Suppose that there are twelve millions of paper which circulate in the kingdom as money (for we are not to imagine that all our enormous funds are employed in that shape), and suppose the real cash of the kingdom to be eighteen millions: here is a state which is found by experience able to hold a stock of thirty millions. I say, if it be able to hold it, it must of necessity have acquired it in gold and silver had we not obstructed the entrance of these metals by this new invention of paper. Whence would it have acquired that sum? From all the kingdoms of the world. But why? Because, if you remove these twelve millions, money in this state is below its level compared with our {p59} neighbours; and we must immediately draw from all of them till we be full and saturate, so to speak, and can hold no more. By our present politics we are as careful to stuff the nation with this fine commodity of bank-bills and chequer notes as if we were afraid of being overburdened with the precious metals.
It is not to be doubted but the great plenty of bullion in France is, in a great measure, owing to the want of paper-credit. The French have no banks; merchants’ bills do not there circulate as with us; usury or lending on interest is not directly permitted, so that many have large sums in their coffers; great quantities of plate are used in private houses, and all the churches are full of it. By this means provision and labour still remain much cheaper among them than in nations that are not half so rich in gold and silver. The advantages of this situation in point of trade, as well as in great public emergencies, are too evident to be disputed.
The same fashion a few years ago prevailed in Genoa which still has place in England and Holland, of using services of china ware instead of plate; but the Senate, wisely foreseeing the consequence, prohibited the use of that brittle commodity beyond a certain extent, while the use of silver plate was left unlimited. And I suppose, in their late distresses, they felt the good effect of this ordinance. Our tax on plate is, perhaps, in this view, somewhat impolitic.