In the war which began in 1709., and which was concluded by the Treaty of Utrecht, the public debts were still more accumulated. On the 31st of December 1714, they amounted to L53,681,076 5s. 6 1/2d. The subscription into the South Sea fund of the short and long annuities increased the capital of the public debts, so that on the 31st of December 1722 it amounted to L55,282,978 1s. 3 5/6d. The reduction of the debt began in 1723, and went on so slowly that, on the 31st of December 1739, during seventeen years of profound peace, the whole sum paid off was no more than L8,328,354 17s. 11 3/12d., the capital of the public debt at that time amounting to L46,954,623 3s. 4 7/12d.

The Spanish war, which began in 1739, and the French war which soon followed it occasioned further increase of the debt, which, on the 31st of December 1748, after the war had been concluded by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, amounted to L78,293,313 1s. 10 3/4d. The most profound peace of seventeen years continuance had taken no more than L8,328,354 17s. 11 3/12d. from it. A war of less than nine years' continuance added L31,338,689 18s. 6 1/6d. to it.

During the administration of Mr. Pelham, the interest of the public debt was reduced, or at least measures were taken for reducing it, from four to three per cent; the sinking fund was increased, and some part of the public debt was paid off. In 1755, before the breaking out of the late war, the funded debt of Great Britain amounted to L72,289,673. On the 5th of January 1763, at the conclusion of the peace, the funded debt amounted to L122,603,336 8s. 2 1/4d. The unfunded debt has been stated at L13,927,589 2s. 2d. But the expense occasioned by the war did not end with the conclusion of the peace, so that though, on the 5th of January 1764, the funded debt was increased (partly by a new loan, and partly by funding a part of the unfunded debt) to L129,586,789 10s. 1 3/4d., there still remained (according to the very well informed author of the Considerations on the Trade and Finances of Great Britain) an unfunded debt which was brought to account in that and the following year of L9,975,017 12s. 2 15/44d. In 1764, therefore, the public debt of Great Britain, funded and unfunded together, amounted, according to this author, to L139,516,807 2s. 4d. The annuities for lives, too, which had been granted as premiums to the subscribers to the new loans in 1757, estimated at fourteen years' purchase, were valued at L472,500; and the annuities for long terms of years, granted as premiums likewise in 1761 and 1762, estimated at twenty-seven and a half years' purchase, were valued at L6,826,875. During a peace of about seven years' continuance, the prudent and truly patriot administration of Mr. Pelham was not able to pay off an old debt of six millions. During a war of nearly the same continuance, a new debt of more than seventy-five millions was contracted.