BOOK pounds payable fifteen years hence, for example, ". in a country where interest is at six per cent. is J worth little more than forty pounds ready money. To oblige a creditor, therefore, to accept of this as full payment of a debt for a hundred pounds actually paid down in ready money, was an act of such violent injustice, as has scarce, perhaps, been attempted by the government of any other country which pretended to be free. It bears the evident marks of having originally been, what the honest and downright Doctor Douglas assures us it was, a scheme of fraudulent debtors to cheat their creditors. The government of Penfylvania, indeed, pretended, upon their fire emission of paper money, in 1722, to render their paper of equal value with gold and silver, by enacting penalties against all those who made any disference in the price of their goods when they fold them for a colony paper, and when they fold them for gold and silver; a regulation equally tyrannical, but much less effectual than that which it was meant to support. A positive law may render a shilling a legal tender for a guinea; because it may direct the courts of just tice to discharge the debtor who has made that tender. But no positive law can oblige a person who sells goods, and who is at liberty to sell or not to fell, as he pleases, to accept of a Hulling as equivalent to a guinea in the price of them. Notwithstanding any regulation of this kind, it appeared by the course of exchange with Great Britain, that a hundred pounds sterling was occasionally cafionally confidered as equivalent, in fome of C H A P. the colonies, to a hundred and thirty pounds, IL and in others to fo great a fum as eleven hundred pounds currency; this difference in the value arifing from the difference in the quantity of paper emitted in the different colonies, and in the distance and probability of the term of its final discharge and redemption. No law, therefore, could be more equitable than the Mt of parliament, fo unjuftly complained of in the colonies, which declared that no paper currency to be emitted there in time coming, would be a legal tender of payment. Penfylvania was always more moderate in its emiffions of paper money than any other of our colonies. Its paper currency accordingly is faid never to have funk below the value of the gold and filver which was current in the colony before the firft emission of its paper money. Before that emission, the colony had raifed the denomination of its coin, and had, by a& of aflembly, ordered five millings fterling to pafs in the colony for fix and three-pence, and afterwards for fix and eight-pence. A pound colony currency, therefore, even when that currency was gold and filver, was more than thirty per cent. below the value of a pound fterling, and when that currency was turned into paper, it was feldom much more than thirty per cent. below that value. The pretence for railing the denomination of the coin, was to prevent the exportation of gold BOOK gold and silver, by making equal quantities of n' , those metals pass for greater sums in the colony than they did in the mother country. It was found, however, that the price of all goods from the mother country rose exactly in proportion as they raised the denomination of their coin, so that their gold and silver were exported as fast as ever. The paper of each colony being received in the payment of the provincial taxes, for the full value for which it had been issued, it necessarily derived from this use some additional value, over and above what it would have had, from the real or supposed distance of the term of its final discharge and redemption. This additional value was greater or less, according as_the quantity of paper issued was more or less above what could be employed in the payment of the taxes of the particular colony which issued it. It was in all the colonies very much above what could be employed in this manner. A prince, who should enact that a certain proportion of his taxes should be paid in a paper money of a certain kind, might thereby give a certain value to this paper money; even though the term of its final discharge and redemption should depend altogether upon the will of the prince. If the bank which issued this paper was careful to keep the quantity of it always somewhat below what could easily be employed in this manner, the demand for it might be such as to make it even bear a premium, or fell for i somewhat Ibmewhat more in the market than the quan- Chap. tity of gold or filver currency for which it was IL Jfluetl. Some people account in this manner for *-iJjs^j&tyis called the Agio of the Bank of Amer- I'^jCJ&itf^br f°r the fuperiority of Bank money over £f.fc\&£pj& money; though this bank money, as cannot be taken out of the bank will of the owner. The greater part of bills of exchange muft be paid in bank that is, by a transfer in the books of the and the directors of the bank, they alcareful to keep the whole quantity money always below what this use a demand for. It is upon this ac.ey fay, that bank money fells for a or bears an agio of four or five per above the fame nominal fum of the gold currency of the country. This account of Amfterdam, however, it will ', is, in a great meafure, chi iper currency which falls below the value and filver coin, does not thereby fink le of thofe metals, or occasion equal P of them to exchange for a fmaller from goods of any other kind. The proOfi^gfeetween the value of gold and filver and of any other kind, depends in all upon the nature or quantity of any paper money, which may be current if&li^fcjparticular country, but upon the richnefs iia' ^"^erty of the mines, which happen at any K K particular ver BOOK particular time to flipply the great market of P: , the commercial world with those metals. It depends upon the proportion between the quantity of labour which is necessary in order to bring a certain quantity of gold and silver to market, and that which is necessary, in order to bring thither a certain quantity of any other sort of, goods, If banker* are restrained from coming any cjf» eulating bank notes, or notes payable to tW bearer, for less than a certain stuff \ and if they are Objected to the obligation of an immediate and unconditional payment of such bank naittz.a#; (ban as presented, their trade may, with &soty to the public, be rendered in all other respects perfectly free. The late multiplication bfjupk« . ing companies in both parts of the United jfh/gr dom, an event by which many people have be*n," much alarmed, instead of diminishing, increase*.. the security of the public. It obliges all of''them to be more circumspect in their condofa^. and, by not extending their currency beyond its due proportion to their cash, to guard them selves against those malicious runs, which the rivalship of so many competitors is always ready to bring upon them. It restrains the circuit. tion of each particular company within a narrower circle, and reduces their circulating nets® to a smaller number. By dividing the whole, circulation into a greater number of parts, the failure of any one company, an accident Which, in the course of things, must sometimes |