Page:Thoughts on the causes and consequences of the present high price of provisions.djvu/16

[ 8 ] the individuals of this country, though the whole was irrecoverably alienated from the public; all the rest annually returning into the pockets of the merchants, contractors, brokers, and stockjobbers, enabled them to lend it again to the public on a new mortgage the following year. Every emission of paper-credit by bank-notes, exchequer and navy bills, so long as they circulate, answers all the purposes of so much additional gold and silver, as their value amounts to: If we add to these the immense riches daily flowing in since that period from our commerce, extended over every quarter of the globe, from the new channels of trade opened with America, and the amazing sums imported from the East Indies, it will not sure be difficult to account for the opulence of the present times, which has enabled men to increase their expences, and carry luxury to a pitch unknown to all former ages. The