Upon an accurate enquiry into the state of his affairs, I find
his debts amount to twenty thousand pounds, for eighteen thousand
pounds of which sum his estate is mortgaged; and as he pays five
per cent. interest, and some of his farms are unoccupied, he does
not receive above two hundred pounds a year clear from his lands,
over and above the interest of his wife's fortune, which produced
eight hundred pounds annually. For lightening this heavy burthen,
I devised the following expedient. His wife's jewels, together
with his superfluous plate and furniture in both houses, his
horses and carriages, which are already advertised to be sold by
auction, will, according to the estimate, produce two thousand
five hundred pounds in ready money, with which the debt will be
immediately reduced to eighteen thousand pounds -- I have
undertaken to find him ten thousand pounds at four per cent. by
which means he will save one hundred a-year in the article of
interest, and perhaps we shall be able to borrow the other eight
thousand on the same terms. According to his own scheme of a
country life, he says he can live comfortably for three hundred
pounds a-year; but, as he has a son to educate, we will allow him
five hundred; then there will be an accumulating fund of seven
hundred a-year, principal and interest, to pay off the
incumbrance; and, I think, we may modestly add three hundred, on
the presumption of new-leasing and improving the vacant farms: so
that, in a couple of years, I suppose there will be above a
thousand a-year appropriated to liquidate a debt of sixteen
thousand.
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