Page:The Real Cause of the High Price of Gold Bullion.djvu/25

 in 1810; and the exchanges, instead of being 15 per cent. under par, were in our favour. Now it is absolutely impossible that the same cause in pari materia could produce opposite effects. If the price of Gold had been raised by excess of issue, to an inordinate height, it could not have been lowered almost to mint price by a great additional excess of issue. If the course of our exchanges had been depressed by a superabundant quantity of paper, it could never have turned in our favour and risen above par, by a quantity of similar paper still more superabundant. Here then is a complete irrefragable demonstration, that neither the prices of Commodities, nor the price of Gold, nor the course of Exchanges, have been produced by excess of paper currency. And if the expediency or necessity of that increased quantity of currency in the market is still questioned, and if reasonable grounds can be shewn for that increase, it can no longer be consonant to truth to state it as an unnecessary excess of issue at all.

I will therefore beg leave to state the amount of Bank Paper in circulation in the five years to 1810 inclusive; and in the five years subsequent; and also the amount of the levies in the five years previous to 1810, and in the five years subsequent. Total