Page:Armatafragment00ersk.djvu/196

 put into the true road of returning to its value, neither charities nor bounties would be necessary; proprietors would do the rest for themselves—self-interest is the most spirited reformer; capitals would no longer be wanting, when land was the best of all securities; and, to complete the process, she would brush away the cobwebs of fraudulent money-dealers, the most destructive of all the vermin that infest the earth.—Loans, like all other contracts, should either be the objects of unlimited traffic, or the law that constitutes the exception should be strictly maintained.—When a maximum is established for interest, it ought to be rigorously enforced; differences of risk are shallow subterfuges to support annuities, except in cases where the borrower has no greater estate than for his own life; because when he has a full dominion over his property, and offers it as a security, the resort to a contingency, which is forced upon him by the lender to evade the law that would rescind the contract, and punish the extortion, is a gross and impudent fraud, for which