they may in time be paid off, as has been the general practice in the colonies. At this very time, even the filver money in England is obliged to the legal tender for part of its value-that part which is the difference between its real weight and its denomination. Great part of the hillings and fixpences now current, are, by wearing, become 5, 10, 20, and some of the fixpences even 50 per cent. too light. For this difference between the real and the nominal, you have no intrinfic value; you have not fo much as paper; you have nothing. It is the legal tender, with the knowledge that it can easily be repassed for the same value, that makes three-penny-worth of filver pass for fixpence. Gold and filver have undoubtedly some properties that give them a fitness above paper as a medium of exchange, particularly their universal estimation, efpecially in cases where a country has occafion to carry its money abroad, either as a flock to trade with, or to purchase allies and foreign fuccours ; otherwise that very universal estimation is an inconvenience which papermoney is free from, fince it tends to deprive a country of even the quantity of currency that should be retained as a necessary inftrument of its internal commerce, and obliges it to be continually on its guard in making and executing at a great expense, the laws that are to prevent the trade which exports it. Paper-money well funded, has another great advantage over gold and filver-its lightness of carriage, and the little room that is occupied by a great sum; whereby it is capable of being more easily, and more fafely, because more privately conveyed from place to place. Gold and filver are not intrinfically of equal value with iron, a metal in itfelf capable of many more beneficial ufes to mankind. Their value rests chiefly in the estimation they happen to be in among the generality of na

tions, and the credit given to the opinion that that estimation will continue : otherwise a pound of gold would not be a real equivalent for even a bushel of wheat. Any other well-founded credit, is as much an equivalent as gold or filver; and in some cases more fo, or it would not be preferred by commercial people in different countries. Not to mention again our own bank bills; Holland, which understands the value of cash as well as any people in the world, would never part with gold and filver for credit (as they do when they put it into their bank, from whence little of it is ever afterwards drawn out) if they did not think and find the credit a full equivalent.

The fifth reason is, "That debtors in the affemblies, make paper-money with fraudulent views." This is often faid by the adversaries of paper-money, and if it has been the cafe in any particular colony, that colony should, on proof of the fact, be duly punished. This, however, would be no reason for punishing other colonies, who have not so abused their legislative powers. To deprive all the colonies of the convenience of paper-money, because it has been charged on some of them, that they have made it an instrument of fraud, is as if all the India, bank, and other stocks and trading companies were to be abolished, because there have been, once in an age, Mississipi and South sea fchemes and bubbles.

The fixth and last reason is, "That in the middle colonies, where the paper-money has been best supported, the bills have never kept to their nominal value, in circulation; but have constantly depreciated to a certain degree, whenever the quantity has been increased." If the rising of the value of any particular commodity wanted for exportation, is to be confidered as a depreciation of the values of whatever remains in the country, then the rifing of filver above

ftruck near the same time, at the same nominal value, but the latter was supported by the general legal tender. The Maryland bills, how ever, began to rife as the term shortened, and towards the end recovered their full value. But as a depreciating currency injures creditors, this injured debtors, and by its continually changing value, appears unfit for the purpose of money, which should be as fixed as possible in its own value, because it is to be the measure of the value of other things. 3. To make the bills carry an interest sufficient to support their value.

creased by such bills, is diminished: and by their being shut up in chests, the very end of making them (viz. to furnish a medium of commerce) is in a great measure, if not totally defeated.

On the whole, no method has hitherto been formed to establish 2 medium of trade, in lieu of money, equal in all its advantages, to bills of credit, founded on fufficient taxes for discharging it, or on land security for double the value, for repaying it at the end of the term, and in the mean time, made a general legal tender. The experience of now near half a century, in the middle colonies, has convinced them of it among themselves, by the great increase of their settlements, numbers, buildings, improvements, agriculture, shipping, and commerce. And the fame experience has satisfied the British merchants who trade thither, that it has been greatly useful to them, and not in a single instance prejudicial.

It is therefore hoped, that, fecuring the full discharge of British debts, which are payable here, and in all justice and reason ought to be fully discharged here in sterling money, the restraint on the legal tender within the colonies will be taken off, at least for those colonies that defire it, and where the merchants trading to them make no objection to it.

This too has been tried in some of the New England colonies; but great inconveniencies were found to attend it. The bills, to fit them for a currency, are made of various denominations, and some very low, for the fake of change; there were of them from 10l. down to 3d. When they first come abroad, they pass easily, and answer the purpose well enough for a few months; but as soon as the interest becomes worth computing, the calculation of it on every little bill in a fum between the dealer and his customers, in shops, warehouses, and markets, takes up much time, to the great hindrance of business. This evil, however, foon gave place to a worse; for the bills were in a short time gathered up and hoarded, it being a very tempting advantage to have money bearing interest, and the principal all the while in a man's power, ready for bargains that may offer, which money out on mortgages is not. By this means, numbers of people became usurers with small fums, who could not have found perfons to take fuch sums of them upon interest, giving good security; and would therefore not have thought of it, but would rather have employed the money in some business, if it had been money of the common kind. Thus trade, instead of being in- bour. Indeed so abfolute a state of

The true interest of the united states, and particularly of Pennsylvania, confidered.

A

CIVILIZED nation, without commerce, is a folecism in politics. It is in the rudest state of mankind only, that a people can exist, without any communication with other focieties, or commercial intercourse among themselves, every one supporting himself by his own lanature can only be conceived, but of their extraordinary purity and has scarcely existed in reality. The wants, the fears, the weakness, nay the very nature of man, necessarily constitute him a focial animal: and, in the very origin of society, their mutual necessities, with the various talents, means, and opportunities of individuals for fupplying them, must have produced a reciprocity of services, and an occafional interchange with one another of that property, which each had acquired by his own exertions.

Commerce may then be confidered as coeval with man himself, and barter as its first stage.

It is obvious, however, that the exchange of one kind of commodity for another, must have proved too imperfect a species of traffic to anfwer the puposes of society, after civilization had multiplied their wants. and extended the objects of them beyond their mere necessities.

In order, then, to remedy the inconvenience of barter, certain fubstances have been adopted, amongst the various nations of the earth, as the scale or standard for measuring the value of every species of property; thereby to ascertain the relative worth of every commodity, compared with others, and with this common standard.

The substances, most universally employed for this purpose, are filver and gold, though the former is efteemed the standard. These metals possess an intrinsic value, by reason

NOTE.

* The value of the precious metals is, however, enhanced, by their peculiar aptitude to perform the office of an universal money, far beyond any real, inherent value they possess. This extrinsic value of gold and filver, which belongs to them when under the modification of coin or in bullion, is totally distinct from their inherent value, as a commodity. We are apt to confound the inherent

scarceness; and certain other qualities render them suitable materials for receiving such criteria, as that they may be readily diftinguished, in the transactions of men, for that standard, whereby the relative worth of all commodities is ascertained. The distinguishing marks given, by the authority and sanction of a state, to certain portions of metal, denominate them coin. These, which we call actual money, are graduated (if we may use the expression) according to the proportion and quality of metal they contain, by an arbitrary scale, termed money of account; which, in every country respectively, "represents an invariable scale " for measuring value."

But it is to be observed, that gold and filver coin derive not their intrinfic value from performing the office + of money; but possess it as a commodity. For, as I mr. Anderson expresses it, " money, confidered " in itself, is of no value. But a

mong civilized nations, who have

NOTES.

value of the commodity with its extrinfic value as a money; and to unite the two, in estimating the intrinficvalue of the substance. Whereas bank-notes, or any other species of symbolical money, may, under certain regulations, acquire that " eftimation" among a people, necessary to constitute money, and to answer all the uses of a circulating medium of alienation in a state.

†"By money," saysfir James Steuart, " I understand any commodity, which, purely in itself, is of no material use to man, but which acquires such an estimation from his opinion of it, as to become the universal meafure of what is called value, and an adequate equivalent for any thing alienable." Political Economy, Book 1. chap. 6.

† Vide his Observations on National Industry.