tent in our own times. But notwithstanding of this capital error, Law has in the latter publication developed the principles and mechanism of banking in an
astonishingly able and luminous manner for the period at which he wrote. The court party, and the squadrone, headed by the duke of Argyle and the marquess of
Tweeddale, entered warmly into Law's views; but parliament passed a resolution
"that to establish any kind of paper-credit, so as to oblige it to pass, were an improper expedient for the nation."
Law now resolved to offer his system to some of those continental states whose finances had been exhausted by the wars of Louis XIV., and in which the principles of credit were imperfectly understood. With this view he went to Brussels, and from that city proceeded to Paris, where he Avon immense sums at play, and introduced himself into the good graces of the young duke of Orleans. The Succession war was at this moment occupying the attention of the French court; Chamillart, unable to extricate himself from the difficulties of his situation in any other manner, was about to resign his functions as minister of finance; the moment appeared favourable to our projector, and he made offer of his services to the French monarch. But the leading men of the day were totally unable to comprehend the plans of the new financier, and the name of Huguenot was no passport to the royal favour: so that the unexpected result of this negotiation was an order from the intendant of police to quit Paris in twenty-four hours as a state-enemy. Law found himself in a similar predicament at Genoa and Turin, but not before he had pursued his usual run of luck at the gaming-tables in these cities. After visiting several other continental cities, in all of which his fascinating manner procured him admission to the first circles, our adven. turer found himself possessed of a tangible fortune of considerably more than £100,000, the fruits of his skill and success at play. The death of Louis XIV.,—the succession of the duke of Orleans to the regency,—and the deplorable state of the French finances, prompted Law to present himself once more to the attention of the French ministry.
During the war of Succession—now brought to a close—Demarest, who had succeeded Chamillart as comptroller-general, had exhausted every possible means of raising money; he had issued promissory notes under every conceivable name and form, —Promesses de la caisse des emprunts, Billets de Legendre, Billets de l'extraordinaire des guerres, but all without success; the credit of the government was gone, and its effets of every description had sunk from seventy to eighty per cent in value. In this extremity, the expedient of a national bankruptcy was proposed to and rejected by the regent, who also refused to give a forced circulation to the royal billets, but appointed a commission to inquire into the claims of the state-creditors. The commission executed its duties with great ability; but after reducing the national debt to its lowest possible form, and providing for the payment of the interest amounting to 80,000,000 of livres, or about one half of the revenue, there hardly remained a sum sufficient to defray the ordinary expenses of the civil government, and that too, after having had recourse to a measure tantamount, in its effects at least, to a breach of faith, namely, a change in the nominal value of the currency. By the latter scheme, the government foolishly imagined that they would pocket 200,000,000 of livres, but the sum on which they had calculated, only went into the pockets of the Dutch and the clandestine money-dealers. At this critical juncture, Law stepped forward in the full confidence of being yet able to rescue the government from bankruptcy, by the establishment of a well-regulated pa per-credit His first proposal was to establish a national bank, into which was to be transferred all the metallic currency of the nation, which was to be replaced by bank-notes. Law regarded the whole nation as one grand
