But "the Publick" might be useful. And those who watch the doings of this Publick in the Statute Book of the eighteenth century may feel inched to say that it has dropped a first syllable. After the rebellion of 1715 an Act of Parliament declared that the estates of certain traitors were to be vested in the king "to the use of the Publick".

Whether this is the first appearance of "the Publick" as cestui que trust of a part of those lands of which the king is owner I do not know; but it is an early example. Then we come upon an amusing little story which illustrates the curious qualities of our royal corporation sole. One of the attainted traitors was Lord Derwentwater, and the tenants of his barony of Langley had been accustomed to pay a fine when their lord died: such a custom was, I believe, commoner elsewhere than in England. But, says an Act of 1738, the said premises "being vested in His Majesty, his heirs and successors in his politick capacity, which in consideration of law never dies, it may create a doubt whether the tenants of the said estates ought...to pay such fines... on the death of His present
Majesty (whom God long preserve for the benefit of his People) or On the death of any future King or Queen." So the tenants are to pay as they would have paid "in case such King or Queen so dying was considered as a private person only and not in his or her politick capacity". Thus that artificial person, the king in his politick capacity, who is a trustee for the Publick, must be deemed to die now and then for the benefit of cestui que trust.

But it was of "the Publick" that we were speaking, and I believe that "the Publick" first becomes
prominent in connexion with the National Debt. Though much might be done for us by a slightly denaturalized king, he could not do all that was requisite. Some proceedings of one of his predecessors, who closed the Exchequer and ruined the goldsmiths, had made our king no good borrower. So the Publick had to take his place. The money might be "advanced to His Majesty",
but the Publick had to owe it. This idea could not be kept off the statute book. "Whereas," said an Act of 1786, "the Publick stands indebted to" the East India Company in a sum of four millions and more.

What is the Publick which owes the National Debt? We try t o evade that question. We try to think of that debt not as a debt owed by a person, but as a sum charged upon a pledged or mortgaged thing, upon the Consolidated Fund. This is natural, for we may, if we will, trace the beginnings of a national debt back to days when a king borrows money and charges the repayment of it upon a specific tax; perhaps he will even appoint his creditor to collect that tax, and so enable him to repay himself. Then there was the long transitional stage in which annuities were charged on the Aggregate Fund, the General Fund, the South Sea Fund, and so forth. And now we have the Consolidated Fund; but even the most licentious "objectification" (or, as Dr James Ward says, "reification") can hardly make that Fund "a thing" for jurisprudence. On the one hand, we do not conceive that the holders of Consols would have the slightest right to complain if the present taxes were swept away and new taxes invented, and, on the other hand, we conceive that if the present taxes will not suffice to pay the interest of the debt more taxes must be imposed. Then we speak of "the security of an Act of Parliament", as if the Act were a profit-bearing thing that could be pledged. Or we introduce "the Government" as a debtor. But what, we may ask, is this Government?  Surely not the group of Ministers, not the Government which can be contrasted with Parliament. I am happy to think that no words of mine can affect the price of Bank Annuities, but it seems to me that the national debt is not a "secured debt" in any other than that loose sense in which we speak of "personal security", and that the creditor has nothing to trust to but the honesty and solvency of that honest and solvent community of which the King is the head and "Government" and Parliament are organs.

One of our subterfuges has been that of making the king a trustee (vel quasi) for unincorporated groups. Another of our subterfuges has been that of slowly substituting "the Crown" for King or Queen. Now the use which has been made in different ages of the crown -- a chattel now lying in the Tower and partaking (so it is said) of the nature of an heirloom -- might be made the matter of a long essay.  I believe, however, that an habitual and perfectly unambiguous personification of the Crown -- in particular, the attribution of acts to the Crown -- is much more modern than most people would believe. It seems to me that in fully half the cases in which Sir William Anson writes "Crown", Blackstone would have written "King". In strictness, however, "the Crown" is not, I take it, among the persons known to our law, unless it is merely another name for the King. The Crown, by that name, never sues, never prosecutes, never issues writs or letters patent. On the face of
formal records the King or Queen does it all. I would not, if I could, stop the process which is making "the Crown" one of the names of a certain organized community; but in the meantime that term is being used in three or four different, though closely related, senses. "We all know that the Crown is an abstraction", said Lord Penzance. I do not feel quite sure of knowing even this.

Our Taxes
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