Page:The Real Cause of the High Price of Gold Bullion.djvu/23

 our taxes, and withdrawing those means of credit and accommodation by which we have gained our power and superiority in the commercial world.

No one can be more aware than the writer of the evils which spring from over trading, which often results from too great facility in acquiring credit and currency: but it is an evil which has a tendency to cure itself. The circumstances of the late war, which broke up all the established channels of commerce, and turned legitimate trade into universal contraband, naturally gave rise to this evil: and the late opening of the East India charter, by which the great trading towns are at liberty to carry on commerce beyond the Cape of Good Hope, the increasing population, cultivation, and wealth of the United States, and the invitations to new speculations which present themselves from the Spanish Provinces in commerce, now open to adventure, cannot fail, for some years to come, both to continue and encourage irregular trade. But I believe it will be found on consideration, a very false policy to limit our currency in order to stop adventures, which would only have the effect of transferring this new commerce into the hands of foreigners, and sending our capitals abroad in order to carry on a trade which was discouraged at home. Utere velis, totos pande sinus. This is the Motto, to the policy which our situation exacts us to pursue, not a mere cautious and prudential and pernicious system, which might square with the concerns of a petty state, where a single bankruptcy might spread a general ruin.

Before I conclude, I will discuss an argument which has recently made some impression.

This argument is to prove an Excess of Bank Notes in the market at present, and has been drawn from a parallel of the present state of things with the state of