ADVERTISEMENT TO THE THIRD EDITION. SINCE INCE the Second Edition of this Work was printed, anno 1790, the attention of the Author has been almoft exclusively directed, to the carrying on that extenfive and laborious publication, intitled, "The Statistical Account "of Scotland," and all the various enquiries and pursuits refulting from the establishment of the Board of Agriculture, and other measures connected with the improvement of the country; and though the Hiftory of the Revenue had been long out of print, the Author was led, from the hurry of other important avocations, to postpone, from time to time, the publication of another Edition, more especially as he expected that the war would have been fooner terminated, which would have enabled him to have given a view of the total expence of that war, and to have compared it with preceding ones. Finding, howver, that there was no certainty when the war would be brought to a conclufion, he refolved to dedicate any leisure the business of Parliament would admit of, to republish that Work, in the courfe of the feffion which commenced in January 1801. The firft Volume, containing the History of the Revenue prior to the Revolution, and the origin of our public debt, is reprinted with little variation from the original publication. In the fecond Volume, however, very confiderable alterations were neceffary, and though that part is not fo perfect as the Author could have wished, yet he flatters himself, that it contains a diftinct and clear statement of the fituation of our Finances. In the former Editions, the Work was, in various places, interfperfed with long Tables of the National Income and the Expenditure, which feemed to interfere with that freedom that naturally belongs to hiftorical narration. It was therefore thought more adviseable, to feparate those Tables from the rest of the Work, Work, and to print them diftin&ly. It has alfo occurred, that it would be proper to have a variety of public accounts, and a number of other papers, connected with the Revenue of the country, published at the same time. It is therefore proposed to add another Volume, in the course of the next feffion, in which all those different particulars will be contained It is also neceffary to obferve, that the Author has not yet been able, either to collect all the information he requires, to explain the prefent ftate of the Revenue of Scotland, nor to draw up, what he has long anxiously wifhed for, a fhort Hiftory of the Revenue of Ireland, which would complete the whole Plan of his original undertaking. But he proposes to fet about these important enquiries, as foon as circumstances will admit of it, and to include both, in the third Volume, which remains to be published. In regard to Ireland, as he is likely to be favoured with the obliging affiftance of several respectable Gentlemen, deeply conversant with the finances of that country, he is perfuaded that the Chapters explaining the Irish Income and Expenditure, will not be the least interesting Part of the whole Publication. Qn On the whole, he has endeavoured, to make the Work as accurate and as complete as poffible, and he hopes it will be the means of enabling perfons, both in and out of Parliament, to be better acquainted with the finances of the country, than hitherto they have been, by which injudicious fyftems of taxation may be avoided, and public profufion may be checked: and above all, by which the celebrated advice of the learned Bodin, may ftand a better chance of being carefully attended to, than it has been for fome time past, " Ca"vendum eft, ne exhaufto ærario, repentina "calamitate Republica deferatur *." • Bodinus De Repub. lib. 6. cap. z. |