tenth of the signs be strongly marked. (Dom. Encyclo.).

DEATH (Apparent), is that state in which life is suspended, either because the body is not susceptible of external stimuli, or the interior organs are in a state similar to that of palsy.

Dr. Sturve, in his Practical Essay on the Art of recovering Suspended Animation, lately translated from the German, 12mo. London, 1801, exhibits the following view of all the

Symptoms of Life.-A slight degree of warmth in the region of the heart, accompanied with contractions and dilatations; a vibrating motion of the whole body, especially after being sprinkled with cold water; and a convulsive tension of some muscles.

Doubtful Signs.-Rigidity of the limbs, gradual smoothness of the skin, warmth and redness in particular parts of the body, hiccough, contraction and hissing of the nostrils, a tremulous motion of the whole body, mucus issuing from the nose during the artificial inflation of the lungs, a slight convulsive motion of the mouth, and a firm compression of the teeth.

More certain Signs.-Gentle throbbing of the heart; pulsation of the temporal arteries; a slight convulsive motion of the inner corner of the eye; vibration of the eye-ball; and almost imperceptible convulsions of the muscles surrounding the neck.

Distinct Signs of Life.-A gentle motion of the jaw; gradual redness of the lips and checks; contraction of the different muscles in the face; convulsive motions of the toes; sneezing; tremor of the whole body; vomiting; respiration interrupted by coughing and groaning.

DEATHBED. 8. (death and bed.) The bed to which a man is confined by mortal sickness (South).

DE'ATHFUL. a. (death and full.) Full of slaughter; destructive; murderous (Raleigh).

DEATHLESS. a. (from death.) Immortal; never-dying; everlasting (Boyle).

DE ÁTHLIKE. a. (death and like.) Resembling death; still; placid; calm (Crashaw).

DEATH'S-DOOR. s. (death and door.) A near approach to death (Taylor).

DEATHSMAN. 8. (death and man.) Executioner; hangman; headsman (Shakspeare).

DEATH-WATCH, in zoology, the name of the pediculus of old wood, a species of the termes. See TERMES.

Sir Thomas Brown long ago observed, that "he that could extinguish the terrifying ap. prehensions of the death-watch, might prevent the passions of the heart, and many cold sweats in grandmothers and nurses." With the feelings of these persons a well known satirist sports in the following lines:

"A wood-worm

With teeth or with claws, it will bite or will scratch,

And chambermaids christen this worm a death-watch:

Because like a watch it always cries click ; Then woe be to those in the house who are sick,

For sure as a gun they will give up the ghost,

If the maggot cries click, when it scratches the post."

To DEA'URATE. v. a. (deauro, Lat.) To gild, or cover with gold.

DEAURATION. s. (from deaurate.) The act of gilding.

DEBACCHA'TION. s. (debaechatio, Lat.) A raging; a madness.

To DEBA'R. v. a. (from bar.) To exclude; to preclude; to hinder (Raleigh).

To DEBARB. v. a. (from de and barba, Latin.) To deprive of his beard.

To DEBARK. v. a. (debarquer, Fr.) To disembark; to leave the ship.

To DEBA'SE. v. a. (from base.) 1. To reduce from a higher to a lower state (Locke). 2. To make mean; to degrade (Hooker). 3. To sink; to vitiate with meanness (Addison). 4. To adulterate; to lessen in value by base admixtures (Hale),

DEBA'SEMENT. s. (from debase.) The act of debasing; degradation (Government of the Tongue).

DEBA'SÉR. 8. (from debase). He that debases; he that adulterates; he that sinks the value of things.

DEBATABLE. a. (from debate.) Disputable; subject to controversy (Hayward).

DEBATE, s. (debat, French.) 1. A personal dispute; a controversy (Locke). 2. A quarrel; a contest (Dryden).

To DEBATE. v. a. (debatre, French.) To controvert; to dispute; to contest (Clarendon).

To DEBATE. v. n. 1. To deliberate (Shakspeare). 2. To dispute (Tatler).

DEBATEFUL. a. (from debate.) 1. Quarrelsome; contentious. 2. Contested; occasioning quarrels.

DEBATEMENT. s. (from delate.) Controversy; deliberation (Shakspeare).

DEBATER. s. (from debate.) A disputant; a controvertist.

To DEBAUCH. v. a. (desbaucher, Fr.) 1. To corrupt; to vitiate (Dryden). 2. To corrupt with lewdness (Shakspeare). 3. To corrupt by intemperance (Tillotson).

DEBAUCH. 3. 1. A fit of intemperance (Calamy). 2. Luxury; excess; lewdness (Dryden).

DEBAUCHE/E. s. (from desbauché, Fr.) A lecher; a drunkard (South).

DEBAUCHER. 8. (from debauch.) One who seduces others to intemperance or lewd

ness.

form;

DEBAUCHMENT. s. (from debauch.)

respect than all the laws against the exportation of specie that ever were made. 4. They promote circulation. The taxes which they occasion on the property of the rich, and the encouragement they hold out to the avaricious, prevent the accumulation of private hoards, and bring the whole money and personal property of a country into employment. 5. They attach the people to the government; for every individual creditor is led by his own interest to support the authority on the prosperity and existence of which the security of his property depends. The extent of this influence is so well understood, that it is not probable the government of any country where a public debt has once existed will ever permit it to be wholly paid off. 6. They encourage industry and the acquirement of property, by the facility with which individuals can lay out the surplus of their profits, without the risk of commercial bankruptcies, or the unavoidable expenses and small advantage which landed estates yield, and receive interest on their capital with certainty and regularity.

The disadvantages attending the system of incurring national debts are, ]. The facility of carrying on war being much increased; while large sums can be easily borrowed, it may frequently cause wars to be protracted, which would have been much sooner brought to a termination, had the governments engaged in them experienced the difficulty of defraying the whole expense by taxation. 2. The value of the property of those who have lent their money to the state, depending on the public tranquillity, inclines them to support indiscriminately the measures of the government, whatever may be their tendency: they are interested both to preach and practise apathy under every invasion of the constitution of their country. 3. The increase of taxes to pay the interest of the debt, produces an increase in the price of all the necessaries of life, and renders it difficult for the manufacturers of a state in which this system has been carried to a great height, to maintain a successful competition with the subjects of other powers, who may be in a less embarrassed situation. 4. When a nation is encumbered with debts, a pernicious spirit of gambling is encouraged; stock-jobbing, with all its train of evil consequences, necessarily arises; and a monied in terest is erected, the sole employment of which is that of drawing every possible advantage from the wants of individuals, or the necessities of the public. 5. Public debts have a very material influence on the distribution of property. Every new loan must be procured from persons already possessing considerable wealth, and such persons will not lend their money without the expectation of making a profit by it; the increase of the debt is, therefore, to them a source of increasing wealth, to which their share of the additional taxes attendant upon it bears but a small proportion; and if the government possesses no revenue but what is drawn from the people, whatever it pays to

one description of men must be drawn principally from others: thus the additional income acquired by monied men, by taking advantage of the necessities of the state, is, in fact, a portion of the income of their less affluent fellowcitizens, which is transferred to them through the medium of the government, and which, in a much greater proportion than it increases their wealth, must render those poorer from whom it is drawn.

The national debt of Great Britain commenced in the reign of William II. The war which began in 1689 being very expensive, and the grants of parliament not supplying money so fast as it was wanted, the expedient of mortgaging part of the public revenue was adopted. At first the produce of particular taxes was assigned for repayment of the principal and interest of the money borrowed; large sums were also raised on life-annuities, and annuities for terms of years; and the funds established for payment of these debts being generally inadequate to the charge upon them, occasioned great deficiencies, which, at the conclusion of the war, amounted to 5,160,4597. 148. 94d. and were charged on the continuation of various duties which had been granted for short terms. The total amount of the funded and unfunded debts in the year 1697, was 19,950,9451. 198. Sąd. The frequent anticipation of the different funds, and their general deficiency from the diminution of the revenue, in consequence of which the interest due upon money lent to government was often long in arrear, reduced public credit at this period to a very low ebb, and rendered persons who had money very reluctant in advancing it to the government, though paid what would now be called an exorbitant interest: the accumulation of the public debts caused serious apprehensions among people of property of all descriptions.

In the year 1711 a project was formed for relieving the government from the financial difficulties under which it laboured, by permitting the proprietors of various debts and arrears, amounting to 8,971,3251. to subscribe them towards raising the capital of a company formed for carrying on a trade to the South Seas. The actual capital of the company was 9,177,9677. 158. 4d. which for the further accommodation of government was increased in 1715 to ten millions.

The total amount of the national debt on the 31st of December 1716, was 48,364,5017. 88. 4d. which, on the opening of the following session of parliament, was mentioned in the king's speech and the commons' address, as an insupportable weight, and the government appears to have thought it necessary to concert seriously such measures as might lay the foundation of an effectual plan for its reduction. In consequence of this disposition, all the existing taxes, except the land and malt, were made perpetual; and, having been distributed into three classes, called the Aggregate, South Sea, and General Funds, the surpluses re

maining, after satisfying the previous charges upon these respective funds, were formed into a separate fund, called the Sinking Fund, for the express purpose of discharging the principal and interest of such national debts and incumbrances as were incurred before the 25th of December, 1716. (See SINKING FUND.)

The memorable South Sea scheme, in the year 1720, was to have furnished a considerable sam to be employed in the reduction of the public debts; instead of which it increased their amount by an addition to the capital of 3,034,7697. 118. 11d. while the annual charge was rather augmented than diminished by the allowance for management on the increased capital. The reduction of a part of the interest was, however, secured; and as the company's capital was redeemable, a further reduction of interest might be effected at a future period; but this depended on future circumstances, whereas had the terminable annuities which were converted into redeemable perpetuities by this scheme remained in their original state, there was a certainty of their expiring at a fixed period.

The magnitude of the public debt, and the consequent low price of the funds, appear at the end of the American war to have engaged the serious attention of the government; in consequence of which, some new taxes were imposed, in order to raise a surplus of revenue, the foundation of a plan for establishing a new sinking fund. In order to ascertain what portion of the revenue might be appropriated to this purpose, a select committee of the house of commons was appointed to examine and state the accounts presented to the house relating to the public income and expenditure, and to report what might be expected to be the annual amount of the income and expenditure in future. On the 21st March, 1786, the committee made their report; and conceiving that the circumstances of the times rendered any average drawn from the amount of the revenue in former periods in a great degree

National Debt at the Revolution, 1688.....

inapplicable to the situation of the country, they formed an account of the public receipt and expenditure to Michaelmas 1785, and to January 1786, from which it appeared, that at the former period there was a surplus of 901,0017., and at the latter a surplus of 919,2907. As it was evident that a fund of less than one million per annum would be very inadequate to the purpose for which it was designed, new taxes were imposed for raising the surplus revenue to this sum; and in order the more effectually to prevent ministers from diverting it to any other purpose, the mode was adopted which had been frequently suggested, of vesting the annual sum in the hands of commissioners; some other judicious regulations were also established by the act passed for this purpose. (See SINKING FUND.)

In the year 1789 it was found necessary to borrow 1,005,1407. on a tontine scheme, and 187,000l. to replace the like sum which had been issued out of the civil list revenue, as a loan to the prince of Orange: the latter was raised on annuities for 18 years. The total amount of the public debt in the year 1792, being the year previous to the war with the French republic, was, according to the official account, 238,231,248/.; but including the value of the terminable annuities, and the amount of the unfunded debt, the total was 268,267,272l. 18. 7d., the annual interest and charges of management on which amounted to 9,752,6737. 148. 8d. From this amount, however, a deduction is to be made of the stock which had been redeemed by the operation of the sinking fund. With this formidable burden on the property and industry of the country, a war was entered into, which, from the enormous expenditure attending it, increased the amount of the national debt in a degree beyond all former precedent or conjecture.

As our limits will not allow of our going farther into detail here; we present the reader with the following table, exhibiting the progress of the national debt from its commencement to Midsummer, 1802.