A review essay on Nancy Churchman’s, David Ricardo on Public Debt. London: Palgrave, 2001. This is a fair minded, temperate and well-written essay on Ricardo’s treatment of the “National Debt” as it is known in the British literature. It hangs together, despite prior publication of the majority of the chapters, very well – only Chap. 5 (dealing with Ricardo’s motives, and the imputation of personal financial interest) is unmistakably a journal article.