The national debt was practically nil until c. 1855, and the debt contracted thereafter owes its existence almost wholly to railway construction.
If the political results of the mission were nil, the value to geographical science was immense; for though no geographer himself, Sadlier's route across Arabia made it possible for the first time to locate the principal places in something like their proper relative positions; incidentally, too, it showed the practicability of a considerable body of regular troops crossing the deserts of Nejd even in the months of July and August.
His confession that he had known only twenty happy days in his long reign is perhaps a moral tale, to be classed with the "omnia fui, et nil expedit" of Septimius Severus.
You also have to remember that the nil rate band takes into account any potentially exempt transfers made during the previous seven years.
The possibility of escape was nil so secure was our twelve foot square cell.
