but it seems most rational, that the most scarce and precious metal should be the unit or standard.

19. That as to copper, it is as fit for money or a counter, as gold and silver, provided it be coined of a proper weight and fineness: and just so much will be useful, as will serve to make up small parts in exchanges between man and

man.

20. That as to paper money, it is far from being detrimental; on the contrary, it is highly profitable, as its quick passing between mankind, instead of telling over, or weighing metal in coin, or bullion, is a gain of what is most precious in life, which is time. And there is nothing clearer than that those who must be concerned in counting and weighing, being at liberty to employ themselves on other purposes, are an addition of hands in the community.

The idea of the too great extension of credit, by the circulation of paper for money, is evidently as erroneous as the doctrine of the non-exportation of gold and silver in bullion or coin: for were it not certain, that paper could command the equivalent of its agreed-for value, or that gold and silver in bullion or coin exported, would be returned in the course of trade in some other merchandise, neither paper would be used, or the metals exported. It is by means of the produce of the land, and the happy situation of this island, joined to the industry of its inhabitants, that those much-adored metals, gold and silver, have been procured: and so long as the sea does not overflow the land, and industry continues, so long will those metals not be wanting. And paper in the general chain of credit and commerce, is as useful as they are, since the issuers or coiners of that paper are understood to have some equivalent to answer for what the paper is valued at: and no metal or coin can do more than find its value.

Moreover, as incontestible advantages of paper, we must add, that the charge of coining or making it, is by no means proportionate to that of coining of metals: nor is it subject to waste by long use, or impaired by adulteration, sweating, or filing, as coins may.

A THOUGHT CONCERNING THE SUGAR ISLANDS.

Should it be agreed, and become a part of the law of nations, that the cultivators of the earth are not to be molested or interrupted in their peaceable and useful employment, the inhabitants of the sugar islands would come under the

protection of such a regulation, which would be a great advantage to the nations who at present hold those islands, since the cost of sugar to the consumer in those nations consists not only in the price he pays for it by the pound, but in the accumulated charge of all the taxes he pays in every war to fit out fleets and maintain troops for the defence of the islands that raise the sugar, and the ships that bring it home. But the expense of treasure is not all. A celebrated philosophical writer remarks, that when he considered the wars made in Africa for prisoners to raise sugar in America, the numbers slain in those wars, the numbers that being crowded in ships perish in the transportation, and the numbers that die under the severities of slavery, he could scarce look on a morsel of sugar without conceiving it spotted with human blood. If he had considered also the blood of one another which the white natives shed in fighting for those islands, he would have imagined his sugar not as spotted only, but as thoroughly dyed red. On these accounts I am persuaded that the subjects of the Emperor of Germany, and the Empress of Russia, who have no sugar islands, consume sugar cheaper at Vienna and Moscow, with all the charge of transporting it, after its arrival in Europe, than the citizens of London and Paris. And I sincerely believe, that if France and England were to decide by throwing dice, which should have the whole of their sugar islands, the loser in the throw would be the gainer. The future expense of defending them would be saved: the sugars would be bought cheaper by all Europe if the inhabitants might make it without interruption, and whoever imported the sugar, the same revenue might be raised by duties at the custom houses of the nation that consumed it. And on the whole, I conceive it would be better for the nations now possessing sugar colonies to give up their claim to them, let them govern themselves, and put them under the protection of all the powers of Europe as neutral countries open to the commerce of all, the profit of the present monopolies being by no means equivalent to the expense of maintaining them.

REMARKS, written by B. FRANKLIN, with a pencil, on the margin of a REPORT of JUDGE FOSTER, containing that Judge's argument in favor of the

RIGHT OF IMPRESSING SEAMEN.

Extract from the Report, page 157, 158. Edition 1762.

"The only question at present is, whether mariners, persons who have freely chosen a seafaring life, persons whose education and employment have fitted them

VOL. III.

Y

for the service, and inured them to it, whether such persons may not be legally pressed into the service of the crown, whenever the public safety requireth it, Ne quid detrimenti Respublica capiat.

"For my part, I think they may. I think the crown hath a right to command the service of these people whenever the public safety calleth for it. The same right that it hath to require the personal' service of every man able to bear arms in case of a sudden invasion or formidable insurrection. The right in both cases is founded on one and the same principle, the necessity of the case in order to the preservation of the whole.

"It would be time very ill spent to go about to prove that this nation can never be long in a state of safety, our coast defended, and our trade protected, without a naval force equal to all the emergencies that may happen. And how can we be secure of such a force? The keeping up the same naval force in time of peace, which will be absolutely necessary for our security in time of war, would be an absurd, a fruitless, and a ruinous expense.

"The only course then left, is for the crown to employ3 upon emergent occasions, the mariners bred up in the merchant's service.

"And as for the mariner himself, he when taken into the service of the crown only changeth masters for a time: his service and employment, continue the very

This personal service, in cases of extreme necessity, is a principal branch of the allegiance every subject of England oweth to the crown. See 11. H. VII. c. 1. 1 E. III. c. 5. 16, 17. Car. I. c. 28.

Remarks.

2 The conclusion here from the whole to a part, does not seem to be good logic. When the personal service of every man is called for, there the burthen is equal. Not so, when the service of part is called for, and others excused. If the alphabet should say, let us all fight for the defence of the whole; that is equal, and may therefore be just. But if they should say, let A. B. C. and D. go and fight for us, while we stay at home and sleep in whole skins; that is not equal, and therefore cannot be just.

3

Employ-if you please. The word signifies engaging a man to work for me by offering him such wages as are sufficient to induce him to prefer my service. This is very different from compelling him to work for me on such terms as I think proper.

✦ His service and employment continue the very same,” &c. These are false facts. His service and employment are not the same. Under the merchant he goes in an unarmed vessel not obliged to fight, but only to transport merchandise. In the king's service he is obliged to fight, and to hazard all the dangers of battle. Sickness on board the king's ships is also more common and more mortal. The merchant's service too he can quit at the end of a voyage, not the king's. Also the merchant's wages are much higher.

same, with this advantage, that the dangers of the sea and enemy are not so great in the service of the crown as in that of the merchant.

"I am very sensible' of the hardship the sailor suffereth from an impress in some particular cases, especially if pressed homeward-bound after a long voyage. But the merchants who hear me know, that an impress on outward-bound vessels would be attended with much greater inconveniencies to the trade of the kingdom; and yet that too is sometimes necessary. But where two evils present, a wise administration, if there be room for an option, will choose the least.2

"Page 159. War itself is a great evil, but it is chosen to avoid a greater. The practice of pressing is one of the mischiefs war bringeth with it. But it is a maxim in law, and good policy too, that private mischiefs must be borne with patience for preventing a national calamity? And as no greater calamity can befal us than to be weak and defenceless at sea in a time of war, so I do not know that the wisdom of the nation hath hitherto found out any method of manning our navy less inconvenient than pressing; and at the same time, equally sure and effectual.

"The expedient of a voluntary register, which was attempted in King William's time, had no effect.

"And some late schemes I have seen, appear to me more inconvenient to the mariner, and more inconsistent with the principles of liberty, than the practice of pressing and what is still worse, they are in my opinion totally impracticable.'

1 “I am very sensible," &c. Here are two things put in comparison that are not comparable, viz. injury to seamen, and inconvenience to trade. Inconvenience to the whole trade of a nation will not justify injustice to a single seaman. If the trade would suffer without his service, it is able and ought to be willing to offer him such wages as may induce him to afford his services voluntarily.

2 " The least." The least evil in case seamen are wanted, is to give them such wages as will induce them to inlist voluntarily. Let this evil be divided among the whole nation, by an equal tax to pay such wages.

'Where is this maxim in law and good policy to be found? And how came that to be a maxim which is not consistent with common sense? If the maxim had been, that private mischiefs which prevent a national calamity ought to be generously compensated by that nation, one might have understood it. But that such private mischiefs are only to be borne with patience, is absurd.

4 "Less inconvenient." Less inconvenient to whom? To the rich indeed, who ought to be

taxed. No mischief more inconvenient to poor seamen could possibly be contrived.

5

Twenty ineffectual or inconvenient schemes will not justify one that is unjust.

"Thus much I thought proper to say upon the foot of reason, and public utility, before I come to speak directly to the point of law.

Page 159. The crown's right of impressing seamen is grounded upon common law.'

"Ibid. The result of evident necessity."

Page 160. There are many precedents of writs for pressing.

"Some are for pressing ships,

"Others for pressing mariners;

"And others for pressing ships and mariners.

"This general view will be sufficient to let us into the nature of these precedents. And though the affair of pressing ships is not now before me, yet I could not well avoid mentioning it, because many of the precedents I have met with and must cite, go as well to that, as to the business of pressing mariners. And taken together, they serve to show the power the crown hath constantly exercised over the whole naval force of the kingdom as well shipping as mariners, whenever the public service required it.

"This however must be observed, that no man served the crown in either case at his own expense. Masters and mariners received full wages,' and

owners were constantly paid a full freight.

Page 173. Do not these things incontestably presuppose the expediency, the necessity, and the legality of an impress in general? If they do not, one must entertain an opinion of the legislature acting and speaking in this manner, which it will not be decent for me to mention in this place.

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Page 174. I readily admit that an impress is a restraint upon the natural liberty of those who are liable to it. But it must likewise be admitted, on the

If impressing seamen is of right by common law, in Britain, slavery is then of right by common law there; there being no slavery worse than that sailors are subjected to.

2 Pressing not so, if the end might be answered by giving higher wages.

1 Mariners received full wages. Probably the same they received in the merchant's service. Full wages to a seaman in time of war, are the wages he has in the merchant's service in war time. But half such wages is not given in the king's ships to impressed seamen.

✦ I will risk that indecency, and mention it. They were not honest men; they acted unjustly by the seamen (who have no vote in elections, or being abroad cannot use them if they have them) to save their own purses and those of their constituents. Former parliaments acted the same injustice towards the laboring people, who had not forty shillings a-year in lands: after depriving them wickedly of their right to vote in elections, they limited their wages, and compelled them to work at such limited rates, on penalty of being sent to houses of correction. Sec. 8. H. 6. Chap. 7 and 8.