Portugal, and an army sent from England to assist the Portuguese.

1762 May 5: Peace of Petersburg, between Russia and Prussia. Russia restored all her conquests to Prussia.

1762 May 22: Peace of Hamburg, between Sweden and Prussia.

1762 May 23: War declared by Portugal against Spain.

1762 November 3: Preliminaries of Peace signed at Fontainebleau, between France and England.

1763 February 10: Peace of Paris concluded between France, Spain, Portugal, and Great Britain. Cession of Canada by France, and of Florida by Spain.

1763 February 15: Peace of Hubertsberg, between Prussia, Austria, and Saxony. End of the Seven Years' War.

1765 March 22: American Stamp Act.

1768 February 24: Treaty of Warsaw, between Russia and Poland.

1768 October: War between Russia and Turkey.

1771 January 22: A treaty concluded between Great Britain and Spain, confirming the possession of the Falkland Islands to the former.

1772 February 17: Secret convention for the partition of Poland by Russia and Prussia. 1772 August 5: Treaty of Petersburg for the same object, between Austria, Russia, and Prussia.

1773 December 21: The disturbances in America began with the destruction of the tea on board three sloops at Boston.

1774 July 21: Peace of Kutchuk kainarji, between Russia and Turkey. Crimea declared independent, Azoph ceded to Russia, and freedom of commerce and navigation of the Black Sea granted.

1774 December 5: Congress opened at Philadelphia.

1775 April 19: Hostilities commenced at Lexington, North America, between Great Britain and the Colonists.

1775 May 20: The American provinces sign articles of union and alliance.

1776 July 4: American declaration of independence.

1778 February 6; A treaty ratified with the states of America, by France, who acknowł

edged their independence.

1778 March 13: War between England and France.

1779 May 13: Peace of Teschen ratified between Austria, Saxony, and Prussia.

1779 July 13; Spain joins the war against England.

1780 December 20: War declared by Great Britain against Holland.

1780 July 9 and August 1: First conventions for the armed neutrality, between Russia, Denmark, and Sweden. December 24, the States-General acceded.

1781 May 8: King of Prussia accedes to the armed neutrality.

1781 October 9: The Emperor of Germany joins the armed neutrality

1782 November 30: The independence of America acknowledged by England, and preliminaries of peace signed at Paris between the British and American Commissioners.

1783 January 20: Preliminary articles of peace signed at Versailles, between Great Britain, Spain, and France.

1783 January 20; Crimea passes under the dominion of Russia.

1783 September 2: Preliminaries of peace between Great Britain and Holland, signed at Paris.

1783 September 3; Definitive treaty of peace between Great Britain and America, signed at Paris; when the latter power was admitted to be a sovereign and independent State. On the same day, the definitive treaty was signed at Versailles between Great Britain, France, and Spain.

1784 June 20: Definitive treaty of peace between Great Britain and Holland, signed at

Paris.

604

GROWTH OF THE NATIONAL Debt.

THE present Funded Debt may be considered to have its root in the iniquitous measure
of shutting up the Exchequer in 1672, when the revenue pledged for the payment of loans,
amounting to £1,328,000, was appropriated to other purposes, and that principal sum was
never redeemed. Interest was duly paid till 1684, and was then withheld. But an Act of
Parliament was passed in 1699, by which, after 1705, the creditors were to receive interest
at 3 per cent. upon the original amount, to be redeemed whenever the Government should
pay a moiety thereof. That unredeemed moiety of £660,263 is a part of the present debt;
and at the Revolution there was about £400,000 outstanding debt in the shape of loans
and arrears.

A General Abstract of the Funded and Unfunded Capital of the National Debt of
Great Britain and Ireland, and of the charge for Interest and Management, has been
recently printed by order of the House of Commons. It must be borne in mind, that
although we speak of Capital and Interest, the Public Debt consists not in Capital but in
Annuities-that the State, having borrowed a principal sum from time to time, guarantees
certain payments in the shape of perpetual or terminable annuities, without any engage-
ment to replace the principal represented by such a General Abstract of the National
Debt. We give the results of this abstract, separating the Return into periods concurrent
with marked eras of history; and distinguishing the years of war and the years of peace.
In the progress of our historical narrative, we have noticed how the amount of Interes
has been reduced, by the judicious measures of sir Robert Walpole, and by those of Mr.
Pelham in 1749-

WILLIAM AND MARY; WILLIAM III.; ANNE.

GROWTH OF THE NATIONAL DEBT.

605

GEORGE I. AND II.-From the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle.

Peace.

GEORGE II. AND 111.-From the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle to the Peace of Paris.

Interest and
Annuities.

Unredeemed

Capital.