Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/363

Rh ling a head. This is about the average value of all the people in Britain, including every age and sex, considered as personal slaves. Britain owes several hundred millions of debt stock, beyond this sum, and nearly as much more to tanks of all descriptions, besides her East-India debt. Ireland has an equivalent debt of her own. This valuation is regulated by the value of the East-India slaves, but as the people of Britain supply a double capitation income to stockholders, a better mode is disclosed of making some men profitable to others, than the West-lndian. This enormous mass of stock for trausferring the profit of labour to idleness, has been compiled with about twenty millions of specie; evincing, that governments can make stock out of stock, and that debt stock, like bank stock, is capable of being indefinitely multiplied without money. It has be«n often said, that poor labouring people in Europe, encounter more penury and distress than the Negro slaves in the United States. The profit extorted fram the Negro slave is moderated by the immediate interest of his master in his existence. It is moderated by the master's benevolence, and by his respect for his own reputation. But the slave of stock enjoys none of these ameliorations; and therefore it is not surprising that he should be more miserable than the personal slave. The several descriptions of stock in Britain already require a far greater profit from the people, than can be paid by twelve millions of personal slaves. The paying class, is also diminished by the receiving and unproductive classes. Excessive labour, poor-houses, penury, prisons, famine, crimes, must follow. Let not the advocate for enslaving freemen by means of stock, venture to compare his system with personal slavery. It will be found that indirect slavery, like indirect taxation, is capable of being carried to greater excess than direct.

It is proper to examine arithmetically also, the progress of stock in America. Our supposed fifty millions of bank stock, being a sum beyond the deposited and existing coin, fixes the capacity of our stock like the English; to multi-