Britain, an independent great state, when its inhabitants grow too fond of the expensive luxuries of foreign countries, that draw away its money, can, and frequently does, make laws to discourage or prohibit such importations, and by that means can retain its cash. The colonies are dependent governments, and their people having naturally great respect for the sovereign country, and being thence immoderately fond of its modes, manufactures, and superfluities, cannot be restrained from purchasing them by any province law; because such law, if made, would immediately be repealed here, as prejudicial to the trade and interest of Britain. It seems hard, therefore, to draw all their real money from them, and then refuse them the poor privilege of using paper instead of it. Bank bills and bankers' notes are daily used here as a medium of trade; and in large dealings, perhaps the greater part is transacted by their means; and yet they have no intrinsic value, but rest on the credit of those that issue them, as paper-bills in the colonies do on the credit of the respective governments there. Their being payable in cash upon sight by the drawer, is indeed a circumstance that cannot attend the colony bills, for the reasons just above mentioned, their cash being drawn from them by the British trade; but the legal tender being substituted in its place, is rather a greater advantage to the possessor, since he need not be at the trouble of going to a particular bank or banker to demand the money, finding (wherever he has occasion to lay out money in the province) a person that is obliged to take the bills. So that even out of the province, the knowledge that every man within that province is obliged to take its money, gives the bill a credit among its neighbors nearly equal to what they have at home. And were it not for the laws here, that restrain or prohibit as much as possible all losing trades, the cash of this country would soon be exported; every merchant who had occasion to remit it, would run to the bank with all its bills that came into his hands, and take out his part of its treasure for that purpose; so that in a short time it would be no more able to pay bills in money upon sight, than it is now in the power of a colony treasury so to do. And if government afterwards should have occasion for the credit of the bank, it must of necessity make its bills a legal tender; funding them however on taxes, by which they may in time be paid off, as has been the general practice in the colonies. At this very time, even the silver-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 shillings and sixpences now current are, by wearing, become

5, 10, 20, and some of the sixpences even 50 per cent. too light. For this difference between the real and the nominal, you have no intrinsic value : you have not so 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-pennyworth of silver pass for sixpence. Gold and silver have undoubtedly some properties that give them a fitness above paper as a medium of exchange, particularly their universal estimation; especially in cases where a country has occasion to carry its money abroad, either as a stock to trade with, or to purchase allies and foreign succours. Otherwise that very universal estimation is an inconvenience which paper-money is free from, since it tends to deprive a country of even the quantity of currency that should be retained as a necessary instrument 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 silver, 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 safely, because more privately, conveyed from place to place. Gold and silver are not intrinsically of equal value with iron, a metal in itself capable of many more beneficial uses to mankind. Their value rests chiefly in the estimation they happen to be in among the generality of nations, and the credit given to the opinion that that estimation will continue: other→ wise 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 and silver, and in some cases more so, 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 silver 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 5th reason is, "That debtors in the assemblies make paper-money with fraudulent views." This is often said by the adversaries of paper-money, and if it has been the case in any particular colony, that colony should, on the proof of the fact, be duly punished. This, however, would be no reason for punish

Perhaps Dr. Franklin had not at this time read what Sir James Stewart says of the Amsterdam bank re-issuing its money. B. V.

ing 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 has been once in an age Mississippi and South Sea schemes and bubbles.

The 6th and last reason is, "That in the middle colonies, where the papermoney 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 considered as a depreciation of the values of whatever remains in the country, then the rising of silver above paper to that height of additional value, which its capability of exportation only gave it, may be called a depreciation of the paper. Even here, as bullion has been wanted or not wanted for exportation, its price has varied from 5s. 2d. to 5s. 8d. per ounce. This is near 10 per cent. But was it ever said or thought on such an occasion, that all the bank bills, and all the coined silver, and all the gold in the kingdom, were depreciated 10 per cent.? Coined silver is now wanted here for change, and 1 per cent. is given for it by some bankers; are gold and bank notes therefore depreciated 1 per cent. ?-The fact in the middle colonies is really this on the emission of the first paper-money, a difference soon arose between that and the silver, the latter having a property the former had not, a property always in demand in the colonies; to wit, its being fit for a remittance. This property having soon found its value by the merchants bidding on one another for it, and a dollar thereby coming to be rated at 8s. in paper-money of New York, and 7s. 6d. in paper of Pennsylvania; it has continued uniformly at those rates in both provinces, now near 40 years, without any variation upon new emissions, though in Pennsylvania the paper currency has at times increased from 15,000l. the first sum, to 600,000l. or near it.-Nor has any alteration been occasioned by the paper-money, in the price of the necessaries of life, when compared with silver: they have been for the greatest part of the time no higher than before it was emitted, varying only by plenty and scarcity according to the seasons, or by a less or greater foreign demand.-It has indeed been usual with the adversaries of a paper currency, to call every rise of exchange with London, a depreciation of this paper: but this notion appears to be by no means just. For if the paper purchases every thing but bills of exchange at

the former rate, and these bills are not above one-tenth of what is employed [in] purchases, then it may be more properly and truly said, that the exchange has risen, than that the paper has depreciated. And as a proof of this, it is a certain fact, that whenever in those colonies bills of exchange have been dearer, the purchaser has been constantly obliged to give more in silver as well as in paper for them, the silver having gone hand in hand with the paper at the rate above mentioned, and therefore it might as well have been said that the silver was depreciated.

There have been several different schemes for furnishing the colonies with paper-money, that should not be a legal tender, viz.

1. To form a Bank in imitation of the Bank of England, with a sufficient stock of cash to pay the bills on sight.

This has been often proposed, but appears impracticable under the present circumstances of the colony trade, which, as is said above, draws all the cash to Britain, and would soon strip the bank.

2. To raise a fund by some yearly tax, securely lodged in the Bank of England as it arises, which should (during the term of years for which the paper-bills are to · be current) accumulate to a sum sufficient to discharge them all at their original value.

This has been tried in Maryland, and the bills so funded were issued without being made a general legal tender. The event was, that as notes payable in time are naturally subject to a discount proportioned to the time, so these bills fell at the beginning of the term so low, as that twenty pounds of them became worth no more than twelve pounds in Pennsylvania, the next neighboring province; though both had been struck near the same time at the same nominal value, but the latter was supported by the general legal tender. The Maryland bills however began to rise 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.

This too has been tried in some of the New England colonies, but great inconveniences were found to attend it. The bills, to fit them for a currency, are made of various denominations, and some very low for the sake of change; there are of them from 10%. down to 3d. When they first come abroad they

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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 sum between the dealer and his customers in shops, warehouses, and markets, takes up much time to the great hindrance of business. This evil, however, soon 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 mortgage is not. By this means numbers of people became usurers with small sums, who could not have found persons to take such 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 increased 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 a medium of trade in lieu of money, equal in all its advantages to bills of credit-funded on sufficient taxes for discharging it, or on land-security of 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 same 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 securing 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 desire it, and where the merchants trading to them make no objection to it.