most entirely disappeared. The small sum of specie which circulates in England, in proportion to her very extensive commerce, is accounted for, by political writers, on the principle of the multiplicity of bills, notes, and other similar effects; while the advantages which France derives[1], on that score, are ascribed to the scarcity of these circulating media.
That of copper money, the introduction of which was attempted in South America in 1542, but which was entirely abandoned on account of the resistance of the natives, who, in less than a year, contemptuously buried in the rivers and lakes more than a million of piastres of that metallic currency, cannot but be prejudicial in a country, the principal produce of which consists of gold and silver, and which ought to foster the idea, however illusory it may be, that the true and efficient riches of the state reside in their abundance. To debase them by a competition with another token, would be to abate the ardour of those who are engaged in extracting them from the mines; and would revive the just grounds on which the erroneous policy of Spain was condemned, when she prohibited tissues of gold and silver.
The citizens of Genoa were interdicted, on severe penalties, the use of services of china, but were free to substitute in their stead those of gold and silver. In recurring to this measure, the government of that republic wisely foresaw that, by lowering the estimation of these metals, the state would by degrees be exhausted of them, and reduced to a real indigence, relatively to the other nations which did not receive in payment the paper and copper tendered to them as specie.
- ↑ This dissertation was penned in 1791.
