Bullion, before it be turned into coin, is a commodity like other things: and we find, that it has, accordingly, sunk in price with other commodities from the want of money to buy it; which will greatly facilitate a new coinage. France and other countries, when distressed for money, have either adulterated the coin, or changed its denomination. These are arbitrary and dishonorable measures, to which British integrity can never have recourse. But, though these measures are to be reprobated, still, if eighteen shillings worth of gold was to be coined into a pound sterling, this small fraud upon the public might be made good to the public revenue by the Bank: and this would operate as a salutary bar against our money being melted down by Jews and others, as it has been ever since the reformation of the coin effected by Lord North; at the same time, that it would operate upon the exchange with other countries, and prevent our coin going abroad never to return, as has been the case for some years past. Thus, the coinage of a million of golden pounds would create a saving of one hundred thousand, applicable to the revenue in some shape or other.

II, All monopolies are injurious: and it will be found, at the present time, and in all future times, that that of money is the most injurious. The Bank of England is a monopoly of this kind. However useful it may have been, it is more a friend to itself, than to the nation by which it is supported, and has been indulged to an excess. Hitherto it has done little towards the increase of the coin. Its great object has been, to enrich itself by the issue of its paper-an object which by the help of the minister, it will invariably pursue. But all the Bank of England can do, both in coin and paper, will be insufficient to meet the whole of the present difficulty, and to afford those facilities to agriculture and commerce, which are absolutely necessary. Its capital does not amount to more than 12 millions; and that capital, if the writer of these remarks be well informed, is a charge upon the public: whereas, so vast has been the accumulation of the debt, that, including the loan of the last year, the amount of capital stock funded at the Bank, beside the Exchequer bills as yet unfunded, is more than 860 millions; the yearly interest of which amounts to more than 30 millions of pounds. Such a monstrous antifiscal phænomenon never appeared before in all the European nations!-And, what

increases the evil to a magnitude, which, without the application of great expedients, no time can cure, is, That the voracity of the monster is increased more than one-third in its effects, by the present scarcity of money.

This is a point which cannot be too fully discussed, or too clearly understood.

It is ever to be remembered, that, according to the general doctrine before stated, the virtual weight of the debt, which consists of a certain number of nominal pounds, depends as much upon their value as upon their number: so that the value of its pounds being increased one-third, by the quantity of money being reduced one-third, the weight of the debt upon the back of the nation is thereby increased one-third. The quantity of money in circulation affects the weight of the debt in a surprising manner. By money being one-third less in quantity, and one-third more in value, a pound becomes thirty-shillings-worth; so that 8 hundred millions of pounds weigh upon the public as that of 12 would otherwise do: and vice versa. Surely ministers do not consider this.

And, as the virtual weight of the debt, in its effect upon the public, depends upon the price of commodities out of which the interest is to be ultimately raised and paid, which price depends upon the quantity of money: so, if wheat be taken as the standardcommodity, when that is at 12 pounds per load, the weight of the debt is double to what it would be, barring a little more expense in cultivation, if the same wheat was 24. Surely ministers do not care for this.

Money the monster will have, and by money it must be fed, unless the ministry choak it with a sponge. Under the existing circumstances of the times, under the present price of all commodities, under all the failures and bankruptcies that are continually taking place, when most of the coin is sent out of the nation, and when many of the paper-mints are stopt; how is money to be raised to feed the monster four times in the year? The minister (when I speak of the minister I have no personal allusion) cannot go on borrowing and borrowing; for that would only increase the evil, if there was money to be lent. In vain will he look abroad for help. The loans to other nations, and the money due from

France, will not be paid in time, if ever paid at all. Will he send out exchequer extents by tens, and hundreds, and thousands, through every parish of the united kingdom, to sell the goods and chattels of the public for payment of the taxes; when there is not money in circulation by which they are to be bought? Or, will the honest and industrious grey-coat throughout the country, the strength and glory of the nation, see the horse which cost him thirty pounds sold for ten; unless the red-coat hold a bayonet at his breast? These are serious questions.

But, beside the present debt, exchequer-bills to a great amount are yet unfunded: and how is a sufficiency of currency to be provided, by which the public is to raise additional sums to pay the additional interest? When he funds a debt and levies a tax upon the public; unless there be a sufficient quantity of money in circulation by which the tax can be raised from the commodities of the country, and other resources, without ruining the inhabitants; the fault, let the minister understand, does not rest with the public, but somewhere else.

At the end of the American war the debt amounted to 180 millions. At the end of the late war, when all is wound up and funded, it will probably amount to 1200. What a disadvantageous difference, after all the burdens the public has sustained, and when most of our cash is gone!

Will he fly, in this extremity, to the Bank of England, the dernier resort for ministers in distress? Will the Bank of England produce a vast and adequate coinage without delay: and pay the public in specie? This is the pointed question. Or, will it content him by a loan of paper, and by gradually discounting to the public with its paper only; and content itself by prodigious gains? Already has the Bank of England made a stoppage, which would have ruined the credit of all other banks, and which has embarrassed the whole commerce and negociation of the land. And, because it has done this once, to its own advantage, but to the public loss, is it to increase the evil by a continuation of the practice?

The question from the minister to the Bank of England, at this time, should not be, How many millions of paper will you lend? But, How many millions of money will you coin?

All the Bank of England can do, if ever so willing and welldisposed, will, however, be ultimately inadequate to the present difficulty, which is only to be surmounted by A vast increase of currency of both kinds to operate two ways at the same time.First, by diminishing the virtual weight of the debt in the diminution of the value of its pounds, as explained above, and more fully in the letter on the national debt. -And secondly, by raising the

In my idea of political economy, there is only one true and practicable way by which the load upon the shoulders of the nation from its public debt, can ever be lightened with good effect. This is, to let the debt have its natural and necessary course, without attempting to quash or overcome it, which attempt is vain-to let it maintain, and even gradually increase, its bulk, which it is impossible to diminish; but gradually to decrease its worth: and this will be effectually to diminish its weight, the object we are wanting to accomplish. This is an expedient, easy in the application, safe in the practice, and honorable in the execution; to which the funds themselves, in their operation upon an opulent and mercantile country, will help to pave the way.

For the sake of round numbers, put the national funded debt at two hundred millions of pounds. But what is a pound: for that is the denominator ; and upon the value of the denominator, whether it be more or less, the value of the numerator will depend, though it remain the same two hundred millions? If a pound was only of the value of a penny, the true national debt would be as two hundred millions of pence. What then is a pound? This is the jut of the enquiry. We may thank the genius of this happy island, that it is not a certain quantity or portion of corn or beef, or any other necessary article of human subsistence. All these various articles of life possess a value of a different nature from that of pounds. Though their price in the market may change back and forward with the circumstances of time and place, their value is real, intrinsic, and permanent; the same from age to age. A pound has no such real, intrinsic, permanent value. Even, if gold and silver coin, of which pounds are made, brought into the market its full weight and worth, according to the current price of these precious metals, it would not possess the same permanent value with corn and beef. These are necessaries of life, consumable or perishable almost every year, incapable of accumulation by adding fresh supplies to the old stock. Gold and silver are luxuries of life not so consumable or perishable, capable of receiving perpetual additions to the old stock. The value of the former articles is real and permanent; because they are necessary in the first place, and incapable of increase in the second and the value of the latter is nominal and changeable; because they are not necessary in the first place, and capable of increase in the second. So that, putting these different articles

price of all commodities, from which money is to be raised to pay

the interest.

up to their full and proper value, and supposing that value to decrease as the quantity increases in the market, which is always the case, gold and silver, or pounds, being capable of a perpetual increase in quantity, which corn and beef are not, their value will perpetually decrease, whilst that of corn and beef will not.

Though possessed of less real, intrinsic, and permanent value than any other commodity, from the scarceness and durability of the metals, the small size of the coins, their cheap and easy conveyance from one market to another, gold and silver money has always been found the most convenient medium of barter, and has been universally established the general instrument of all commerce, and the standard of exchange, by which the prices of all commodities of real value are expressed, their proportions measured, and themselves exchanged, and even represented. From this universality of sanction and consent, money or pounds, however nominal and changeable, is not only the universal instrument of exchange, but the universal representative of things of real and permanent value, and passes, in all civil negociations, in the place of that value. Thus it operates as real worth in every country of the world; insomuch that we say, in common language, such a ground, or such a man is worth, not so many oxen, but so many pounds.

Every thing is worth what it will fetch,' is a vulgar, but just, expression. The price of every commodity depends upon its plenty or its scarcity; that is, upon its demand; that is upon the quantity in the public market. Increase the quantity, and you lessen the demand; and consequently the price. Increase the quantity of money, or pounds, the standard and representative of all value, in the whole mercantile circle, in the public market of Europe, and from thence in the public market of England, and you will proportionably diminish its price. This is too obvious to need an illustra tion: if it did, experience would be my proof. I could appeal to the history of money in our own country, up to the time that a shilling was worth as much real value as twenty at present; and I could appeal to all the old rents and moduses throughout the kingdom.

From these premises the conclusion is soon drawn; and its operation upon the national debt is easy to be discerned. The value of pounds, the denominator, decreasing in proportion to the increase in the quantity of money, the two hundred millions, the numerator, would be reduced, not indeed in name, but in virtue; and the weight of the national debt would be lightened in effect.

This, Sir, in my judgment of political economy, is the truest, the easiest, the most gradual, and most honorable method of relieving the nation of that burden, under which it labors.