First Report on the Public Credit

So, imagine you have some pocket money that you want to buy sweets with every week. But sometimes, you run out of money and can't buy sweets. To fix this, you borrow some money from your parents and promise to pay them back.

The government does something like this too, but instead of sweets, they use the money to provide things like schools, hospitals, and roads for all the people in the country.

One day, the government made a report called the "First Report on Public Credit". This report explained how the government had borrowed a lot of money to provide these things for the country. But they needed more money to pay back what they had borrowed.

So, they asked people if they would lend them more money by buying government bonds. These bonds were like pieces of paper that promised to pay people back with interest (extra money on top of the original amount) in the future.

By borrowing more money, the government could keep providing important things for the country. And by paying back the loans and interest, people who lent the money could make a profit too.