goldsmiths formerly did in London, or as the bankers do at present in Dublin; and therefore it is better, it may be thought, that a public company should enjoy the benefit of the paper-credit which always will have place in every opulent kingdom. But to endeavour artificially to increase such a credit can never be the interest of any trading nation; but must lay them under disadvantages, by increasing money beyond its natural proportion to labour and commodities, and thereby heightening their price to the merchant and manufacturer. And in this view, it must be allowed that no bank could be more advantageous than such a one as locked up all the money it received,13 and never augmented the circulating coin, as is usual, by returning part of its treasure into commerce. A public bank by this expedient might cut off much of the dealings of private bankers and money-jobbers; and though the state bore the charge of salaries to the directors and tellers of this bank (for, according to the preceding {p30} supposition, it would have no profit from its dealings), the national advantage, resulting from the low price of labour and the destruction of paper-credit, would be a sufficient compensation. Not to mention that so large a sum, lying ready at command, would be a great convenience in times of public danger and distress; and what part of it was used might be replaced at leisure, when peace and tranquillity were restored to the nation.
But of this subject of paper-credit we shall treat more largely hereafter, and I shall finish this essay on money by proposing and explaining two observations, which may perhaps serve to employ the thoughts of our speculative politicians, for to these only I all along address myself. It is enough that I submit to the ridicule sometimes in this age attached to the character of a philosopher, without adding to it that which belongs to a projector.
It was a shrewd observation of Anacharsis the Scythian, who had never seen money in his own country, that gold and silver seemed to him of no use to the Greeks but to assist them in numeration and arithmetic. It is