in palm-wine. When the first calls of thirst are silenced, and the head begins to grow warm, they order the wine to be brought in bottles holding one or two quarts, and continue drinking as long as there is any left. In these drunken carousals, women and even children of three or four years old take part, as the capacity of drinking a great deal is esteemed an honourable art. Formerly the drunkard, who wanted to make a figure, let two-thirds of the wine run down his beard. If, during their senseless intoxication, they commit murder or any other act of violence, they, with the utmost composure, take no blame to themselves, but lay the fault on the wine or the brandy. The Americans, beyond all other nations of their kind, justify the remark, that the slow and stupid savages have never shown greater ingenuity than in the discovery of the art of making inflammatory liquors. There is hardly any eatable fruit, or root, or plant, from which they have not learnt the method of preparing an intoxicating drink; and many of the wildest savages had, previous to the arrival of the Europeans, invented from six to nine several kinds of strong liquors. The most universal drink of the original Americans, is that which bears the name of chica, which indeed is prepared a great many different ways, but the most usual is from maize, or Turkish wheat. Some soak the maize in water, even in feculent water. But commonly it is chewed by old women, and as often by young children, who spit it out all together into a vessel, where it is left standing till the whole mass has fermented. The Americans give several reasons why the maize is best chewed, and why this mastication should be performed by old women and young children. Namely, they pretend that it is a common observation, that the chica never more perfectly ferments than when it is mixed with spittle. But they make choice of old women and children in preference to marriageable girls and young wives, for the purpose of mastication, because they reckon them impure on account of the monthly evacuations to which they are subject. Even the Europeans accustom themselves to the chica prepared in this manner; yet they would take care not to drink it, if a living toad were thrown in and dissolved in it, as Gage saw done with his own eyes among the Indians of Guatimala *. When the Americans have prepared a due quantity of this chica, they invite their friends to a jovial drinking bout. Indeed there are particular districts where the women abstain from drinking at these scenes of riot, and when their husbands have had enough, carefully put them to rest; but usually the women and children take part, like the men, in these drunken frolics, and the women even give a good dose of chica to their children at the breast....... When the Americans have once begun to carouse, they observe no bounds, but drink till they fall bereft of their senses on the earth. The drunkards resist with all their might any attempts to carry them off, and return with a kind of fury to the field of battle; and this, continues Ulloa, is not peculiar to Americans of any particular districts, but in this they are every where alike. The most violent vomitings not only do not in the least abate the drunken rage of the Americans, but rather inflame it more; and when they are relieved and somewhat freshened by it, they fall to it again with redoubled avidity. Such drinking bouts last not only three or four days, during which every American drinks as much as would fill a large cask, but at times for ten or fifteen days, nay, for three or four months almost without inter * Ulloa, voyag. vol. i. p. 249, pro nounces the chica, when prepared like our beer, without the disgusting mastication by the old women, to be not only a very nutritious and cooling drink, but also ascribes to it several medicinal virtues, and particularly praises it as a powerful promoter of urine and a preservative from the gravel. mission. When any one falls, there he remains, whether in a heavy shower of rain or in a morass, or in a heap of filth, till he comes to himself, without letting any thing disturb him. When a man feels the burning heat too excessive, he makes great wounds in his head, in the temples, or the breast, or sticks a knife in the calf of the leg, in order to ease himself a little from the consuming fire by a copious loss of blood. It almost always happens that some of them die from the excessive draughts they have taken; and still more frequently that they come to bloody conflicts, in which several are either killed or wounded. All acts of manslaughter and maiming committed in fits of drunkenness appear to the Americans as perfecly innocent, and are never revenged, either by the magistrate, or by the relations, or even by the wounded person himself. Ever since the American savages have been acquainted with the European brandy, or with the rum prepared by the Europeans, their eagerness after intoxication is much increased by a new incentive. They themselves confess that the fire-water kills them before their time, that it reduces them to poverty, that it undermines their activity and vigour; but they add, that it is impossible for them to abstain from it, and complain of the Europeans for having introduced among them so dangerous and irresistible a liquor. For procuring brandy, in South America, they sell all they have, even their wives and children; and in northern Louisiana it has often happened, that the most faithful, and to all appear ance the most sensible Indians, have murdered their masters at the chace, only for the sake of getting possession of his brandy-bottle. The laborious Indians who work in the Spanish mines expend in a few hours in rum the half of the money that is paid them every Sunday; and in the same manner, the other Americans, women as well as men, throw away all or greatest part of the money they earn, and are therefore obliged VOL. II. NO. VII. to put up with the most wretched habitations, the vilest food, and the poorest covering. When they have drunk out their stock of brandy, they beg the Europeans, with tears in their eyes, to give them more bitter water, or demand it with the utmost assurance. In Peru an Indian drank to the amount of seven pesos, or thirteen bottles of rum, in a very few hours, without feeling any other effects from it but a senseless intoxication. Adair, unable to free himself from the importunity of an impudent savage for brandy, gave him a large bottle of pepper-water. The American drank of this fiery distillation till he was almost suffocated. He was as little dismayed, however, by these painful effects, as another was after a merry-making, though from the violent agitation of his stomach and bowels he fell breathless on the ground. When both had somewhat recovered, they broke out in extravagant praises of the powerful water and the bountiful donor. Another time Adair was so long persecuted by a savage for brandy, that he was obliged at last to give him a quart of the strongest spirit of turpentine. The American presently gulped it down, began to foam at the mouth, and fell senseless to the ground, but was in a few days quite recovered by the hot bath and cooling drinks. Though it is agreed by all travellers, that brandy and the small-pox have committed more ravages in America than the sword of the Europeans, yet it is no less certain that numberless Americans can be guilty of the most prodigious excesses in drinking, without getting pleurisies or other sicknesses, the usual attendants on that practice with us. With all their debauches, as Frazer informs us, they will reach to the age of a hundred years; and, without being bald or grey-headed, numbers are seen that are a hundred and twenty, or a hundred and thirty, or even of a greater age. The foregoing facts are sufficient to convince every one, that the propensity of the Negroes and Ameri 10 cans to intoxicating liquors is of a kind altogether different from the licentiousness in that respect of the European nations; and that the former as much exceed the latter in their avidity for inflammatory liquors, as in the capacity of drinking them in such quantities as would infallibly cost any European his life. THE USE AND ABUSE OF NOTES OF The following remarks on a certain spe- THE interest which traders have in being always possessed of a number of notes and bills, has naturally led to a great multiplication of them; and not only to the multiplication of notes given for goods sold, or of regular bills of exchange, but to the creation of numerous other notes and bills. Of these, some are termed notes and bills of accommodation: and the term fictitious is often applied to them. It may be useful to describe them particularly. The principal motive for fabricating what must here be called the real note, that is, the note drawn in consequence of a real sale of goods, is the wish to have the means of turning it into money. The seller, therefore, who desires to have a note for goods sold, may be considered as taking occasion to ingraft on the transaction of the sale, the convenient condition of receiving from the buyer a discountable note of the same amount with the value of the goods. A fictitious note, or note of accommodation, is a note drawn for the same purpose of being discounted; though it is not also sanctioned by the circumstance of having been drawn in consequence of an actual sale of goods. Notes of accommodation are, indeed, of various kinds. The following description of one may suffice: A being in want of 1001. requests B to accept a note or bill drawn at two months, which B, therefore, on the face of it, is bound to pay; it is understood, however, that A will take care either to discharge the bill himself, or to furnish B with the means of paying it. A obtains ready money for the bill on the joint credit of the two parties. A fulfils his promise of paying it when due, and thus concludes the transaction. This service rendered by B to A is, however, not unlikely to be requited at a more or less distant period by a similar acceptance of a bill on A, drawn and discounted for B's convenience. Let us now compare such a bill with a real bill. Let us consider in what points they differ, or seem to differ; and in what they agree. They agree, inasmuch as each is a discountable article; each has also been created for the purpose of being discounted; and each is, perhaps, discounted in fact. Each, therefore, serves equally to supply means of speculation to the merchant. So far, moreover, as bills and notes constitute what is called the circulating medium, or paper currency, of the country (a topic which shall not be here anticipated), and prevent the use of guineas, the fictitious and the real bill are upon an equality; and if the price of commodities be raised in proportion to the quantity of paper currency, the one contributes to that rise exactly in the same manner as the other. Before we come to the points in which they differ, let us advert to one point in which they are commonly supposed to be unlike, but in which they cannot be said always or necessarily to differ. "Real notes," it is sometimes said, "represent actual property. There are actual goods in existence, which are the counterpart to every real note. Notes which are not drawn in consequence of a sale of goods, are a species of false wealth, by which a nation is deceived...... These supply only an imaginary capital; the others indicate one that ⚫ is real." In answer to this statement it may be observed, first, that the notes given in consequence of a real sale of goods cannot be considered as, on that account, certainly representing any actual property. Suppose that A sells one hundred pounds worth of goods to B at six months credit, and takes a bill at six months for it; and that B, within a month after, sells the same goods, at a like credit, to C, taking a like bill; and again, that C, after another month, sells them to D, taking a like bill, and so on. There may then, at the end of six months, be six bills of 1001. each existing at the same time, and every one of these may possibly have been discounted. Of all these bills, then, one only represents any actual property. In the next place, it is obvious, that the number of those bills which are given in consequence of sales of goods, and which, nevertheless, do not represent property, is liable to be encreased through the extension of the length of credit given on the sale of goods. If, for instance, we had supposed the credit given to be a credit of twelve months instead of six, 1,2001. instead of 6001. would have been the amount of the bills drawn on the occasion of the sale of goods; and 1,1001. would have been the amount of that part of these which would represent no property. In order to justify the supposition that a real bill, as it is called, represents actual property, there ought to be some power in the bill-holder to prevent the property which the bill represents from being turned to other purposes than that of paying the bill in question. No such power exists; neither the man who holds the real bill, nor the man who discounts it, has any property in the specific goods for which it was given: he as much trusts to the general ability to pay of the giver of the bill, as the holder of any fictitious bill does. The fictitious bill may, in many cases, be a bill given by a person having a large and known capital, a part of which the fictitious bill may be said, in that case, to repre sent. The supposition that real bills represent property, and that fictitious bills do not, seems, therefore, to be one by which more than justice is done to one of these species of bills, and something less than justice to the other. We come next to some points in which they differ. First, the fictitious note, or note of accommodation, is liable to the objection that it professes to be what it is not. This objection, however, lies only against those fictitious bills which are passed as real. In many cases it is sufficiently obvious what they are. Secondly, the fictitious bill is, in general, less likely to be punctually paid than the real one. There is a general presumption, that the dealer in fictitious bills is a man who is a more adventurous speculator than he who carefully abstains from them. It follows, thirdly, that fictitious bills, besides being less safe, are less subject to limitation as to their quantity. The extent of a man's actual sales form some limit to the amount of his real notes; and, as it is highly desirable in commerce that credit should be dealt out to all persons in some sort of regular and due proportion, the measure of a man's actual sales, certified by the appearance of his bills drawn in virtue of those sales, is some rule in the case, though a very imperfect one in many respects. A fictitious bill, or bill of accom. modation, is evidently, in substance, the same as any common promissory note; and even better, in this respect....that there is but one security to the promissory note, whereas, in the case of the bill of accommodation, there are two. So much jealousy subsists lest traders should push their means of raising money too far, that paper, the same in its general nature with that which is given, being the only paper which can be given, by men out of business, is deemed somewhat discreditable when coming from a merchant. And because such paper, when in the merchant's hand, necessarily imitates the paper which passes on the occasion of a sale of goods, the epithet fictitious has been cast upon it; an epithet which has seemed to countenance the confused and mistaken notion, that there is something altogether false and delusive in the nature of a certain part both of the paper and of the apparent wealth of the country. Bills of exchange are drawn upon London to a great amount, from all parts, not only of Great Britain, but of the world; and the grounds on which they have been drawn, in a great degree elude observation. A large proportion of them, no doubt, partakes of the nature of bills of accommodation. They have, however, in general, that shape communicated to them, whatever it may be, which is thought likely to render them discountable; and it is not difficult, as the preceding observations will have shown, to make use of some real, and, at the same time, of many seeming, transactions of commerce as a ground for drawing, and as a means of multiplying such bills. The practice of creating a paper credit, by drawing and re-drawing, has been particularly described by Dr. Adam Smith; and is stated by him to have a tendency which is very ruinous to the party resorting to it. This practice, however, is often carried on at much less expence to those engaged in it, than Dr. Smith imagines. A, for instance, of London, draws a bill at two months on B, of Amsterdam, and receives immediate money for the bill. B enables himself to pay the bill by drawing, when it is nearly due, a bill at two months on A, for the same sum, which bill he sells or discounts; and A again finds the means of payment by again drawing a bill, at two months, on B. The transaction is, in substance, obviously the same as if A and B had borrowed, on their joint security, the sum in question for six months. The ground on which transactions of this sort have been stated by Dr. Adam Smith to be ruinous, is, that of the heavy expence of a commission on every bill drawn, which is paid by him who raises money in this man ner. If, for instance, one-half per cent. is the commission, and the bills are drawn at two months, and a discount of five per cent. per annum is paid, the money is raised at an interest of eight per cent. Such transactions, however, are often carried on alternately for the benefit of each of the two parties; that is to say, at one time the transaction is on the account of A, who pays a commission to B; at another it is on the account of B, who pays a commission to A. Thus each party, on the whole, gains about as much as he pays in the shape of such commissions; and the discount in turning the bill into money, which is the same as that on any other bill, may, therefore, be considered as the whole expence incurred. Money may be raised in this manner at an interest of only five per cent. In the case recently proposed, the drawing and re-drawing were imagined to be only between A, of London, and B, of Amsterdam. This practice, however, is often carried on between three or more parties drawing from three or more places. In such case, the draft is drawn on the place on which the existing course of exchange shows that it will best answer to draw it. An operation of this sort may obviously be carried on partly for the purpose of raising money, and partly for that of profiting by a small turn in the exchange. Transactions which are the converse to this, are, on the other hand, entered into by those who happen to possess ready money. They remit, if the exchange seems to favour their remittance, and draw in consequence of having remitted. To determine what bills are fictitious, or bills of accommodation, and what are real, is often a point of difficulty. Even the drawers and remitters themselves frequently either do not know, or do not take the trouble to reflect, whether the bills ought more properly to be considered as of the one class or of the other; and the private discounter, or banker, to whom they are offered, still more frequently finds the credit of the bills to be the only rule which |